Verizon drops cable joint venture, grows FiOS subscribers

In its Q3 2013 Verizon Earnings Conference Call, Fran Shammo, Verizon EVP and CFO, said that Verizon last August terminated its joint venture with cable giants Comcast, Time Warner, and Cox. The partnership was launched as part of the Verizon/cable deal last year. Verizon and Comcast had been working on a top-secret Silicon Valley joint venture aiming to integrate broadband and wireless – codenamed Nuon. It would have, said gigaom, “promoted wireless and cable TV subscriptions through joint apps and a Roku-like streaming and media shifting box.”

Shammo said that the Verizon Wireless/cable joint marketing agreements – limited to non-FiOS areas by the Department of Justice and FCC – will continue.

The end of the Verizon/cable technology venture could signal that Verizon is confident it can compete head-to-head with cable with its own video streaming technology. With the company's $130 billion purchase of Vodafone's 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless, there may be renewed corporate focus on an integrated wired/wireless business strategy.

In their published Q3 2013 Verizon Earnings Conference Call, officers made several interesting points about the move to FiOS and wireless.

Verizon now has more than five million TV subscribers, more than any other cable company except Comcast and Time Warner. Verizon has won 30 percent market penetration where it offers FiOS.

By the end of 2013, Verizon will have changed 600,000 customers in FiOS areas from copper to fiber, leaving fewer than a million subscriber on copper in the Verizon FiOS area. Many of these customers then upgrade to higher speed FiOS.

More ominously, though, the one-third of Verizon landline customers outside the FiOS area will continue to see the company push for the elimination of copper landlines. Shammo said, “We have home phone connect and we have voice link on the Wireline side that we have already started to sell to our copper voice customers as a substitute to the copper product,...but you are doing to see more technology come out here in 2014 that is going to address these issues.”

In its third-quarter earnings report, the company added 1.1 million new wireless subscribers , took in $30 billion in revenue, and from that extracted $5.6 billion in profit.

Speed Matters supports FiOS expansion throughout Verizon's landline footprint.

Q3 2013 Verizon Earnings Conference Call (Verizon Investor Services, Oct. 17, 2103)

Failure of Verizon’s cable partnership kills secretive Nuon content-sharing project (Gigaom, Oct. 17, 2013)

Verizon celebrates Vodafone split with a million new subscribers (engadget, Oct. 17, 2013)