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It's funny. Laugh. Networking Businesses

Cablevision CEO a Verizon FiOS Customer? 72

Posted by kdawson from the for-research-purposes-only-of-course dept.
Keri_Love writes "Cablevision and Verizon are in the middle of heated battle trying to sign up customers for the coveted 'triple play': it's fiber-to-the-premises vs. cable for broadband, television, and phone. Cablevision is slinging lines like 'We're not afraid of your fiber!' Tech blogger Mike Murray discloses evidence that Cablevision's CEO may be enjoying FiOS at home. He writes: 'Click the picture to the right showing a Verizon FiOS can and drop directly above Cablevision's CEO Chuck Dolan's Oyster Bay, Long Island mailbox.' He's not scared! He's a customer!"
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Cablevision CEO a Verizon FiOS Customer? More

Cablevision CEO a Verizon FiOS Customer?

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  • give him credit (Score:5, Insightful)

    by belmolis ( 702863 ) <billposerNO@SPAMalum.mit.edu> on Saturday September 08, 2007 @04:01PM (#20522887) Homepage

    This doesn't have to be evidence that Verizon is better or that Dolan is a hypocrite. It may well be that he deserves credit for checking out the competition, or that his own service isn't available where he lives.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ultranova ( 717540 )

      This doesn't have to be evidence that Verizon is better or that Dolan is a hypocrite. It may well be that he deserves credit for checking out the competition, or that his own service isn't available where he lives.

      If you work for McDonald's, are you a hypocrite because you prefer to eat at Burger King ? Do you need to justify yourself by saying you're "checking out the competition" ?

      This whole discussion is ridiculous, since it presupposes that people owe loyalty to the companies they work for. They d

      • Re:give him credit (Score:5, Insightful)

        by unlametheweak ( 1102159 ) on Saturday September 08, 2007 @05:47PM (#20523487)

        the CEO is, ultimately, just an employee.

        A CEO isn't "just an employee". A CEO represents the company he works for. The position is very sales oriented in most cases. And a CEO is generally elected to that position by the shareholders. There is politics involved, so being politically astute is important.
        • No, the Dolan's bought back the company earlier in the spring.

          And why would he have FiOS when CBV employees gets TV gold package, Internet, and VoIP for free? I get it, and I'm just a tech support slob.
          • I think it is a pretty easy guess that the real reason that he has FiOS is that the way ISPs have locked out competition in local markets, he probably just can't get anything but Verizon at his house!
        • Not to mention that if as CEO even YOU don't prefer your own company's products, why should anyone else? As CEO it's your job to make sure as many people as possible prefer your product over the competition.
      • "And even the CEO is, ultimately, just an employee."

        True... but as a consumer/investor, I prefer my CEO's to "eat their own dog food". While the CEO can get whatever service he wants; he's hurting the company he represents by going with the competition instead of his own service because it shows (or at least looks as if) his own product is lacking what the competition has.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Duhavid ( 677874 )
      It could be that this is the only service he could get in his area.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by xSauronx ( 608805 )
        Seriously. I worked for a Wireless ISP in Kansas that is in the midst of expansion and acquistion and the President only *recently* got service from his own company, and was until then using that of the competition, because we hadn't been able to negotiate a deal for tower space to hang our own equipment in his area, and the nearest area from which his service area is now bridged (Town 1 is a service area with the T1, and has a 5 mile wireless bridge to Town 2, which is quite small, and the home of the pres
      • Nope. Optimum has effectively 100% coverage in his area. I'm somewhat surprised that he was able to get FIOS as the north shore are he lives on is inaccessible for a lot of things.

        This is also the guy who, as an AT&T customer, lobbies in his community association to disallow new cell sites, and then calls AT&T to complain there's no reception by his house.

        So he's a truly intelligent and consistent individual, but I only know this from my dealings with him.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Duhavid ( 677874 )
          So, he is a "no choice for you, peon", "what the heck,
          I got money, why cant I have everything I want now"
          kind of guy?

  • Let me be the first to say.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by ynososiduts ( 1064782 ) on Saturday September 08, 2007 @04:03PM (#20522899)
    .. so what?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Bryson ( 112202 )

      I second the "so what". Let's not encourage more companies to make
      more stupid rules placing more restrictions on what their employees
      do away from work.

