Verizon FiOS has upped the ad war against Comcast, one of its competitors in several northeastern cities.  In a new series of ads, Verizon is taking on Comcast’s “name change” to Xfinity, implying it’s the same old Comcast just using a new name.

Comcast may be fighting back, but not with a response ad.  Today, Broadband Reports hears word from a Comcast insider the company is planning on boosting broadband speeds later this year.

According to the source, the new Comcast tiers will be 12/2 Mbps, 20/4 Mbps, 50/10 Mbps, and 100/25 Mbps. Current 22/5 customers will be grandfathered, according to the source, and Comcast apparently hopes to get that 100 Mbps tier into about 20% of their footprint this year.

Comcast’s current speeds differ depending on whether you’re in a DOCSIS 3.0 upgraded market or not. Non DOCSIS 3.0 market customers currently have the choice of three tiers: 6/1 Mbps, 8/2 Mbps, and 16/2 Mbps. DOCSIS 3.0 upgraded markets have their choice of 12/2 Mbps, 16/2 Mbps, 22/5 Mbps, or 50/10 Mbps.  Much later this year it looks like Comcast users will also start seeing some faster upstream speeds.

Verizon FiOS has the capability to beat Comcast’s broadband speeds over its entirely-fiber-based network, but not everyone can sign up for FiOS.  Comcast may not want to give away the broadband speed store in areas where the now indefinitely-grounded FiOS service will never go.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/FiOS Takes On Xfinitiy.flv[/flv]

Comcast’s new Xfinity brand is the target of a new round of advertising from Verizon FiOS.  (2 minutes)

Milton, Vermont

Jesse and his nearby neighbors on the west side of Milton are frustrated.  They live just 20 minutes away from Burlington, the largest city in the state of Vermont.  Despite the proximity to a city with nearly 40,000 residents, there is no cell phone coverage in western Milton, no cable television service, and no DSL service from FairPoint Communications.  For this part of Milton, it’s living living in 1990, where dial-up service was one’s gateway to the Internet.

Jesse and his immediate neighbors haven’t given up searching for broadband service options, but they face a united front of intransigent operators who refuse to make the investment to extend service down his well-populated street.

“After many calls to Comcast, they eventually sent us an estimate for over $17,000 to bring service to us, despite being less than a mile from their nearest station,” Jesse tells Vermont Public Radio.  “They also made it very clear that there was no plan at any point in the future, 2010 or beyond, to come here unless we paid them the money.”

Jesse and his neighbors want to give Comcast money, but not $17,000.

For at least 15 percent of Vermonters, Jesse’s story is their story.  Broadband simply remains elusive and out of reach.

Three years ago, Vermont’s Republican governor Jim Douglas announced the state would achieve 100 percent broadband coverage by 2010, making Vermont the nation’s first “e-State.”

Vermont Public Radio reviewed the progress Vermont is making towards becoming America’s first e-State. (January 20, 2010) (30 minutes)
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Gov. Douglas

In June 2007 the state passed Act 79, legislation that established the Vermont Telecommunications Authority to facilitate the establishment and delivery of mobile phone and Internet access infrastructure and services for residents and businesses throughout Vermont.

The VTA, under the early leadership of Bill Shuttleworth, a former Verizon Communications senior manager, launched a modest broadband grant program to incrementally expand broadband access, often through existing service providers who agreed to use the money to extend service to unserved neighborhoods.

The Authority also acts as a clearinghouse for coordinating information about broadband projects across the state, although it doesn’t have any authority over those projects.  Lately, the VTA has been backing Google’s “Think Big With a Gig” Initiative, except it promotes the state as a great choice for fiber, not just one or two communities within Vermont.

[flv width=”480″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Google Fiber Vermont 3-22-10.mp4[/flv]

Vermont used this video to promote their bid to become a Google Fiber state.  (2 minutes)

Some of the most dramatic expansion plans come from the East Central Vermont Community Fiber Network.  ECFiber, a group of 22 local municipalities, in partnership with ValleyNet, a Vermont non-profit organization, is planning to implement a high-capacity fiber-optic network capable of serving 100% of homes and businesses in participating towns with Internet, telephone and cable television service.  In 2008, the group coalesced around a proposal to construct a major fiber-to-the-home project to extend broadband across areas that often don’t even have slower speed DSL.

