Verizon Communications said it is offering some new subscribers to its Fios fiber internet service 12 months of Hulu free.

The offer is in addition to the 12 months of Disney Plus already being offered to subscribers to both Fios and Verizon’s mobile phone service.

RELATED: Disney Plus Helps Boost Verizon Wireless Gains in Q4

Both Hulu and Disney Plus are from the Walt Disney Co.

Verizon said that subscribers who order a Fios 200 megabits per second connection get Disney Plus for 12 months. Subscribers who order a 400 Mbps connection get Hulu for six months and Disney Plus for 12 months.

New Fios Gigabit subscribers get 12 months of both Hulu and Disney Plus. They also get a free Stream TV from Verizon.

Verizon earlier this year on Fios program, which lets subscribers pick from different levels of internet and pay TV services.

Following surprise word that Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam was retiring and being succeeded by CTO Hans Vestberg, another top Verizon exec has set his exit from the telecom giant.

RELATED: Hans Vestberg to Succeed Lowell McAdam as Verizon CEO

Verizon said Friday that John Stratton, EVP and president of global operations, has announced plans to retire from the company by year-end.

Stratton, 57, is stepping down from his current role and, to “support a smooth transition,” will serve as a strategic adviser reporting to McAdam, the company said.

Stratton had emerged as a lead contender for the top spot at Verizon, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Stratton has been with Verizon and its predecessor, Bell Atlantic Mobile, for more than 25 years, and is on the board of the CTIA.

“As one of the founding leaders of Verizon Wireless, John has left his mark on the business. He has been at the forefront of our evolving strategy and is one of the key people responsible for setting the strong foundation that we are building on today,” McAdam said in a statement. “Through his determination, drive and commitment to the business, John led some of our most creative and innovative efforts during the fastest growth period in Verizon’s history, including the iconic ‘Can you hear me now?’ advertising campaign and the development of the Droid handset franchise.”

“It has been an honor to be a leader at Verizon alongside so many brilliant and committed V Teamers – all of whom put the customer and our company first. I am incredibly proud of the strides we have made to position Verizon as the leader in customer service and on the forefront of next-generation technologies, including 5G,” Stratton added. “I look forward to watching Verizon’s continued success.”

Comcast launched a mobile product that takes advantage of its MVNO deal with Verizon Wireless about a year ago and Charter Communications is about to follow, but the volume of activity from this new wave of quasi-competitive providers is “relatively small,” Matthew Ellis, Verizon’s EVP and CFO said on Tuesday’s Q1 earnings call.

“But…as they get traction, that will bring in more traffic to our network that we can monetize as well,” he added. “So we’re happy with that side of the equation.”

For its part, Comcast added 187,000 Xfinity Mobile customer lines in Q4 2017, ending the year with more than 380,000, with most of them gravitating to the company’s by-the-Gig option (Comcast will announce Q1 2018 results tomorrow morning).

Charter, which has teamed with Comcast on a mobile operations agreement, will launch its product, to be called Spectrum Mobile, by mid-year. Altice USA has opted for a “full” MVNO deal with Sprint, but won’t launch its mobile product until next year.

RELATED: Comcast, Charter Form Mobile Platform Partnership

Moving to 5G, Ellis said Verizon has completed its 11-city pre-commercial trials, where it has demonstrated propagation over 2,000 feet from the node using millimeter wave spectrum. Verizon is now moving ahead with plans to launch a 5G-based residential fixed wireless broadband service in as many as five markets, including Sacramento, in the second half of 2018.

RELATED: Verizon Tips Launch of 5G-Based Residential Broadband Service

“We are very much on track with being in a position to launch each of those cities later this year,” Ellis said.

As for adding mobility to 5G, Verizon will “be ready as soon as equipment is ready on the global standard,” he noted, adding that Verizon feels comfortable that it can launch mobile 5G with the assets it has.

“We are not building a 5G network for residential broadband and a different 5G network for mobility. We are deploying a 5G network that will have multiple revenue streams off of it,” the exec said.

Ellis also offered a small hint that Verizon’s coming OTT TV product will be tied to the 5G rollout.

“We continue to look at OTT options, and, as we’ve said previously, we’re not looking to launch a me-too product, but [we] certainly expect to have an overall product offering to consumers in those three to five markets what will be compelling to meet their needs.”

Verizon hasn’t outlined its specific pricing and packing plans for the OTT TV product, but it will be playing from behind, given the number of products already on the market. AT&T, for example, is following up DirecTV Now with a sports-free skinny TV bundle that will be offered for free to mobile customers on unlimited data plans and in the neighborhood of $15 per month to all others.

RELATED: AT&T Eyes Launch of Sports-Free Skinny OTT TV Service

Feeling some pain from cord-cutting and general video competition, Verizon Communications lost 22,000 Fios video subs in Q1, widened from a loss of 13,000 video subs in the year-ago quarter.  

Verizon also added 66,000 Fios internet subs, up from 35,000 gains a year earlier.  

With DSL losses factored in, Verizon added 7,000 broadband subs in Q1, versus a loss of 305,000 subs a year earlier.  

Verizon also shed 14,000 Fios digital voice customers in Q1, widened from a loss of 8,000 in the year-ago period.  

Verizon ended Q1 with 4.59 million Fios video connections, 5.91 million Fios internet connections, and 3.89 million Fios digital voice connections.  

Overall Fios-related Q1 revenues rose 2.1%, to $2.95 billion, driven in part to increased demand for faster broadband service tiers. Total wireline operating revenues dropped 1.6%, to $7.55 billion.  

Wireless connections rose 2%, to 116.18 million, despite a 6.7% drop in retail prepaid subs.  

AOL is suffering an email outage Friday that is affecting customers across the country.

While some users report having no access, others have seen spotty access to AOL email during the morning hours Friday.

The number of complaints regarding AOL email on Down Detector have been spiking over the past couple of hours, with the concentration of complaints heaviest in regions such as southern California, up and down the East Coast, and across Florida.

AOL was acquired by Verizon in June 2015. Last year, Verizon announced it was shutting down its email business and providing those customers with an option with AOL that allowed its internet service customers retain their Verizon.net email addresses, or helping them transition to another email provider. 

On Friday, AOL acknowledged via its customer service handle on Twitter that it’s aware of the service issue and that engineers are working on a fix, but has not elaborated on the root cause.

Our top priority right now is getting you connected with AOL Mail. We appreciate your diligence and patience during this issue.

— AOL Customer Support (@AOLSupportHelp) March 2, 2018

We appreciate your patience while we are working on a fix. Our engineers are still investigating while AOL Mail is inaccessible for some of our users. We'll keep you posted once we have an update.

— AOL Customer Support (@AOLSupportHelp) March 2, 2018

We’re aware that service is slow/inaccessible for some of our users when trying to access AOL Mail. We are working to fix it as quickly as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.

— AOL Customer Support (@AOLSupportHelp) March 2, 2018

Update: At 1:28 p.m. ET AOL tweeted that email services were back online: 

Update! AOL services are now working. We appreciate your patience.

— AOL Customer Support (@AOLSupportHelp) March 2, 2018

Pushing ahead on next-gen FTTP technology, Calix said it Verizon has tapped its AXOS platform to start a “large-scale” deployment of NG-PON2 in the first quarter of 2018.

The initial rollout, based on Calix’s AXOS E9-2 Intelligent Edge System, includes the AXOS RPm (Routing Protocol module for Layer 3) and the AXOS SMm (Subscriber Management module for disaggregated Broadband Network Gateway).