      Not news, not for nerds, does not matter.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Kopiok ( 898028 )
      Its a "big deal" because as the CEO of his company he is supposed to show complete faith in the company and do everything to ensure it's success and make it better than the competition. By using a competitor in hos own home, he's showing that he thinks his service is inferior to the competitors service. If the CEO of the company thinks his product sucks, what is everyone else supposed to think?
      • So if the CEO of Pepsi Co drinks a coke it should make the front page? Because the CEO of GM gets drove around in a Lincoln Town Car stretch limo, we should all care? Any of this really isn't news. Maybe Cablevision isn't offered in his area, maybe he's test driving FiOS, or maybe he's a quality freak and wants 1080 lines of resolution to watch football on as opposed to the 720 offered by cable. This is about as important as Paris Hilton going to jail or Guliani spending more time at Yankee Stadium then gro

        • So if the CEO of Pepsi Co drinks a coke it should make the front page?

          Actually, people at Pepsi Co sales get fired for drinking coke. So, yes, CEO of Pepsi Co drinking coke *is* a front page news.

      • By using a competitor in hos own home, he's showing that he thinks his service is inferior to the competitors service.

        He's showing no such thing. First of all, how do you know he doesn't have both services? He's the CEO of a company, it's his responsibility to know what his competitors are doing. You're not going to see a cable drop from the street. Though my bet is you'd probably see several satellite dishes on top of his house too, if you walked down his driveway. He has to know what all of his compe

  • he'd be an idiot... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by seanadams.com ( 463190 ) * on Saturday September 08, 2007 @04:05PM (#20522907) Homepage
    NOT to evaluate the competitor's product. What's the point of this story?

  • Redundant connections (Score:2, Interesting)

    by maxrate ( 886773 )
    I run my own ISP - I supply high-speed to my residence via my own service AND the cable company. I like the redundancy. Yes - my ISP can have problems too (very rare, but I'm the first to admit it can happen)! I also like to keep an eye on the 'competitions' performance. A lot can be done with DOCSIS 3.0 over cable. As long as your connection is consistenly fast and reliable (and you're happy) who cares if it's fiber or not? I'm around fibre connections all day while at work (long-haul to other ISPs)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by karnal ( 22275 )
      Competition = lower prices.

      I have Cable Internet via Insight Communications @ around 55$ / month. The only cable offering that I can get. No fiber. DSL is out since I don't have a PSTN line into my house - unless I feel like paying a 20$ loop fee on top of a DSL charge, which makes it more expensive than cable for the same speeds.

      If there are more choices, there's always a chance that they'll start fighting each other for marketshare based on price. Every now and again I'll see commercials for DSL reach

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by shaggy43 ( 21472 )
        We have Insight for the same reasons, but it' $45/mo (after taxes) for 10.0mbit (in Louisville, KY).

        Competition, weak as it is here, is a good thing.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Bollox. Seen this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-brodsky/our-inte rnet-policy-is-a-_b_63396.html [huffingtonpost.com]

  • Two things spring to mind... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Saturday September 08, 2007 @04:05PM (#20522917)
    1. How long has he actually been living at the premises?
    2. Are these two fuzzy photos of two separate things actually linkable in any way to this person?
    • I agree, and a step further. Even if we do believe that the two photos are indeed located where the article says, how do we know which house the service is going to?

      I mean I see not just one, but two mail boxes, couldn't the other house have the service?

      This just seems like some sort of troll article.
    • from the "article" UPDATE: Due to the posting of this on Slashdot, this picture size has been reduced. Sorry. - Mike
    • As the CEO of a tech company, he probably has leased-line service from his company. They may have even contracted a competitor to provide a dark-fiber link to the house. Then, at the CO, they cross-connect that to his company's infrastructure.

      Even if it is a true FiOS connection, they probably have VPN hardware on there to encrypt the link back to his companies' network. I mean, could you imagine getting a call from the rival CEO asking why you spent so much time on 4chan?

  • two mailboxes (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gEvil (beta) ( 945888 ) on Saturday September 08, 2007 @04:07PM (#20522931)
    Seeing as how there are two mailboxes in that picture, isn't it just as likely that his next-door neighbor has FiOS instead?