The ECFiber project brought communities together to provide the kind of broadband service private companies refused to provide. Vermont Public Radio explores the project and the enthusiasm of residents hopeful they will finally be able to get broadband service. (March 8, 2008) (24 minutes)
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ECFiber's Partner Communities

The Vermont towns, which together number roughly 55,000 residents, decided to build their own network after FairPoint Communications and local cable companies refused to extend the reach of their services.  Providers claim expanding service is not financially viable.  For residents like sheep farmer Marian White, interviewed by The Wall Street Journal, that means another year of paying $60 a month for satellite fraudband, the speed and consumption-limited satellite Internet service.

White calls the satellite service unreliable, especially in winter when snow accumulates on the dish.  Unlike many broadband users who vegetate for hours browsing the web, White actually gets an exercise routine while trying to get her satellite service to work.

“I open a window and I take a pan of water and, a cup at a time, I launch warm water at the satellite dish until I have melted all the snow off the dish,” Ms. White says. “It works.”

Other residents treat accessing the Internet the same way rural Americans plan a trip into town to buy supplies.

Kathi Terami from Tunbridge makes a list of things to do online and then, once a week, travels into town to visit the local public library which has a high speed connection.  Terami downloads Sesame Street podcasts for her children, watches YouTube links sent by her sister, and tries to download whatever she thinks she might want to see or use over the coming week.

A fiber to the home network like ECFiber would change everything for small town Vermonters.  The implications are enormous according to project manager Tim Nulty.

“People are truly afraid their communities are going to die if they aren’t on the communications medium that drives the country culturally and economically,” he says. “It’s one of the most intensely felt political issues in Vermont after health care.”

Despite the plan’s good intentions, one obstacle after another has prevented ECFiber from making much headway:

• The VTA rejected the proposal in 2008, calling it unfeasible;
• Plans over the summer and fall of 2008 to approach big national investment banks ran head-on into the sub-prime mortgage collapse, which caused banks to stop lending;
• An alternative plan to build the network with public debt financing, using smaller investors, collapsed along with Lehman Brothers on September 14, 2008;
• An attempt by Senator Pat Leahy (D-Vermont) to insert federal loan guarantees into the stimulus bill in February 2009 was thwarted by partisan wrangling;
• Attempts to secure federal broadband grant stimulus funding has been rejected by the Commerce Department;
• Opposition to the plan and objections over its funding come from incumbent providers like FairPoint, who claim the project is unnecessary because they will provide service in those areas… eventually.

For the indefinite future, it appears Ms. White will continue to throw warm cups of water out the window on cold winter mornings.

Vermont Edition takes a comprehensive look at where the state stands in broadband and wireless deployment. (April 8, 2009) (46 minutes)
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For every Tunbridge resident with a story about life without broadband, there are many more across Vermont living with hit or miss Internet access.

Take Marie from Middlesex.

Most residents in more rural areas of Vermont get service where they can from FairPoint Communications

“I am in Middlesex, about a half-mile off Route 2, and five minutes from the Capitol Building. Yet up until just recently, we had no sign of high-speed Internet. I understand that my neighbors just received DSL a few weeks ago, but when I call FairPoint, they tell me it’s still not available at my house, which is a few hundred yards up the hill. Hopefully, they’re wrong and I’ll see DSL soon,” she says.

Marie is pining for yesterday’s broadband technology — FairPoint’s 1.5Mbps basic DSL service, now considered below the proposed minimum speeds to qualify for “broadband” in the National Broadband Plan.  For Marie, it’s better than nothing.

Geryll in Goshen also lacks DSL and probably wouldn’t want it from FairPoint anyway.

“We have barely reliable landline service. A tech is at my house at least three times per year. I was told the lines are so old they are decaying. Using dial-up is impossible. I use satellite which is very expensive and is in my opinion only one step up from dial-up. I am limited to downloads and penalized if I reach my daily limit,” he says.

Many Vermonters acknowledge Douglas’ planned 100-percent-broadband-coverage-by-2010 won’t come close to achievement and many are highly skeptical they will ever see the day where every resident who wants broadband service can get it.