In 2016, Verizon selected equipment from Ericsson (in partnership with Calix) and Adtran for NG-PON2 technology testing from the telco’s Innovation Lab in Waltham, Mass. That followed earlier tests by Verizon, which determined then that NG-PON2 cold “easily provide” symmetrical speeds of 10 Gbps to businesses and residential customers.

RELATED: Verizon Sets NG-PON2 Lab Tests

“Several years ago, we determined that we were going to need a better network to meet our growing customers’ demands for bandwidth and higher throughput,” Vincent O’Byrne, director of technology planning at Verizon, said in a statement. “We saw that the single wavelength systems (e.g., 10G EPON and XGS-PON) were only possible interim solutions and that we needed a longer term solution. NG-PON2 is a platform that will meet the customers’ envisioned needs for the next decade or more given its many evolution paths as well as bringing many operational benefits to simplify the network. It represents a paradigm shift in the design of access networks.” 

Oath, a unit of Verizon that operates Yahoo and AOL, has appointed two execs to its global sales organization -- Kathryn Friedrich as chief business officer, RYOT Studio; and Karen Schmidt as VP, head of B2B field marketing.

RELATED: Oath Hires New CFO

Friedrich and Schmidt report to John DeVine, Oath’s chief revenue officer.

Friedrich will head up the global growth of RYOT Studio, which currently has a presence in 14 countries across five continents. She most recently was chief marketing and revenue officer at Thrive Global, working with Arianna Huffington. Prior to that, she was head of global content monetization at YouTube, and has held other exec roles at Google, Hearst, Conde Nast, American Express Publishing, and KPMG.

RELATED: New Math: AOL + Verizon = Oath

Schmidt will spearhead go-to-market strategy for its advertising products. She joins Oath from American Express, where she most recently was VP, global head of sales enablement for the company’s Global Commercial Services division. She began her career as a consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton.

“We’re thrilled to welcome Kathryn and Karen to Oath as we bring together the best mobile experiences, trusted data that performs, and market-leading ad tech to serve our advertiser and publisher partners,” DeVine said in a statement.

When the number of customers decline for a business, it’s always bad news. But in the cable industry, if subscribers aren’t leaving as quickly as they did in the last quarter, well — that’s good news, right?

While the ongoing trends of video subscriber losses and slowing broadband additions continued, they weren’t as bad as expected. And in this volatile media climate, that can be good enough.

Comcast’s 33,000 video losses in the fourth quarter were better than many had expected — consensus was for a loss of about 45,000 — but it was a reversal from last year’s gain of 80,000 customers. In what is usually a seasonally strong quarter, Comcast fell short. For the year, its video customers were down by about 150,000, nearly erasing the 161,000 video subscribers it added in 2016.

While the video declines seem to make a strong case for the growing impact of cord-cutting, the financial picture tells another story. Comcast grew cable revenue by about 3.4% in the period, a respectable level given the continued subscriber decline. Cash flow was up a strong 4.2%, and free cash flow — basically cash flow minus capital expenditures — was on pace to rise 8.2% this year. That, according to Moffett Nathanson principal and senior analyst Craig Moffett, is unprecedented.

Cost Curbs Boost Cash Flow
According to Moffett, Comcast is making accelerated video subscriber losses — and a slowing of its broadband additions — work by keeping its other costs down. One need only look at margin growth for proof. Comcast’s 40.7% cash-flow margins in the quarter were 40 basis points higher than consensus and 30 basis points above last year.

And while other operators are expected to report revenue growth in the 2% to 3% range and cash-flow increases approaching 4%, video losses are not expected to slow down soon.

“By now, the litany of worries that has kept investors on the sidelines should be familiar to everyone,” Moffett wrote. “Video subscribership is being hammered by cord-cutting. Video margins are being squeezed by [virtual multichannel video programming distributors]. Broadband industry growth is hitting a wall. AT&T is expanding its fiber footprint. Verizon is deploying 5G fixed wireless. Cable’s growth phase must surely be over.”

Even Comcast admits that the pressure isn’t expected to let up.

But Comcast’s better-than-expected numbers are at least somewhat encouraging, especially since it was able to post strong financial results.

“How many companies growing revenues by 4%-plus have free cash flow yields of 8%-plus?” Moffett asked.

Comcast said it is combating the competition through new products like its wireless offering — which has more than 380,000 customers, but is not yet profitable — and Instant TV, its streaming video offering, as well as innovative video bundling and broadband packaging. On the minus side, Comcast could be the exception to the rule — its Q4 video subscriber losses represented less than 1% of its base. The rest of the industry has been shedding video customers at a 3.5% clip.

Verizon Communications’s Fios TV offering shed 29,000 customers in the quarter, compared with a gain of 21,000 in 2016, reflecting “the shift from traditional linear video to over-the-top offerings,” the company said.

Verizon has reportedly been focusing on its own OTT offering. The company didn’t mention that product on last week’s conference call, but most analysts believe it will launch in the spring. Whether that means the company will focus less on its landline Fios TV business — subscribers are down to about 4.6 million, from 4.7 million at the beginning of 2017 — and more on its streaming offering, remains to be seen.

OTT Growth to Cool Down
Over-the-top providers are expected to continue to disrupt the pay TV model, but more established players should begin to see their growth rates start to slow. Evercore ISI Group media analyst Vijay Jayant predicted a slight fall off for Dish Network’s Sling TV in Q4, to 250,000 additions from 286,000 in the prior year, but UBS telecom analyst John Hodulik estimated Sling TV’s growth would be cut in half, to about 100,000.

For other cable operators, the fight will be a mixture of the same — higher video subscriber losses, slower broadband gains and accelerated efforts to cut costs.

That means most analysts expect AT&T, the next big distributor up to the earnings plate on Wednesday (Jan. 31), to see further video customer erosion.

Jayant predicted AT&T would shed about 300,000 video customers at its DirecTV and U-verse TV units in the quarter, up from a loss of 27,000 subscribers in the previous year. Hodulik was slightly less optimistic, predicting fourth-quarter losses of about 330,000 subscribers.

Charter Communications, which is scheduled to report fourth-quarter results on Friday (Feb. 2), is expected to lose about 79,000 video subscribers while its broadband growth slows to about 300,000 additions, down from around 360,000 in the previous year.

Oath, a unit of Verizon that runs Yahoo and AOL, has hired Vanessa Wittman ac CFO, charged with leading the unit through its “next phase of growth.”

RELATED: New Math: AOL + Verizon = Oath

Wittman, who will report to Oath CEO Tim Armstrong, has previously been CFO at Dropbox, Motorola and March & McLennan.

Former Oath CFO Holly Hess is moving to a newly created role at Verizon, where she will lead Verizon’s previously announced $10 billion cost savings initiative, and report to Verizon CFO Matt Ellis.

“Vanessa is an exceptional leader with singular experience, and she will be a great partner to help drive Oath's vision, strategy, and operations to reach our long term goals,” Armstrong said in a statement. “Vanessa joins Oath at an exciting point in our journey to build a differentiated company creating the future of mobile and the internet in combination with Verizon. I want to thank Holly Hess for being a founding force at Oath, as well as a driver behind the original Verizon and AOL deal. She made significant contributions to Oath and we look forward to continued collaboration with Holly in her new role at Verizon.”