  • Or his neighbours? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The pic shows his mailbox, and his neighbours. Unless they can say its going to his property I dont think proximity to his mail box is particularly reliable way to judge whose taking the service. If it was the only mailbox for a mile, maybe, but when its 6ft from next doors its a bit much to jump to conclusions from.
  • Maybe he can't get CableVision in his area?
  • Time Warner in Lincoln, NE is advertising their new High Speed Fiber Network, but it doesn't appear to be a service you can buy-- it just shows up on all their commercials... "Brought to you by Time Warners advanced Fiber Optic network"

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rob1980 ( 941751 )
      Cox in Omaha does the same thing. You're not buying fiber service, but they still say their network is run by fiberoptics.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by SolusSD ( 680489 )
        i guess its just the cable companies way of saying "hey, we've got fiber too!"

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by jnv11 ( 576828 )
      Any reasonably-sized cable plant that can handle digital signals uses a hybrid fiber coaxial (or HFC) network. Since digital signals will not survive cables that are too long, the cable company replaced many long haul cables with fiber optic lines, which then terminate at local optical to coax nodes. The cable companies could have asked everyone to abandon their coax wiring and replace all that with fiber wiring. However, most people do not like the idea of having to have their houses rewired for fiber afte

  • Not the right box... (Score:5, Informative)

    by jea6 ( 117959 ) on Saturday September 08, 2007 @04:27PM (#20523045)
    As a Fios customer, I can tell you that a box on the wires on the street doesn't mean you have service. What matters is the ONT box that would be affixed to the side of your house. No pic of the ONT, no evidence of Fios service.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Aladrin ( 926209 )
      The pictures aren't even the same... I'm not even sure they were taken with the same camera!

      I think the whole article is a joke. It says the pictures shows a box above the mailbox... Yes it does... But only because someone's rudimentary photoshop skills pasted the picture there. He references another site (Bernstein Research) but provides no link whatsoever.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by amrust ( 686727 )
        Aside from the differences in photo quality between the two, there appears to be a datestamp in the top photo, and none in the bottom photo.

        Even if they are from the same camera (and that appears unlikely), it still just looks like a picture of some wires, AND a picture of a mailbox.

        That's like taking a picture of me on a John Deere, and a picture of the White House, and then claiming I mow the President's yard.

  • Hey, that's MINE mailbox! and I sure ain't some fancy-schmancy CEO!

  • So the other day, a youngish surfer dude in a bright red shirt emblazoned with the "Verizon FiOS" log comes to the door. The conversation goes something like this:

    Him: "So, how's the new FiOS service?"
    Me: "Umm...what FiOS service?"
    Him: (Looks at clipboard with one piece of paper on it.) "Looks like we installed here a few weeks back. This your address?"
    Me: "Why, yes it is." (Stealth thinking mode kicks in.) "Yeah, sorry, my mind was elsewhere...service is great!"
    Him: "And the TV and the internet connectio

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by amrust ( 686727 )
      Your neighborhood may have infrastructure in place, but I wouldn't think you could log in to their network without a valid account/ID/pw.
    • I do hope that you are kidding, but here you go.

      You could tell if you has FiOS service several ways. First, someone would have had to order the service. Second, there would be an ONT (Optical Network Terminal) mounted somewhere on your house as wll as a power supply inside the house. There are 2 different ONT models, Measuring roughly 12"x16" or 12"X12" which has green leds on the inside.

      As a Verizon employee I have had FiOS for almost 2 years, and I can say, it is really not much better than other services
      • just put in myth and be done with it.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by pongo000 ( 97357 )
        I do hope that you are kidding, but here you go.

        Partially kidding. The conversation was real. Verizon thinks I have FiOS installed. As a previous poster so glibly alluded to, my next Verizon bill will tell the tale.

        Since I know I don't have an ONT or battery in the garage, it's highly doubtful I have FiOS. Now to see if Verizon agrees with me...
      • As a Verizon employee I have had FiOS for almost 2 years, and I can say, it is really not much better than other services offer by say Brighthouse or Comcast or any others. Personally, I really miss my TiVo.