Chip in Cabot is among them, jaded after six years of arguments with FairPoint Communications and its predecessor Verizon about obtaining access to DSL.  It took a cooperative FairPoint engineer outside of the business office to finally get Chip service.  His neighbors were not so lucky, most emphatically rejected for DSL service from an intransigent FairPoint:

“I laughed when Governor Douglas announced his e-State goal “by 2010” three years ago. Now I’m thinking I should have made some bets on this claim. It took years of legal battles and a zoning variance to obtain partial cell coverage here in Cabot. Large parts of the town still do not have any cell coverage. Governor Douglas can perhaps be forgiven – he has no technical knowledge, and as a politician would be expected to be wildly optimistic about such “e-State” claims. The Vermont Telecommunications Authority and the Department of Public Service should know better however. We’re talking about rural areas where there is no financial incentive to provide either DSL or cell service. It will take a huge amount of money to provide service to those remaining parts of the state. I’m not optimistic.”

[flv width=”512″ height=”308″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Wall Street Journal Vermont Broadband Problems 03-02-09.flv[/flv]

The Wall Street Journal chronicled the challenges Vermonters face when broadband is unavailable to them.  ECFiber may solve these problems.  Some of the stories in our article are reflected in this well-done video.  (3/2/2009 — 4 Minutes)

Verizon Communications is indefinitely finished expanding FiOS — its fiber to the home triple-play package of broadband, phone, and TV — to new cities across its service area.  In short, if your community isn’t already engaged in franchise negotiations with the telecommunications company, there is no fiber from Verizon in your immediate future.

The company said after spending $23 billion upgrading its aging copper wire phone network, it needs to finish construction and improve its reach in existing FiOS-wired communities.  When the company ceases FiOS construction, it hopes to pass 18 million customer homes across its multi-state service area.

The decision to stop expansion of advanced fiber optics threatens to leave hundreds of communities behind, too late to the party or simply too far down Verizon’s priority list.  Among important cities Verizon will pass up include Alexandria, Virginia, Boston and Baltimore.

That concerns city officials, especially in Baltimore which already considers itself on the disadvantaged list.

“My take on it is that Baltimore is not equipped for the future,” Rev. Johnny Golden, past president of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance and an advocate for improved access to technology in the city told the Baltimore Sun. “We have a decent broadband system for today, but it does not have the infrastructure to take us into the future where we need to go.”

Despite the fiber bypass, the company will continue negotiations with about a dozen communities where negotiations were already underway – mostly in New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania.  Despite company spin, the decision to drop the shovels and wheel away the spools of fiber does represent a dramatic change of plans, evidenced by the company’s decision to bypass the aforementioned lucrative urban communities.

For cable companies like Comcast and Time Warner Cable, Verizon’s announcement brings a sigh of relief.  Both cable operators handily beat Verizon’s DSL offerings and are swiping increasing numbers of Verizon’s phone customers who are disconnecting their landline service in favor of cell phones or “digital phone” service from the cable companies.

Both Time Warner Cable and Comcast have also kept a larger percentage of their customers than Verizon hoped.

In markets where FiOS is available, Verizon has only achieved 25% penetration for television service and 28% for Internet, far below the 40 percent penetration Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg hoped to achieve.  The reasons consumers didn’t switch to Verizon FiOS vary, but include:

• Pricing was not always lower than what the incumbent cable operator offered, and in many cases prices for some service were higher once the promotional rate expired;
• Cable operators in competitive areas improved service, offered more aggressively priced bundles, and increased broadband speed;
• Many cable operators locked their customers into two year “price protection agreements” which hold customers in place until agreements expire (if they don’t auto-renew);
• Installation can prove disruptive because of the elaborate rewiring required in many homes;
• Consumers didn’t see enough compelling reasons to switch.

Seidenberg

Still, Verizon has future-proofed their fiber optic service areas and are better positioned to deliver extremely high broadband speed and HD offerings than their cable counterparts.  But that has never impressed short-term focused Wall Street.  Many in the financial press have attacked Verizon for the costly fiber upgrades they believe will not work for the short-term investor seeking immediate return from their Verizon stock purchase.  With the rumor mill predicting upcoming retirement for Seidenberg, his likely successors are hardly FiOS fanboys.

