Verizon has announced that customers interested in getting FiOS in Boston can now pre-order the service via the company's website. After ignoring the city's complaints for years, Verizon last month announced that it would be spending $300 million over six years to upgrade Verizon's copper networks and DSL users to fiber and FiOS. Boston was one of countless cities left un-upgraded when Verizon halted FiOS expansion to instead focus on more profitable wireless service.

McAdam also acknowledged that the Boston deal was finally signed because city leaders effectively are allowing Verizon avoid full, uniform citywide deployment of FiOS, something made fashionable by Google Fiber in recent years.

"The past administration here wanted the sort of buildout we have done in other areas where you build everywhere and you go in and get penetration," McAdam said. Boston under Mayor Marty Walsh has been "more willing to help us get rights of way, help us push fiber into the neighborhoods, and do more pre-subscription a la the Google model," he said.

Granted even in areas where Verizon has promised uniform FiOS deployment -- the company has avoided having to actually deliver uniform FiOS deployment. New York and Philadelphia have criticized the telco for promising to fully deploy FiOS in those cities, but failing to live up to contractual obligations.

In Boston Verizon's taking a page out of the Google Fiber "fiberhood" playbook by presenting cherry picking as a sort of democratic effort. Under this model, users are allowed to pre-register for service, and fiber builds are started based on pre-registration demand. While this is a more economic route for ISPs, critics have complained that that it still leaves lower income areas -- which given other pressing issues often don't see the same general outpouring of community interest -- in a lurch in terms of getting next-generation connectivity.