The market for OTT TV services has become crowded, making it increasingly difficult for new entrants to differentiate and somehow stand alone. 

Verizon Communications’s OTT-delivered pay TV service is delayed and not expected to emerge until this spring at the earliest as it hammers out distribution deals and refines its strategy amid recent executive changes.

According to TechCrunch, Verizon is now looking to package video services into “channels” that could be offered as stand-alone apps, cover themes and topics such as news, sports and entertainment, tie in content owned by Oath (the brand that brings together AOL and Yahoo), but remain distinct from go90, a free, ad-supported video service focused on millennials.

Verizon declined to comment on that report, and has yet to outline its plan to price and package its new OTT TV offerings.

But the opportunities to differentiate will only become more difficult as OTT TV providers already in the market try to make headway with strategies focused on specific programming areas, such as what Philo is doing with entertainment and fuboTV is attempting with a sports-focused service. And that’s all happening against a backdrop of other virtual MVPDs that include DirecTV Now, CenturyLink Stream, Hulu and YouTube TV.

Out on the near-term horizon is T-Mobile, which is expected to make some serious noise later this year with an OTT TV service of its own that follows its recent acquisition of Layer3 TV.

Verizon Fios has launched a new TV tier tailored for small- and mid-sized business customers that features a lineup of more than 45 channels, with a focus on news and business-focused channels.

That tier, called Current TV, includes CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and HLN, along with major local broadcast TV networks.

That tier starts at $40 per month with no contract, or $25 per month for one year and $30 per month in year two when those customers sign up for a two-year contract. Pricing on Current TV improved when TV is bundled with other Verizon services.

Current TV complements several other pay TV tiers for business customers, including Local TV (15-plus channels, starting at $25 per month under the no-contract price), as well as pricier packages that include lineups as large as 375 channels (145-plus in HD).

Verizon Communications appears to be the latest MVPD to integrate Netflix on its set-top boxes.

Per a support page, spotted this week by Fierce Cable, Netflix has been integrated on three models: the IPC1100P2 and IPC1100P1 (client), and the VMS1100 DVR (pictured).

Suggesting that this is a soft-launch, Verizon hasn’t commented beyond what’s stated on the web page, which notes that the integration includes a row dedicated to “My List” selections (broken down by genres such as comedies and dramas, though older devices may not have rows of movie categories.

Integrating Netflix and select other OTT services on the set-top box has become a common practice for MVPDs as they look to keep pay TV subs engaged their platforms and in their environments rather than having them toggle to a separate streaming player or the app store of a smart TV.

RELATED: OTT Becomes A-OK on the STB

Examples of others that have integrated Netflix on set-top boxes include Comcast, Dish Network, Liberty Global, as well as TiVo’s mix of pay TV partners (including Liberty-owned  Virgin Media), as well as those that are working with Espial, including WideOpenWest. Charter Communications also plans to integrate Netflix and other OTT services on its new Worldbox platform.

RELATED: Comcast Streams Netflix 4K Fare to X1 Boxes

Following a string of trials, Verizon said it will launch 5G-based residential broadband services in as many as five markets in 2018.

First up will be Sacramento, Calif., which will get the service – a fixed wireless offering -- in the second half of 2018. Verizon will provide details (such as pricing and speed options) and additional launch markets at a later date.

Verizon estimates that the markets covered by its first wave of deployments will cover about 30 million homes. That will enable Verizon to raise the level of competition with cable operators and other broadband service providers. 

RELATED: Verizon Exec: ‘Meaningful’ 5G Deployments to Start in 2018

Verizon has been testing “pre-commercial” gigabit broadband service this year using millimeter wave spectrum in 11 markets, including Ann Arbor, Mich.; Atlanta, Bernardsville, N.J.; Brockton, Mass.; Dallas; Denver; Houston; Miami; Sacramento; Seattle; and Washington, D.C.

RELATED: Verizon Gets Fix on 5G Trials

Verizon, which has teamed up with vendors such as Ericsson, Intel, Qualcomm and Samsung, has been using those trials to see how the technology perform in a range of urban and suburban areas that have different densities with respect to buildings and foliage.

Verizon stressed that the 5G commercial launch won’t have a material impact on Verizon’s capex plans for 2018, as its capital spending program will be “consistent with the past several years.”

Though fixed-wireless broadband is the first commercial application for 5G, the technology will also support mobile services, Internet of Things deployments, as well as services that require low-latency, such as self-driving cars.

“This is a landmark announcement for customers and investors who have been waiting for the 5G future to become a reality,” Hans Vestberg, Verizon’s president of global networks and chief technology officer, said in a statement. “We appreciate our strong ecosystem partners for their passion and technological support in helping us drive forward with 5G industry standards, for both fixed and mobile applications. The targeted initial launches we are announcing today will provide a strong framework for accelerating 5G’s future deployment on the global standards.”

Adding a big name to its customer list, Qwilt said Verizon Communications is deploying the vendor’s Open Caching platform as part of a next-gen content and app delivery system that will improve the streaming QoE while also supporting new bandwidth-intensive offerings such as augmented reality, virtual reality and 4K live streaming.

“As demand for data and video services increases, Qwilt’s open caching solution helps our network meet today’s demand as well as creates the scalable network necessary for the future,” Lee Hicks, VP of network planning at Verizon, said in a statement. “In fact, we’ve already seen a 20% reduction in core traffic in markets where the Qwilt solution is deployed.”

Qwilt and Verizon are both members of the Streaming Video Alliance, a group that has been developing an Open Caching specification/architecture aimed at driving scale into streaming video by caching popular content toward the edges of the network. Verizon is among the service providers that has been testing this new architecture.

RELATED: Charter, Verizon Among Group to Trial New ‘Open Caching’ Architecture

Other service providers that are on board with Qwilt include Telecom Italia, Mediacom Communications, the Wi2 Division of KDDI (Japan), and Digicel. Qwilt said it has more than 100 deployments worldwide.

It was a mixed bag for Verizon Fios in Q3, as its pay TV business remained under siege even as the telco continued to tack on Fios internet customers.

Verizon lost 18,000 Fios TV subs in Q3, versus 36,000 additions in the year-ago quarter. Verizon, which has lost 46,000 Fios TV subs through the first three quarters of 2017, ended the period with 4.64 million subs in the category.

Fios video results “were pressured due to the ongoing shift from traditional linear video to over-the-top offerings, as well as competitive promotional activity,” Matthew Ellis, Verizon’s EVP and CFO, said Thursday on the company’s Q3 earnings call.

Verizon, which recently revamped its free, ad-based go90 streaming service, is looking to key in on the OTT trend with its own internet-delivered skinny TV package. That effort didn’t come up on the call, but Bloomberg reported this week that the product is delayed, and isn’t expected to launch until Q1 2017 or later.

RELATED: Verizon’s OTT TV Service Delayed to Spring 2018: Report

Ellis later reiterated Verizon’s view that “traditional linear TV bundle is not long-term sustainable and you saw our reaction to that when we launched some of the different plans that we launched at that point in time.

“We are not surprised by what we are seeing around the TV,” he added. “But I would tell you what is important, when you move to over-the-top for your video entertainment, the quality of that broadband connection becomes more important than ever and if you want a quality broadband connection Fios and fiber to the home connection is the best option out there.”

Verizon also added 66,000 Fios internet subs in Q3, down from 90,000 adds a year earlier, giving it a grand total of 5.8 million subs. With DSL losses of 76,000 factored in, Verizon lost 10,000 net high-speed internet customers in Q3, and a total of 6.97 million broadband connections.

