Verizon used the NXTcomm event today to announce the one millionth FiOS customer. And, to add a human touch (albeit a cheesy one), Verizon has embedded a video on its policy blog showing the family that put FiOS over that one-million milestone. (For those who don’t live in the area, that’s a Long Island accent you hear.)
Congrats to Verizon on the FiOS success. Now let’s talk a little bit about what made it possible.
First and foremost, there’s the optical network carrying Verizon’s broadband signals. If you haven’t followed the Passive Optical Network (PON) alphabet game, we’ve gone through APON, BPON and GPON, just to name a few. When Motorola started providing optical gear to Verizon in ’05, it was BPON. Part of a five-year contract, that announcement followed on the heels of an ’04 agreement for Motorola to provide video infrastructure and set-top equipment, and led to an ’06 agreement where Motorola was one of three vendors selected to provide GPON technology. (Need that in visual form? See above.)
For those who aren’t so much into the optical networking thing, Motorola has also acted as the engine behind one of Verizon’s coolest and most-coveted TV services: Home Media DVR. I’m always a little surprised by how relatively little coverage the service has gotten. In the Verizon video, the family talks about the advantages of not having to schedule time on one DVR in the living room. As the youngest family member says, “There’s a button (on the remote) and it even says DVR and it goes right to it. So it’s really easy.” (Okay, so she could have been reading from a script for all I know, but the service is cool.)
Again, congrats to Verizon on the FiOS milestone – one million and counting. And a pat on the back to all the engineers (including an awful lot of Motorola ones) who made it possible.
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