John Killian, Verizon’s current chief financial officer, is a short-term results man.  Samuel Greenholtz, an analyst with the Gerson Lehrman Group, doesn’t see Killian sharing much of Seidenberg’s visionary long term thinking.  Lowell McAdam, another prospect for the top job, is currently the president of the Wireless Services division, and would likely bring a wireless “solution” for broadband customers left off the FiOS list.  Neither man seems particularly interested in restarting the push for fiber in the future.

For 2010, capital expenses are flat or down across the company except in the Wireless Services division.  Verizon already declared copper phone wiring dead, and has elected to abandon its rural and suburban customers,  systematically sold off to America’s “rural phone companies” Frontier, CenturyLink, or Windstream.  Those still with Verizon but without FiOS will find the future of their landlines increasingly perilous.  Greenholtz notes Verizon has terminated another 1,200 line technicians and the company intends to spend two percent less on its copper wire network this year over last.

Greenholtz witnessed first hand what happens when a company starts to ignore its legacy network — his residential phone line quit working:

Having worked at Verizon and its predecessors for over 25 years, I expected a fix would be swift and trouble-free.  Wrong. I was offered a two-week appointment date for repair people to come out and look at the problem. I might add here that my wife does not use the cellular device that she carries around anymore than necessary and certainly never uses it when in close proximity to the hardwired set. By resorting to measures that I certainly would never have thought of using 10 years ago, I was able to get attention brought to the problem much quicker — and the issue has been resolved satisfactorily.

It seems that Verizon’s residential repair and maintenance has sunk to a new low.  Neighbors and other people on copper cabling are often experiencing problems. If there is static on the line, subscribers are frequently told nothing can be done to correct the situation because they need to replace the cable or do cable maintenance – but there is no budget available to do the work.   So, repairmen take the brunt of the public’s unhappiness with the service they are receiving. In contrast, when I spoke with some friends regarding FiOS and its maintenance issues, I found a much better response time to any difficulties the customers were experiencing.

Shockingly for a Wall Street-focused “expert network,” Greenholtz was allowed to offer his belief the only real solution to phone companies ignoring their undesirable customers is to regulate the heck out of them.

What can be done to cure the situation with residential landline services?   Unfortunately, it is going to have to come down to regulation.  Verizon, and no doubt, AT&T, has been doing what they want for many years now.  The PUCs have given them a lot of opportunities to offer advanced services that the commissions thought would spread throughout the serving areas, but they are increasingly realizing that is not in the plans.  They are going to have to force these companies to be responsive to the needs of the entire footprint, not just the Fortune 500 territories — and the nearby residential homes.

[Update 4/1/2010: While working on another story, I was amused to discover we had written about Mr. Greenholtz before, back on April 15th, when he was telling his readers “do-gooders” forced Time Warner Cable to attempt usage caps on customers.  I wonder if we would have heard something different from him had his broadband service faced an Internet Overcharging scheme.]

Blind deregulation and legislative-friendly handouts to companies like AT&T and Verizon have never resulted in better service for consumers.  They haven’t proven to save consumers any money either.  Ultimately, the decision to provide FiOS and U-verse came with investor consent, and when the economic downturn threatened the value of the stock and dividends, no deregulation or statewide franchise agreement is going to keep the fiber party from coming to a close.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WSYR Syracuse Verizon FiOS Winds Down 3-26-10.flv[/flv]

WSYR-TV in Syracuse reports on the demise of Verizon FiOS’ expansion plans, which have a significant impact on central New York where many communities will be left behind.  One saving grace for New Yorkers ticked off at Albany — they’re now off the FiOS list indefinitely.  (2 minutes)

An administrative law judge reviewing the proposed sale of Verizon landlines to Frontier Communications has formally recommended the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) reject the deal.

Allowing Verizon to sell 600,000 Illinois phone lines, mostly in less populated areas of the state, would likely harm the quality of service customers receive from their landline provider according to Judge Lisa Tapia.

Tapia was given the responsibility to review the transaction’s merits before the deal moves before the ICC for final consideration.  Her 46-page report concludes that Frontier’s existing Illinois customers would likely be harmed, along with existing Verizon customers, because of the enormous debt Frontier Communications will take on as part of the deal.  Tapia writes the economic impact of the deal “will diminish Frontier’s ability to perform its duties to provide adequate, reliable, efficient, safe and least-cost public utility service.”