Verizon also added 11,000 Fios digital voice subs in Q3, ending the period with 3.92 million.

With all categories tied in, Verizon ended Q3 with 14.37 million total Fios connections, up from 14.14 million a year earlier. Fios revenues grew 4.8%, to $2.94 million.

Verizon didn’t have much new to say about its 5G fixed wireless trials, with Ellis noting that they are “going very well” and that the plan remains to launch a fixed wireless broadband offering during the course of 2018.

RELATED: Verizon Exec: ‘Meaningful’ 5G Deployments to Start in 2018

However, Ellis did say that Verizon plans to elaborate further on that trial activity later during the current quarter.

Verizon Communications said it has hired Rima Qureshi, the former president and CEO of Ericsson North America, as executive vice president and chief strategy officer.

Qureshi, who starts that job effective Nov. 6, will succeed Roy Chestnutt, who had previously announced plans to pursue interests outside Verizon and is expected to leave the company by year-end. Chestnutt had joined Verizon in 2011 from Motorola.

Qureshi will report to Verizon chair and CEO Lowell McAdam, and will take over responsibility for development and implementation of Verizon's overall corporate strategy, including business development and strategic investments, the company said.

Prior to becoming president and CEO of Ericsson North America in 2016, Qureshi was Ericsson's chief strategy officer and head of M&A.

Qureshi, who joined Ericsson in 1993, is currently on the board of MasterCard Inc. and Great West Lifco. She earned her undergraduate and master's degrees from McGill University in Montreal.

"We thank Roy for his leadership and strategic focus, which have helped transform Verizon into a major player in next-generation markets," McAdam said, in a statement. “The addition of Rima is another game-changer for Verizon. She's a visionary leader, with a global perspective and a thorough understanding of our industry and where it's headed."

The MCN 2017 Gatekeepers: Dish’s Andrew LeCuyer: Starting the ‘Hard Conversation’|Mediacom’s Italia Commisso Weinand: ‘Do the Right Thing’|WOW’s Roger Seiken: ‘It Has to Be a Win-Win’|A Veteran Gatekeeper For a New Distributor

Summing up the current state of programming in a simple sentence, the sometimes controversial but always erudite Sanford Bernstein media analyst Todd Juenger last month told a crowd of small and midsized cable operators, “Maybe content is king, but television networks are not content.”

Networks, Juenger argued during a talk at last month’s The Independent Show in Indianapolis, are aggregators of content. And aggregators are increasingly losing their once-tight grip on the pay TV landscape, as subscriber losses increase and advertising revenue dwindles.

It looks as if, finally, the pendulum is starting to swing in favor of distribution.

That, too, is another maybe. Traditional multichannel video programming distributors are gaining leverage, but nobody buys cable service to stare at the fiber network. Content is still key to the overall package. It’s just that the packages are changing.

Younger consumers, weaned on ad-free subscription video-on-demand services like Netflix, are increasingly expecting the same functionality from pay TV. That has led to a new flexibility in carriage talks.

LOOSENING THE BUNDLE
Programmers, which just a few years ago vehemently opposed skinny bundles when they were first introduced, now embrace the concept. Distributors, which in the past have chafed over having to buy a full suite of networks or nothing at all, are finding more and more programmers willing to loosen that bundle and even develop new content to help differentiate against competitive, lower priced offerings from over-the-top players.

In some cases, programmers have been more flexible about their networks, Mediacom Communications executive vice president of programming and human resources Italia Commisso Weinand said. She noted NBCUniversal’s willingness to shut down some less profitable networks, including Cloo, Esquire Network and Universal HD. But she warned distributors not to be complacent. “The wars are not over,” she said, adding that consolidation and subscriber losses are forcing content companies to reset rates more often. “You can work through consolidation; you can’t work through customers not coming back.

“If you look at the video universe, we had 100 million homes once upon a time,” she said. “There aren’t 100 million homes anymore; on a good day there’s maybe 85 million. Truly, cord-cutting has had an impact. That’s lost revenue for the networks; how do [they] get it back? Charge the same customers more money.”

Though the conflict between content providers and distribution methods may rage on, the battlefields are changing. In April, Charter Communications landed a deal with AMC Networks for exclusive content developed just for the two partners’ use. The first content installment from that partnership is expected in 2018.

As part of the agreement, Charter will have an exclusive initial U.S. window to the co-produced content for use on its own platform, while AMC Studios will retain subsequent rights, including the right to distribute the programming internationally. In June, Charter also began beta-testing Spectrum Stream, a sports-free skinny bundle that offers 25 channels for $19.95 per month. Comcast also struck a unique, exclusive deal with AMC Networks, which is providing the MSO with AMC Premiere, an ad-free version of its AMC cable channel available to Xfinity TV subscribers for $4.99 per month.

Smaller operators are encouraged by those developments, but see them as experiments more than anything else. Those operators also have some physical constraints — AMC Premiere would require bandwidth many small operators don’t possess.

Perhaps that attitude is helped along by the fact there aren’t many major deals up for negotiation. Charter’s deal with The Walt Disney Co. is expected to expire by the end of this year, but for the most part operators are focusing on retrans deals.

RETRANS RELIEF FOR SMALLER OPS
For smaller operators, some retrans relief may be coming from their buying co-op, the National Cable Television Cooperative. It has said it expects to begin negotiations soon for its members, 850 companies and nearly 10 million subscribers.

NCTC member WideOpenWest is still working through whether to participate in the group’s retrans negotiations, but believes the representation could be beneficial to small operators, senior vice president of programming Roger Seiken said.

“This is a huge service to their members,” Seiken said. “Those deals are tough if you don’t have a lot of subscribers; it’s tough to do the best job you can. Having an advocate like [NCTC CEO] Rich Fickle and [NCTC senior vice president of programming] Judy [Meyka] by your side negotiating those deals — it’s a great honor. I’m very excited about that.”

With the media landscape changing faster than the polar icecap, Multichannel News takes its annual look at the decision-makers for top pay TV distributors across the country, listed by number of video subscribers: The 2017 Gatekeepers.

AT&T
DANIEL YORK
EVP and Chief Content Officer

If its $108.7 billion deal to acquire Time Warner Inc. passes regulatory muster, AT&T won’t just be the largest content licensor in the world, it will be one of the largest content owners.

Once the deal is approved, AT&T will control more than 25 million video customers through satellite provider DirecTV, telco TV platform U-verse TV and virtual MVPD DirecTV Now, and will own iconic content brands like HBO, TBS, CNN and Cartoon Network.

As executive vice president and chief content officer for AT&T Entertainment Group, Daniel York and his team will oversee content acquisition for the distribution properties.

York, who was named to his current role in 2012, is a veteran of the business who oversees AT&T’s content and programming activities across all platforms, including satellite, mobile, online and IPTV.

He leads strategy, investments, negotiations, acquisitions, operations, development and original content, as well as NFL Sunday Ticket, Red Zone and Fantasy Zone content. York also manages the company’s four regional sports networks and the Audience Network, all Emmy award winners. Previously, York was chief content officer for DirecTV, where he oversaw similar functions.

Prior to joining DirecTV, he was president of AT&T content and advertising sales, where he developed the telco’s original content strategy, oversaw multiplatform content and ad sales activities, and helped build U-verse TV into the fastest-growing video provider in the U.S., going from zero to more than 5 million customers and $10 billion in annual revenue in under six years.