        Er, why can't you use your TiVo on FiOS?

    • Sure there is! (Score:5, Funny)

      by commodoresloat ( 172735 ) * on Saturday September 08, 2007 @07:50PM (#20524313)

      So, is there a way I can tell whether I'm hooked up?
      Easy! Just look at your checkbook and see if you wrote any checks to Verizon lately.
  • Target CEO once stepped foot inside a Wal-Mart! AMD CEO once used a computer running an Intel processor! PepsiCo CEO once drank a Coke!
  • It means that either:

    1. The CEO of the company disagrees with the cable companies undisclosed bandwidth tap while advertising "unlimited" access
    2. The CEO wants to run a bittorrent client and is sick of dealing with the cable company's illegally compromising his traffic
    3. The CEO wants a provider which supports net neutrality

    (I kid, I kid. I understand there may be other reasons)
    • Oh, and Verizon's better in that regard? I have news for you: all consumer ISPs suck.

      Verizon's Terms of Service and Acceptible Use Policy (scroll down to the AUP, it's more interesting):
      http://www.verizon.net/policies/vzcom/tos_popup.as p [verizon.net]

      I researched that when a Verizon salesman came to our house. Note in particular that you may not use the service for
      - Anything deemed objectionable by Verizon
      - Anything that defames Verizon
      - Using hyperlinks that contain the verizon name
      - To make off-topic posts to newsgrou
  • The management of McDonald's doesn't always eat hamburgers.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by badhat ( 944785 )
      I work for a small cable company that has 3 higher echelon managers that can't get the companies service at their homes. Instead they have sattelite tv and fiber internet provided by a local utility. So whether that CEO has his own companies service or not doesn't mean he is against one or the other. It just means he is human and needs television and internet.
  • Nice to see something that was all over the Cable Vision forums on www.dslreports.com last year is being slash dotted.
  • Why would he go with cable when fiber is available? Sure cable is going to market itself as the better option, but from a technological standpoint, it's not.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by edwdig ( 47888 )
      Why would he go with cable when fiber is available? Sure cable is going to market itself as the better option, but from a technological standpoint, it's not.

      Just looking at FIOS pricing, the options are 5/15/30 Mbps for $40/$50/$180 per month. [verizon.com]

      Cablevision offers 15 and 30 Mbps plans for $45 and $60 per month, possibly cheaper if you get additional services from them.

      Why should someone care if they have a coax or fiber cable running into their house? The coax connects to a fiber backbone once it hits the util
  • Charles F. "Chuck" Dolan [cablevision.com] is the founder and Chairman of Cablevision. The President and CEO, is his son James L. Dolan [cablevision.com].

    They are more than just employees, they control the company.

    As others have mentioned, having a Verizon box in the street in front of your house, does not necessarily mean that you are a customer.

  • FiOS uses a technology called Passive Optical Network (PON), which means that one strand of fiber is divided passively among up to 32 subscribers. There's one box that does 4:1 and one that does 8:1 between the subscriber and the optical terminal. It's not terribly flexible; they have to guess what the ultimate penetration might be and then lay out enough to get there, with splitters all over the place up on the poles.

    When someone subscribes, they run a drop fiber to the home and mount an Optical Network
  • News about his has been floating around for years. Guess you have to keep and eye on the competition.
  • I'm disturbed by the fact the Verizon forced to put their own router, not a bridge, a router, inside my house to connect my pc's with. Does that mean they can see every packet going between 2 computers inside my house? I went ahead and plugged my own linksys NAT Firewall to their router but one system's VPN won't work across 2 routers so I had to connect it directly to their router. Does anyone know if Verizon can peek inside my house network traffic?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ffejie ( 779512 )
      They can't, they don't care. They use the ActionTec router because it provides the kind of high throughput needed for 30 Mbps. The last I heard, you could replace their router with your router if you could simulate the settings on the ActionTec.
  • ...where Verizon is actively trying to dump their business off to Fairpoint to avoid keeping their "FIOS to all our customers" pledge, I find myself unable to care about who has what on Long Island. Sorry.

  • I'd be happy if I were able to get FiOS at my house. I guess being super-rich has its privileges.

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