Verizon's FiOS TV service in Florida marks its second year of operation Thursday (Dec 6), with greater services, broader market coverage and an ever-growing base of FiOS double and triple-play customers. When Verizon announced third quarter earnings on Oct. 30, the company reported 717,000 FiOS TV customers and 1.3 million FiOS Internet customers. Verizon also reported that, of the customers across the country who could get each service, 15.2 percent had purchased TV subscriptions and 20 percent had subscribed to FiOS Internet.

Consumers have witnessed dramatic growth in the features of both the TV and Internet service as well as its availability in the region since December 6, 2005. Examples include:

• An increase in the number of channels on the all-digital FiOS Premier TV package from 180 to more than 200 and a 55 percent increase in high-definition channels, from 20 to 31.
• The introduction of the Verizon FiOS Home Media DVR, which features a multi-room digital video recorder; a new interactive media guide that helps viewers find and select programming and content; FiOS TV Widgets, an on-screen application for obtaining localized weather, traffic and community information; and a new remote control.
• Even faster broadband service, with download speeds increasing from a range of up to 5 Mbps to 30 Mbps (megabits per second) to a range of up to 10-50 Mbps, and upload speeds that started at a range of 2-5 Mbps and increasing to today's range of 2-20 Mbps.
• The first symmetrical Internet offering - 20 Mbps downstream and 20 Mbps upstream.
• A dramatic expansion in the availability of FiOS TV, from 10,000 households in Temple Terrace in Hillsborough County in 2005 to 620,000 households to date in portions of Hillsborough, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk, Manatee and Sarasota counties.
• Overall expansion of the fiber network, from 400,000 premises passed at the end of 2005 to 800,000 households and small businesses expected to be passed by the end of this month, and more than 54 million feet of fiber deployed to date.