Before AT&T, York was head of programming and development for In Demand Networks, the leading video-on-demand, out-of-market sports package and pay-per-view provider. He began his career with HBO, where he worked for more than 12 years; in his last position there, he was responsible for distribution, marketing, sponsorship, content acquisitions and operations for HBO Sports’s pay-per-view business.

York is based at AT&T Entertainment Group headquarters in Los Angeles.

COMCAST
GREG RIGDON
EVP, Content Acquisition

Since coming from Charter Communications in 2010, Comcast Cable executive vice president of content acquisition Greg Rigdon has been part of some of the industry’s landmark deals — including Comcast’s 2012 renewal with The Walt Disney Co., which helped set the tone and template for years to come.

Rigdon oversees the strategic direction of the company’s content portfolio, including the negotiation of programming agreements for cable systems.

Among his recent accomplishments, in January Comcast ended a years-long dispute with 21st Century Fox’s YES Network, returning the regional sports network to Comcast’s New York-area customers. It had been dark since November 2015.

That deal also included continued carriage of Fox News Channel. Terms were not disclosed, but reports put the four-year pact for Fox News at about $1.50 per subscriber per month initially, with annual increases.

Also in January, the cable operator completed a comprehensive carriage deal with Spanish-language broadcaster Univision that also included broadcast network UniMás and cable network Galavisión, as well as its owned-and-operated stations.

The rest of the year is expected to be a bit more quiet; no major network renewals are expected.

Before joining Comcast, Rigdon was Charter’s executive vice president, programming, business development and strategy. He also previously held senior roles in programming strategy, business affairs and commerce at AOL.

Rigdon has a bachelor’s degree with high honors from Oberlin College and a master’s degree in Russian studies from Princeton University.

KEY LIEUTENANTS: Jennifer Gaiski, senior vice president, content acquisition; Sarah Gitchell, senior vice president/deputy general counsel; Justin Smith, senior vice president, content acquisition

CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS
DAVID ELLEN
Senior EVP

David Ellen joined Charter as senior executive vice president in 2016, but he has already been involved in some major deals.

Earlier this year, Charter settled a months-long legal dispute with 21st Century Fox over how its programming contracts are interpreted. Court documents in July indicated the suit had been “discontinued with prejudice,” and though neither side would comment, it appeared the suit had been settled.

In addition, Fox Networks Group channels, including the Fox broadcast network, FX, National Geographic and the Fox Sports-owned RSNs, apparently reached a deal at the same time. Those networks’ deals expired in April, but they had remained on the air through several extensions. While no formal announcement of a deal has come, Charter systems are still carrying the channels.

Ellen was also instrumental in a less-contentious deal, the AMC Networks content partnership announced in April that calls for Charter and AMC to co-produce, co-develop and co-fund original programming that will initially run exclusively on Charter systems. The first content from that agreement is expected to debut next year.

Ellen oversees several Charter business and corporate functions, including programming, Spectrum Networks, human resources, communications, diversity, security, regulatory policy support and compliance, and legal support for several of those areas.

He joined Charter from Cablevision Systems (now part of Altice USA), where he served as executive vice president and general counsel. Before Cablevision, Ellen served as deputy general counsel at IAC, the multi-brand media and internet company.

Earlier in his career, Ellen worked at the Federal Communications Commission and before that was a law clerk for now-retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor at the U.S. Supreme Court. He also clerked for Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg when they were each on the U.S. Court of Appeals.

He received a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College; a law degree from Harvard Law School, where he was president of the Harvard Law Review; and a master’s degree from Cambridge University, where he was a Marshall Scholar.

TOM MONTEMAGNO
EVP, Programming Acquisition

Tom Montemagno joined Charter Communications as executive vice president, programming acquisition, in 2016 and leads its negotiations with a full range of content providers, from major multichannel media companies and sports networks to local broadcasters. He negotiates all facets of Charter’s programming offerings, including on-demand and home-streaming rights on multiple platforms.

Montemagno joined Charter from Cablevision, where he most recently served as executive vice president of programming. During his 27-year tenure, he held such leadership positions as senior vice president of programming acquisition. He was Cablevision’s lead negotiator with content companies.

Montemagno has a bachelor’s degree in marketing from St. John’s University in New York.

KEY LIEUTENANTS: David Lange, group vice president, programming acquisition; Andrew Rosenberg, senior vice president, programming acquisition; Adam Weinstein, senior vice president, programming acquisition

DISH NETWORK
WARREN SCHLICHTING
EVP, Marketing, Programming and Media Sales

A veteran advertising and media executive, Warren Schlichting oversees the acquisition and renewal of all programming content for Dish Network, including national networks and cable channels, Latino content, local broadcast stations, and premium services such as HBO, Showtime and Starz. Schlichting also oversees Dish’s national marketing efforts and Dish Media Sales, the company’s advertising-sales division.

Prior to joining Dish in 2011, Schlichting led Comcast’s advanced advertising efforts on multiple media and ad delivery platforms, including broadband, interactive television and video-on-demand. Before arriving at Comcast, he was CEO of Hiwire, a Los Angeles-based technology company that provided online ad replacement software for Clear Channel and other radio station groups. He also served in executive positions for Morgan Stanley and the William E. Simon private-equity group.

Schlichting graduated with honors with a degree in Economics from Harvard University, where he was a four-year member of the varsity football team.

KEY LIEUTENANTS: Josh Clark, vice president of programming; Izabela Slowikowska, vice president of international programming; Melisa Ordonez, director of programming acquisition; Ankit Bishnoi, content acquisition for Sling TV

ANDREW LECUYER
SVP, Programming

As Dish’s senior vice president of programming, Andy LeCuyer leads the acquisition and renewal of programming content for Dish and Sling TV. In this role, he leads general entertainment, local broadcast, sports, movie studio and Latino content acquisition, including securing satellite and digital rights (encompassing traditional linear, video-on-demand, TV everywhere and OTT), as well as programming operations.

LeCuyer joined Dish in 2011 as director of programming, overseeing local retransmission relationships nationwide. Soon after, he assumed responsibility for premium, pay-per-view and international programming.

Most recently, LeCuyer led multiple negotiations to secure landmark programming agreements for the launch of Sling TV, the U.S. pay TV industry’s first live over-the-top television service.

Prior to joining Dish, LeCuyer served as vice president of strategic planning for a consumer electronics retailer. Additionally, he spent more than four years as a management consultant for McKinsey, covering a wide range of industries including retail and IT services.

LeCuyer earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Princeton University and a master’s in business administration from Yale School of Management. Following ROTC training during his undergraduate studies, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, where he served four years in progressive leadership roles and achieved the rank of captain.

NATIONAL CABLE TELEVISION COOPERATIVE
JUDY MEYKA
EVP, Programming

Judy Meyka, executive vice president of programming for the National Cable Television Cooperative, has spent more than 24 years in the cable television industry. In her current role with the NCTC, she leads the negotiation of video content acquisition agreements across multiple formats and platforms on behalf of more than 800 independent video distributors.

Meyka has been a central part of several key programming negotiations for NCTC members. Last year, the co-op successfully negotiated a deal with AMC Networks that didn’t force members to carry  all six of the programmer’s networks on their most popular tiers, a key development.

