Boston, "a copper hole in the fiber donut," demands FiOS

Verizon is currently wiring up New York City with fiber optic cables, but Boston mayor Thomas Menino wants to know why FiOS isn't coming to his city anytime soon. Menino has a theory, one that he recently aired during a radio interview: Verizon is retaliating. "They insinuated that we weren't going to get it because of my position on telecommunications," he said. Menino's "position on telecommunications" is that Verizon should pay more money. Specifically, Menino has been trying to change state law so that Verizon has to pay taxes on more of its network equipment that sits on public property. Verizon's FiOS has already been installed in numerous surrounding cities, leaving Boston a "copper hole in the fiber donut," said Boston's Chief Information Officer, William Oates. But despite their density, cities can be expensive to wire. Infrastructure can be hard to access, landlords are finicky about connecting to their buildings, and digging up the streets is tough, dirty work. Verizon is currently bringing FiOS to places like New York City and Washington, DC, but years after the FiOS rollout, neither place is near completion.