Time Warner Cable, Verizon to Duel

As Verizon gears up to offer pay-TV service in New York City, Time Warner Cable is making a series of moves to compete more aggressively with the phone titan for one of its most prized markets. Verizon received final approval from local authorities last week to launch its FiOS TV service in New York. It has already begun taking video-service orders and plans to begin installing starting on August 1, says Rich Greenfield, an analyst at Pali Capital, who downgraded Time Warner Cable's stock to a sell on Monday because he thought the company was ill prepared for the heightening competition. Greenfield arrived at his conclusion in part after phoning customer-service representatives at Time Warner Cable. Some of the reps didn't know what FiOS was, and others didn't seem to have a plan in place to keep customers who talked about defecting to FiOS. "I didn't get the sense from talking to them that they were really prepared for the coming competitive onslaught," Mr. Greenfield says. He estimates that Time Warner Cable gets 10% of its revenue from its New York City market.