Later this year, the NCTC plans to take an even bigger bull by the horns: negotiating its members’ retransmission-consent deals with broadcast groups. Previously, Meyka served in several executive leadership positions, most recently as senior vice president, programming, for Adelphia Communications.

Prior to joining Adelphia, she was senior vice president, distribution, for In Demand and also worked as vice president, programming, for cable distributors AT&T Broadband and MediaOne Group.

Meyka is a graduate of the University of Michigan and received her law degree from the University of Denver College of Law.

KEY LIEUTENANTS: Stewart Myers, vice president, programming; Shelley Thompson, vice president, programming

VERIZON COMMUNICATIONS
ERIN McPHERSON
Head of Content Acquisition and Programming

Erin McPherson joined Verizon last December from short-form video pioneer Maker Studios. As head of the telco’s content activities, she oversees programming, strategic partnerships and original content across distribution platforms including Fios, OTT initiatives, IPTV, Oath, Go90, wireless and 5G.

McPherson replaced long-time Verizon content chief Terry Denson. She reports directly to Brian Angiolet, senior vice president of consumer products and new business development.

Prior to Maker, McPherson was vice president/head of video programming and originals at Yahoo, where she grew the company’s original video roster to more than 80 ongoing series.

McPherson graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and received her bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, from Middlebury College.

COX COMMUNICATIONS
ANDREW ALBERT
SVP, Programming

Cox Communications senior vice president of programming Andrew Albert oversees all video provider relationships and content acquisition, and has led the MSO’s carriage negotiations with such content producers as The Walt Disney Co., Turner, NBCUniversal, Viacom and 21st Century Fox.

Albert is actively involved in setting Cox’s video product strategy, including the deployment of TV everywhere, video-on-demand and high-definition services, as well as the company’s multicultural programming strategy.

Albert joined Cox in 1995 as director of programming and was promoted to executive director of programming in 2002. The following year he was promoted to vice president. He has served in his current role since 2013.

Prior to joining Cox, Albert was director of programming and director of budgets and financial analysis for TeleCable in Norfolk, Va. Before that he was in the financial management program with General Electric, where he served as a sales and marketing analyst.

KEY LIEUTENANTS: Suzanne Fenwick, vice president, content acquisition; Mark Gathen, vice president, content acquisition; Chris Tygh, vice president, content acquisition

ALTICE USA
MICHAEL SCHREIBER
EVP and Chief Content Officer

About one year after European telecom company Altice N.V. purchased Cablevision Systems, making it the fourth-largest U.S. cable operator, Altice USA debuted as a separate, publicly traded stock. With its new currency, executive vice president and chief content officer Michael Schreiber, who joined the company from Comcast in 2016, could have even more clout with programmers as the potential for additional industry consolidation increases.

Schreiber is up to the task. Shortly after Altice announced a corporate-wide rebranding, Schreiber and his team cut a new programming deal with Viacom that not only returned more than a dozen of its youth-oriented channels to Altice USA’s Suddenlink Communications unit after a two-year hiatus, but brought new advanced advertising capabilities to the U.S. operations.

Schreiber is responsible for all programming-related developments, negotiations and agreements covering all content platforms company-wide. In addition to the Viacom partnership, he has forged deals with major programmers and broadcasters across the Optimum and Suddenlink footprints.

Prior to joining Altice USA, Schreiber was senior vice president of content acquisition for Comcast, where he led the execution of new media and digital content deals. He was one of the lead negotiators of key programming agreements and renewals, and oversaw acquisition for platforms including VOD, TV everywhere, Streampix, Watchable and advanced advertising.

Before joining Comcast, Schreiber worked at NBCUniversal, most recently as vice president, business development, digital distribution. He also assisted in the founding, development and launch of Hulu.

KEY LIEUTENANTS: Alan Dannenbaum, senior vice president, programming (a Comcast veteran); Bradley Fleisher, senior vice president, programming (a Time Warner Cable and NBCU veteran)

MEDIACOM COMMUNICATIONS
ITALIA COMMISSO WEINAND
EVP, Programming and Human Resources

Since joining Mediacom Communications as its third employee, Italia Commisso Weinand has worked alongside Rocco Commisso, her brother and fellow cable hall of famer, to build Mediacom into the nation’s fifth-largest cable operator, serving almost 1.4 million customers.

As the company embarked on a series of major acquisitions, Italia’s insight and experience allowed the company’s early operations, human resources, marketing and programming policies. Understanding that Mediacom needed to attract and retain an employee workforce of dedicated and proficient individuals, she developed a family-oriented corporate culture based on fairness, diversity and career growth.

It is a policy that has paid off, as Mediacom has grown from fewer than 20 employees in 1996 to more than 4,700 today.

Commisso Weinand began her 40-year cable career at Time Warner Cable in New York, and worked for Comcast immediately prior to becoming a founding member of Mediacom. Throughout her professional life, she has committed to numerous charitable causes, including Habitat for Humanity, Hope Through Care, Lake Drive School of the Deaf and the Knights of Columbus.

A Cable TV Pioneer, Commisso Weinand was named to the 2004 Wonder Women class by Multichannel News and Women in Cable Telecommunications. In addition to serving on Mediacom’s board, she is a board member for The Cable Center and The Emma L. Bowen Foundation and a past board member of Cable Positive and WICT.

KEY LIEUTENANTS: Barry Paden, group vice president, programming; Joseph Appio, vice president, programming; John Woods, vice president, advanced consumer services; Glenn Goldsmith, consultant

WOW
ROGER SEIKEN
SVP, Programming Roger Seiken joined WOW in March following long-time programming chief Peter Smith’s retirement a few months earlier. Based in Denver, Seiken will manage content provider relationships and oversee all programming negotiations with cable networks and broadcasters.

Prior to joining WOW, Seiken spent more than 12 years at Verizon, where he led the business and legal affairs effort for content acquisition for Verizon’s Fios TV, mobile and digital video platforms. As an original member of the Fios TV team, he helped that business grow from a start-up video service to a top MVPD with more than 5 million subscribers.

Prior to Verizon, Seiken worked for Discovery Communications in both affiliate sales and legal affairs roles. Before that he practiced corporate and securities law at Hogan Lovells and at Fried, Frank in Washington, D.C.

KEY LIEUTENANTS: Robin Feller, director of programming; Jim Waechter, programming financial analyst

Verizon’s 2015 acquisition of AOL and its pending one for certain assets of Yahoo fit into plan to kick the tires on a new over-the-top video play, Lowell McAdam, chairman and CEO, said Monday at the J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in Boston.

“The platform will be in place to do an over-the-top sort of play…and we’ll go out and test it,” McAdam said. “But we have not committed to a launch date or anything. We’re going to see how this evolves.”

Verizon, which recently retooled its free, ad-based OTT service, go90, is reportedly working on a national OTT TV service that would feature “dozens” of channels. Such a move would put Verizon in the virtual MVPD category alongside several others, including Sling TV, DirecTV Now, fuboTV, PlayStation Vue, Hulu and YouTube TV.

REPORT: Verizon to Join Virtual MVPD Race: Report

McAdam didn’t spell out exactly what Verizon has in mind, but pointed to other OTT efforts already underway, including a digital joint venture with Hearst, its exclusive NFL deal to offer NFL games on mobile devices, and a recent deal to offer National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) games on go90.

RELATED: go90 Nets NWSL Deal

As far as how OTT fits into the AOL-Yahoo strategy, McAdam pointed out that Tim Armstrong, AOL’s CEO, has been focused on several content “pillars” that include news, sports, finance, entertainment and lifestyle.

