Verizon at Home

[#1]

Editor’s Note: Today’s guest blogger, Alison Allen, has been the User Messaging Lead for many of Verizon’s interactive services including FiOS TV, Media Manager, FiOS TV Online and Flex View. She is the strategist behind the descriptions, labels and instructions that help customers use the services more easily. Alison has also helped develop mobile apps for FiOS customers such as DVR Manager, FiOS Mobile and FiOS Football. Her Twitter profile @alikay7 pretty much says it all: Wordsmith, wife, yogi, dog mom.

By Alison Allen

When you think of watching TV and movies on devices other than a TV, there are certain scenarios that come to mind: commuting home on public transportation, entertaining the kids in the car, at the airport waiting for a flight, or combinations of these three. You’re mobile and you want to tune in.

Here’s a scenario we never considered: extending the FiOS TV service to families living apart. A spouse living 350+ miles away to be exact.

My husband recently went back to school to study in an intensive program at a major university more than 350 miles away. That’s nearly 6 hours by car. He has a small but suitable duplex that becomes my home away from home on the weekends. We do have FiOS TV in our home-home, but it wasn’t available at the duplex. Therefore, we opted out of ordering TV service to avoid the extra cost and, frankly, the distraction.

Guess we’re part of the reason the number of homes in the U.S. with television sets has dropped! And although we didn’t realize it at the time, we already had all the TV access we would need: online and mobile content from our FiOS TV subscription back home.

Since his departure to school, Verizon upped the ante on the FiOS TV Online offering with more than 6,000 titles online as well as four live TV channels, including CNN. As a certified news junkie, the access to live, streaming news is key for me when I’m visiting.

My husband is the sports junkie and ingests ESPN any way he can - with the WatchESPN app on his Verizon iPhone, or streaming ESPN Go live on his laptop. In fact, in late April we went to a local burger joint and he propped up his iPhone against his water glass to keep his pulse on the NFL draft.

On date night we pick from the 2,300 title-strong Flex View vault, or as EPIX subscribers, we tune into EPIX HD, which offers thousands of movie titles online. Later this spring, EPIX HD will launch their new mobile app so we can watch movies on my Droid 2 too. Winter’s Bone is next in my queue.

Even as a member of the FiOS TV Online team, I didn’t expect that we ourselves would become ardent users in such a purely unique way. It’s afforded us many options for mobile entertainment. Now if we can just figure out how to teleport to cut down on the 6-hour drive.

[#2]

We're in a very similar situation, but opposite.  My family is in CT and I have an apartment during the week in NYC.  I just turned on Fios today.   What I don't get is why Verizon is behind on mobile streaming.  Both Xfinity (Comcast) and Uverse (AT&T) apppear to offer more robust (and easier) mobile streaming.  I will be able to avoid the Fios premium channel charges because I will be able to stream most of the current shows without downloading them to a DVR or other device.  Xfinity has the most robust streaming (a ton of shows going back years).  We don't have to subscribe to another service.

I like Fios so far.  I'm hoping they obtain more mobile streaming rights soon so that they compare more favorably with other services.

[#3]

Rickborden,

Hi, this is Bobbi Henson,

I'm glad to hear that you like FiOS so far.  We have the technical capability to stream, but we are going to lock down our programming rights before we introduce the capability so customers will have the best possible experience. One cable company has had to offer and then withdraw certain streaming programming due to rights issues.  Also, the cable companies offering streaming only offer it at home, not out of the home.  Our Flex View and FiOS Online content can be viewed at home and away from home.  We will certainly update readers here at the Verizon at Home blog with any news about streaming.

Bobbi

[#4]

I really like my FiOS subscription but FiOS is really lacking on the mobile streaming features. Dish Network allows you to watch live TV not only on your iPad but also on your iPhone. I know Verizon doesn't have an iPhone app and I don't think they have an iPad app either. And that FiOS online.. it isn't really live TV it's OnDemand and lot's of FlexView advertising. The nice thing is HBOGo and MAXGo are included with my subscription to those channels so I at least get that on my iPhone. FlexView is nice but again, no iPhone support. And now that Verizon carries the iPhone they should expand support from just the select few Android phones they offer it on. That would be nice even though it's just PPV movies. You guys should take a tip from iO and Time Warner. They have Live TV iPad apps (hopefully iPhone coming soon for their customers). I really like FiOS but as soon as I leave my house for a 2 hour commute on the train.. TV = Gone. Maybe you can work on that? Thanks

[#5]

FTPietrzak,

Thanks for the feedback about mobile streaming and Flex View.  Our goal is to make Flex View available on as many devices as possible, and we will let everyone know when there are additions to our current list of supported devices:

https://www36.verizon.com/fiostv/web/unprotected/AboutFlexView.aspx

Regarding FiOS TV Online, we do offer both on demand and live programming, including live shows from ESPN, ESPN3, ESPNU, CNN and MTV.

https://www36.verizon.com/fiostv/web/unprotected/FTVOnline.aspx?ipa=-1

Glad you like FiOS, and we're working on giving you more of what you like.

Bobbi