As noted previously, Verizon's FiOS expansion has been over for
several years, with the exception of franchise build out promises for major cities (though some of those deployment promises, like in NYC,
probably won't be met). Still, some of the forgotten regions in Verizon's footprint (like Alexandria, Baltimore, Buffalo & Boston) continue to hold out hope that the company will eventually decide to extend FiOS a little bit further.
Speaking at this week's Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference in New York, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam put those dreams to rest, reiterating that the company wants to focus on "making FiOS more profitable in the current model before we ever look at expanding further."
There's several ways to do that, most notably the
FiOS price hikes that have been Verizon's trademark the last year or so.
McAdam says the company has some two million inactive optical FiOS terminals that are currently dead from customers either moving away, or switching to another ISP (perhaps the owners committed seppuku over that
incessant beeping). The company wants to "go back with a better product set and activate those, and those are almost free from a capital perspective."
That "better product set" appears to include a new wireless home gateway Verizon is testing this fall, which McAdam says "slashes the installation time, and therefore makes the product a lot more profitable for us going forward." Instead of new FiOS installs Verizon also says they want to continue to focus on migrating troublesome DSL lines to FiOS, sometimes whether the user wants the upgrade or not (and surprising as that may be to some, some
don't).
Verizon also wants to spend the next few years focused on eliminating the DSL lines and markets they don't want entirely. McAdam recently
hinted at "trimming limbs" (read: selling more unwanted markets), though after what happened to
Frontier and Fairpoint, it's not too likely Verizon's going to find many buyers. The company is also going state by state trying to gut regulations requiring they continue offering POTS.
The short version? If you're still waiting for FiOS, you're going to be waiting a long time.