McAdam also said Verizon remains optimistic about using 5G as a wired replacement/alternative for gigabit-class wired broadband service and, generally, how 5G can square with Verizon’s out-of-footprint TV and broadband strategy.

“As we have built that architecture, 5G, on a fixed broadband perspective was the best application for us,” he said. “We did not need to wait for all of the mobile standards, we didn't have to wait for it to be…crammed into an iPhone or a Samsung Galaxy device. You can use basically your home router that you have today, just put some different chips in it. We’re working with Intel on that…and you are then a broadband provider and a TV provider outside of your franchise footprint.”

He also downplayed concerns that 5G, as a fixed wireless technology used in millimeter wave spectrum, would require line-of-sight and would have trouble dealing with obstacles such a trees and buildings.

McAdam warned against locking into wireless “design principals from the 2000s,” holding that the cost for small cells have come down and that antenna technology has improved.

He noted that the expectation was that Verizon was expecting less than 1,000 feet of propagation to deliver gigabit speeds, but found that field trials and efforts in South Korea have shown that “we're seeing substantially more than that 1,000-foot propagation.”

“So, we're feeling very bullish on it at this point, and we'll be able to say more about that after we go through the trials over the summer,” McAdam said.

 RELATED: Verizon Gets a Fix on 5G Trials

Showcasing the potential for multi-vendor setups for 5G, Verizon is working with Samsung Electronics and Cisco Systems on a 5G field trial in Ann Arbor, Mich.

The trial rollout there follows Verizon’s announcement earlier this year that it would test speedy, 5G-based fixed wireless services in a total of 11 markets by mid-year. Those tests aim to help Verizon test out a range of variables and parameters spanning vendors, geographies, population densities and demographics.

RELATED: Verizon Gets a Fix on 5G Trials

The Ann Arbor trial is the first to try out a multi-vendor deployment of 5G-based products. That one is pairing a 5G virtualized packet core that’s part of the Cisco Ultra Services Platform with Cisco Advanced Services and Samsung’s virtual RAN solutions (vRAN) and 5G radio base stations and 5G home routers.

RELATED: Low Costs, Dense Markets Critical to Starry’s Success: Analyst

“We are excited about the rapid progression of 5G technology with our 5G Technology Forum partners,” Adam Koeppe, VP of network planning at Verizon, said in a statement.   “Interoperability, a key milestone towards 5G commercialization, allows for highly flexible network design to meet emerging 5G use cases.”

RELATED: Verizon Adding Lots of Fiber to Diet for 5G Rollout

Verizon Communications is flirting with 1-Gig consumer broadband service with the debut of Fios Gigabit Connection, a new optimized offering that delivers up to 940 Mbps down and 880 Mbps up starting at $69.99 a month.

The debut of the near-1-Gig offering from Fios follows the mid-January introduction of Fios Instant Internet, a symmetrical 750 Mbps service that was initially available to about 7 million homes and businesses.

RELATED: Verizon Fios Launching Symmetrical 750-Meg Broadband

Verizon noted that the network performance of Instant Internet exceeded 750 Mbps, and has since “fine-tuned the service with new firmware and diagnostic tools” to ratchet up speeds further. . Existing customers on Fios Instant Internet service will automatically receive Fios Gigabit Connection and also see their bills lowered (Verizon initially sold that 750 Meg offering for $149.99 a month as a standalone, and $169.99 a month as part of a triple-play bundle).

The new offering starts at $69.99 a month as a standalone, or as part of a triple-play bundle that starts at $79.99 a month, when ordered online.

Verizon said Fios Gigabit Connection is available to more than 8 million homes in parts of the New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Richmond, Va., Hampton Roads, Va., Boston, Providence and Washington, D.C. areas.

Verizon is launching the faster tier as it sees competitors such as Comcast and RCN deploy DOCSIS 3.1-based services that deliver up to 1 Gbps in the downstream, but paired with much slower upstream speeds. The cable industry is pursuing a Full Duplex annex to D3.1 that will enable symmetrical multi-gigabit speeds.

 Verizon added 35,000 Fios Internet subs in Q1 2017, extending that total to 5.68 million. 

Verizon Communications is open to merger discussions with a small set of other telecom and media giants, including Comcast, Walt Disney Co. or CBS, company CEO Lowell McAdam told Bloomberg.

Bloomberg said the exec would be interested in such merger talks if a resulting deal would help the company get better positioned for the shift toward video streaming and the infrastructure that would help to accelerate Verizon’s 5G plans.

“If Brian [Roberts, Comcast’s chairman and CEO] came knocking on the door, I’d have a discussion with him about it,” McAdam said, according to Bloomberg. “Given what I know about architecture, financial requirement, cultural fit, there’s never a dream deal.

Bloomberg said McAdam would also entertain M&A talks with Disney’s Bob Iger or CBS’s Les Mooves.

Verizon reportedly has already shown interest in acquiring Charter Communications, though Charter has apparently shown little to no interest in such potential overtures. Industry analyst Craig Moffett has since called such a marriage unlikely.

RELATED: Moffett: Verizon-Charter Deal Has Hurdles

McAdam’s comments to Bloomberg also come as Verizon bulks up on fiber to backhaul its ambitious 5G network rollout plans.

Earlier today, CNBC’s David Faber asked if Verizon would need to pursue a big infrastructure-focused deal to aid its 5G strategy.

RELATED: Verizon Adding Lots of Fiber to Diet for 5G Rollout

“I think our shareholders expect us to look at every option,” he told Faber. “But I would tell you right now we haven’t seen the architectural fit and we haven’t seen a willing seller and a buyer that have a meeting of the minds.”

With its eyes fixed on the massive amount of fiber that will be required to underpin its next-gen 5G wireless network, Verizon Communications agreed to a $1.05 billion, three-year minimum purchase agreement with Corning.

Under the deal, Corning will provide and for Verizon to buy up to 20 million kilometers (12.4 million miles) of optical fiber each year, from 2018 to 2020. Verizon’s initial deployment centers on Boston, where it’s already begun to expand its  Fios network.

RELATED: Verizon Boots Up Fios Service in Boston

Fiber will serve as the “cornerstone, building block for the next-generation network, and that network is going to look very different than what we’ve built in the past,” Lowell McAdam, Verizon’s chairman and CEO, said Tuesday in an interview with David Faber on CNBC, noting that the company’s coming 5G network will beef up capacity and support low-latency applications like smart cities and autonomous cars.

“But you can’t do it if you don’t have fiber built deep into the network compared to what we’ve done in the past,” McAdam said.

While Verizon has leaned on fiber for its Fios network, the company expects it will have to drop six to eight strands of fiber to street lights and neighborhoods for its planned networks.

Corning, meanwhile, announced that it will keep up with demand by expanding capacity by way of a $250 million investment into its optical fiber-making facilities in North Carolina. “We have to put up some fresh steel to make this happen, Wendell Weeks, Corning’s chairman & CEO told Faber.

McAdam reiterated that Verizon will be testing 5G, initially as a fixed wireless system, in 11 markets this year. Those tests “will be very informative to us,” he added.

He also gave a shout out to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and the work being done to facilitate small cell deployments.

Though Verizon appears to be taking a build vs. buy for now, Faber also asked McAdam if Verizon had its eyes on a “large acquisition” focused on infrastructure that can help with the 5G rollout amid rumors that Verizon has had its eye on Charter Communications.

