Verizon’s Captain Charts Slow, Steady Course

[SOURCE: Telecommunications Online 2/9, AUTHOR: Jim Barthold]
Verizon Communications will transcend voice, entertainment and wireless and become a “rich communications company” by leveraging its disparate components, Chairman-CEO Ivan Seidenberg said last week. Building a fiber optic network and acquiring content, Seidenberg said, are only two challenges the carrier is facing in its battle to become an alternative to cable. Regulation ­ proposed and real and fueled by the incumbent cable operators ­ will “be solved and we'll move on … in two years or less than that. It costs money but it’s the cost to get into the market.” The bigger problem, he said, is the “bizarre” behavior of municipalities who demand amenities from Verizon in exchange for being allowed to do business in their towns. The carrier is flexing its government muscles seeking regulatory help to thwart those sorts of local efforts, often initiated by the incumbent competition. Verizon, he said, is not awed by incumbent providers. “We’re bigger than them anyway, so I don't care,” he said.
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