The Cable Threat to Telcos
Ken Belson writes in The New York Times about how Verizon’s stock price premium vs. other RBOCs has faded this year. One reason: cable companies are making significant inroads in delivering voice telephony service.
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Cablevision, which serves mostly the New York metropolitan area, has signed up more than 600,000 customers for its Internet-based phone service. Time Warner Cable, which also operates in the New York area, has 854,000 Internet phone customers. Comcast, which operates in Boston, Philadelphia, Washington and other cities in Verizon’s territory, is entering the phone market, too.
To retain its phone customers, Verizon has started heavily discounting its local and long-distance plans and marketing its own Internet phone service, called VoiceWing.