According to Staff witness Mr. McClerren, both Frontier Illinois operating ILECs (local phone companies) and Verizon have, in recent years, had some difficulty meeting the minimum key standards contained in Part 730. The key Part 730 standards are Toll & Assistance Operator Answer Time, Directory Assistance Operator Answer Time, Repair Office Answer Time, Business Office Answer Time, Service Installations, Out of Service for Less Than 24 Hours, and Trouble Reports.

Ms. McClerren characterized the performance of the nine Frontier Illinois operating ILECs as poor relative to the Repair Office Answer Time and Out of Service for Less Than 24 Hours standards and unacceptable relative to the Business Office Answer Time standard. Mr. McClerren concluded that given Frontier’s poorer performance relative to Verizon’s performance on Repair Office Answer Time, Business Office Answer Time, and Out of Service for Less Than 24 Hours , service quality would likely decline in the current Verizon North and Verizon South territories if the proposed reorganization is allowed to occur. Mr. McClerren further stated that because Frontier had continuously failed to satisfy the Business Office Answer Time, Staff expressed to Frontier representatives that it was prepared to initiate a hearing under Section 730.120 of the Act for the purpose of imposing penalties.

The evidence shows there is a significant risk that problems could occur if the transition is made too prematurely so as to create a potential for harm to Illinois customers. When weighed against the many risks of the Transaction, including, among others, the risk of systems integration, the purported benefits of the Transaction do not justify approval.

Of particular concern to Judge Tapia is the impact on Frontier’s finances and operating ability to take on more than 600,000 new customers in Illinois.  Despite company promises to the contrary, Tapia’s report notes we’ve been down this road before, particularly with FairPoint Communications, which went bankrupt late last year.

The evidence shows there is a significant risk that problems could occur if the transition is made too prematurely so as to create a potential for harm to Illinois customers. When weighed against the many risks of the Transaction, including, among others, the risk of systems integration, the purported benefits of the Transaction do not justify approval.

[…]

For instance, Frontier’s total Illinois access lines would be increasing from 97,000 to over 670,000 lines. Frontier would also be almost tripling its size and will be burdened with an enormous amount of approximately $3.3 billion in debt. The financial pressure along with more wirelines to handle leads the Commission to conclude that service quality will certainly be diminished. The ultimate consequences of diminished quality service will be borne by Illinois customers.

What about broadband and Frontier’s promises to expand it into rural communities across Illinois?  Judge Tapia’s report questions whether Frontier will do any better than Verizon did.

The record also does not support a finding that Frontier will be any more effective than Verizon in expanding the scope and quality of broadband services in the Illinois service areas it proposes to acquire from Verizon. To the contrary, the evidence shows that it is very unlikely that a smaller, less experienced operator would be able to support such an investment.

The findings also call attention to Frontier’s practice of paying out more in dividends to shareholders than the company actually earns from customers.  The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), which has consistently argued against Verizon spinoffs, says no company can expect to succeed by paying out more than they earn just to keep a favorable stock price.  The IBEW has correctly predicted the outcome of other Verizon spinoffs, and warned the Verizon-Frontier deal is simply more of the same.

IBEW pointed to a 2007 Montana Public Service Commission (“PSC”) decision in which the PSC rejected a proposed merger and acquisition because “In normal utility operations, retained earnings provide a vital source of financial strength for capital investment and as reserves that are available during unexpected financial strains.  Regularly paying out dividends in excess of net earnings by a utility is inappropriate and risky because having insufficient reserves on hand could adversely affect the utility’s ability to provide adequate service.”

IBEW stated that the Montana PSC’s findings apply equally to Frontier. The IBEW endorsed the reasoning of the Montana PSC and reached the same conclusion about Frontier.

According to IBEW, Frontier only has two or three more years before it will have paid out all of its retained earnings to stockholders, based on its performance in the first half of 2009. IBEW also stated that two Wall Street financial analysts have independently found that Frontier’s shareholders’ equity is likely to become negative in 2012 or 2013. After that, Frontier’s dividend would have to be reduced to no more than its net income – a likely dividend cut of 60% or more. IBEW argued that without this Transaction, Frontier’s business model will fail within two or three years. IBEW asserted that Frontier does not plan to change its approach to business. Frontier still plans to pay out more to shareholders than it earns in net income and that there is no scenario where Frontier plans to pay out less in dividends than it earns in net income during the 2010 to 2014 period examined.

The report agrees with the IBEW position:

Frontier’s risky business model is a concern. The Commission agrees with IBEW that in normal utility operations, retained earnings provide a vital source of financial strength for capital investment and as reserves that are available during unexpected financial strains. Regularly paying out dividends in excess of net earnings by a utility is inappropriate and risky because having insufficient reserves on hand could adversely affect the utility’s ability to provide adequate service. Based on the record, this has been Frontier’s business practice. However, Frontier testified that it has revised its dividend policy. According to Frontier, it currently pays an annual cash dividend of $1.00 per share of Frontier common stock. Frontier after the closing of the proposed Transaction, intends to change its dividend policy to pay an annual cash dividend of $0.75 per share of Frontier common stock, reducing its dividend by 25% – from $1.00 to $0.75 per share – effective with the close of the Transaction.

The Commission does not find Frontier’s assertion credible. Specifically, that it plans to revise its dividend policy (at the discretion of it Board of Directors) because of this proposed Transaction when this has been Frontier’s approach to business for years.

Hundreds of pages of comments from consumers and other interested parties have been recorded by the ICC, many in opposition to the proposed deal.  The ICC’s next step is to accept comments about the report, which have already been forthcoming.

McCarthy

Dan McCarthy, Chief Operating Officer of Frontier Communications was among the first.

“Today’s proposed order by an administrative law judge in Illinois ignores the numerous public interest benefits outlined in the complete record developed in the Frontier/Verizon transaction. This record fully addresses the issues raised by the ALJ. We are confident that once the full Illinois Commerce Commission reviews the record, they will vote to support the transaction,” McCarthy said in a prepared statement.

“Frontier has formally committed to expand broadband to 85 percent of the households in the Verizon Illinois service areas covered by the transaction and spend in excess of $40 million to accomplish this effort,” the statement says, further noting that the company already provides DSL broadband service to 90 percent of its existing footprint in the state.

The full ICC is expected to rule by the end of April.

Among the Illinois communities impacted by the transaction:

Chatham, Divernon, Elkhart, Illiopolis, Jacksonville, Lincoln, Loami, New Berlin, Pawnee, Pleasant Plains, Sherman, Virden, Waverly and Williamsville.

Comcast is back with another rate increase effective April 1st, amounting to 3.5 percent for many cable, broadband, and telephone customers.

Although prices vary depending on your specific service area, the range of the price increase is more consistent.

In southern New Jersey, for example, here is the breakdown — all prices are by the month:

• Expanded/Standard service cable-TV tiers are increasing $2.  Expanded service customers could pay up to $50.10, Standard customers $60.55;
• Triple Play customers will see a $5 increase in the second year of their two-year contract from $114.99 to $119.99.  First year pricing remains $99 for new customers;
• Digital Premium Packages are increasing $2;
• Economy Broadband (1Mbps) increases $2, Performance (12Mbps) increases $2, Blast! (16Mbps) increases $2, Ultra sees no price increases (but goes away for new customers effective 4/1);
• Comcast phone line prices are also increasing in certain cases;
• Each additional DVR drops by $5 — Verizon FiOS was hammering Comcast about DVR pricing.

There are no rate changes for business service customers or subscribers with “limited basic service.”  There is also no change in the company’s broadband usage allowance — 250 GB, the only part of Comcast’s service that seems to stubbornly remain at the same level year after year.

Comcast, the nation’s largest cable operator, blamed the mid-year price increases on increased programming and other business costs.

But the company is not exactly hurting.  Comcast’s 4th quarter earnings last year jumped 132 percent to $955 million dollars.  Rate increases that are designed to drive consumers into profitable service bundles, combining television, Internet, and telephone service, guarantee even better financial results in 2010.

Verizon is already capitalizing on Comcast’s rates by offering residents in southern New Jersey an even better price for Verizon FiOS — dropping from $109.99 for two years to $89.99, not including taxes and fees.  But like Comcast, Verizon wants you take a bundle of services, or else face higher prices.  The company recently increased the price for FiOS TV to $64.99 for standalone service.