RELATED: Charter Stock Soars on Verizon Sale Chatter

McAdam didn’t rule anything out, but said “as we’ve looked at companies round the U.S., there’s nobody building to the architecture that we’re talking about” and that network investment “is going to be the cornerstone” of Verizon’s strategy.

“I think our  shareholders expect us to look at every option,” McAdam said. “But I would tell you right now we haven’t seen the architectural fit and we haven’t seen a willing seller and a buyer that have a meeting of the minds.”

After several failed attempts to succeed in the one transport medium it has so far failed to conquer — wireless — the cable industry is gearing up for battle, using pricing and its superior broadband products to slice market share from entrenched incumbent providers.

Comcast fired the first shot with the unveiling of its Xfinity Mobile product last week, a 4G and WiFi hybrid that appears to compete primarily on price. But unlike other failed attempts at breaking into the wireless market, Xfinity Mobile appears to be more of a defensive play than an offensive one, geared toward reducing churn and preserving the existing business as much as gaining new customers.

Comcast scored big with consumers with the elegant navigation of its X1 platform, currently available to more than 50% of its footprint and one of the reasons it was able to grow basic video subscribers last year for the first time in a decade. X1 customers are less likely to churn than other video subscribers and use more services.

With Xfinity Mobile, the nation’s largest cable operator appears to be extending the X1 concept to the wireless business, offering competitive pricing as well as a few bells and whistles, such as the ability to text customer support and authenticate all of a customer’s Xfinity apps in one swoop.

Telsey Advisory Group media analyst Tom Eagan said Xfinity Mobile has some compelling features — he particularly liked the flexible packages and the ability to text customer service — but he doesn’t believe the intention is to offer, at least initially, a state-of-the-art product.

“I don’t think what they’re offering here is head-and-shoulders above the rest, feature-wise,” Eagan said. “But what we’ve seen is it tends to lower churn. The fact they are committing to the [mobile virtual network operator] means that this is going to be an economically accretive event.”

Eagan also doesn’t believe, despite the price, that Comcast is starting a price war.

“I don’t think this is a major price war — Comcast isn’t coming in with a price of $20 per line,” Eagan said. “To me, it’s about the benefit of the overall business.”

He pointed to Liberty Global’s Virgin Media, which has been offering a quad play since 2014. What Virgin Media found is wireless makes the bundle extremely sticky — churn for its quad play was about 0.7%. That compares with 2%-3% and higher for some U.S. cable companies.

“The story makes sense because of what we saw with X1,” Eagan said. “I think Comcast customers have a positive experience. That should help [the MSO] in terms of deeper penetration.”

DIFFERENCE OF OPINION
To the more skeptical, Xfinity Mobile appears to be what has sunk previous ventures into the space — a cellular phone service whose only differentiator is its name. But in a briefing with analysts last week, Comcast executives tried hard to drive home the point that they indeed had something different on their hands.

What seems to be the most different is the price — Comcast is offering unlimited data plans with no access fees for $45 per month for its X1 platform customers and $65 per month for the rest of its base. The wireless offering can only be purchased as part of a Comcast bundle — either voice, video or high-speed data — but customers also can opt for a pay-as-you-go plan that charges $12 per Gigabyte of data.

“This will be designed to support the core cable business,” Comcast Cable CEO Dave Watson said at the launch event in New York last week. “We do have confidence in our ability to compete in a crowded marketplace.”

Comcast’s presentation was chock full of data. Watson, who spent years in Comcast’s former cellular division before becoming chief operating officer in 2010, touted the size of the potential market.

Of all the cable operators in the country, Comcast has the greatest scale — 22.5 million basic video customers, 24.7 million broadband customers and 11.7 million digital telephone subscribers. In all, it has 28.6 million customer relationships. But that scale is dwarfed by the size of Verizon Communications’s and AT&T’s wireless bases, at 114 million and 110 million customers, respectively. Even No. 3 wireless provider T-Mobile USA has 71.5 million customers and No. 4 Sprint has 59.5 million. From the outset, Comcast will be a distant No. 5 in a five-player market.

Scale is essential in the wireless market: It is the main difference between Verizon’s wireless margins of 14% and Sprint’s -5.6% margins.

“It’s a fixed-cost business,” Moody’s Investors Service vice president and senior credit officer Mark Stodden said. “So it becomes a money loser if you’re operating below a certain scale, because there is a certain standard of network coverage they need to have as table stakes. It is a curious time to get into the wireless business.”

At the same time, the wireless players are encroaching on the video business. AT&T purchased DirecTV in 2015 for $48.7 billion and in December launched its DirecTV Now over-the-top service, utilizing wireline and wireless transport. Last year, the carrier said DirecTV Now customers that were also customers of AT&T Wireless service would not be subject to data limits when watching the video service on its network.

Verizon, which launched its wireline Fios TV service more than a decade ago, introduced a free mobile video service go90 in 2015 (which is currently undergoing an overhaul). And last month it revealed a new corporate structure aimed in part to make it easier to launch its own mobile over-the-top service. The wireless business is clearly going video.

MOBILE INTENTIONS
Mobility is obviously the future, but until recently the cable business was content to provide the content and the fiber backbone that made that possible. While that has changed, merely stapling a wireless service onto an existing bundle hasn’t worked before and won’t likely work again.

But Stodden added that the growing adoption of mobile video is forcing pay TV distributors to at least look toward wireless platforms.

“You need to assess whether you need to own that mobile distribution platform to continue to play in that space,” Stodden said. While that could eventually mean buying a wireless carrier, he believes the safest route is an MVNO.

“Purchasing a wireless company could be potentially damaging in some areas because there would be areas where they would be wireless-only,” Stodden said. “Those would be money-losing areas. Within their wireline footprint they could have a pretty good cost structure because they have a lot of network capacity and they have a very dense footprint.

The MVNO architecture gives them a lot of flexibility to target only their wireline footprint.” Other cable operators’ plans for wireless ventures remain uncertain. Charter Communications activated its Verizon MVNO last year and has said it will release a product sometime next year. Chairman and CEO Tom Rutledge has kept the company’s wireless plans close to the vest, but he has hinted that the Stamford, Conn.-based operator will lean more toward 5G. Charter had no comment on Comcast’s Xfinity Mobile plans.

“We have no additional information regarding our wireless plans at this time,” Charter said in a statement.

Xfinity Mobile is Comcast’s cautious approach to the wireless business, Pivotal Research Group CEO and senior media & communications analyst Jeff Wlodarczak said.

“They are dipping their toes in the water and seem to be taking a go-slow approach,” Wlodarczak said, adding that the most compelling aspect of the service is its ability to automatically hand off calls and data between its WiFi and 4G LTE networks.

And though Comcast likely can build a formidable wireless business, he said, Wlodarczak doesn’t see any cause for the bigger players to panic just yet.

“Maybe five years from now you can have a $1 billion, low-margin business that helps reduce overall churn,” Wlodarczak said. “I don’t think the existing wireless players are quaking in their boots from this initial foray.”

UNLIMITED BATTLE FOR SUBS
Over the past several months the top wireless players have upped the ante in their own battles for customers, with Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile all offering unlimited data plans. Verizon has been particularly aggressive, offering unlimited data for $45 per month for a four-line family plan service, a free iPhone 7 and offering to buy out the customer’s existing wireless contract. In a research note in February after that Verizon plan was unveiled, MoffettNathanson principal and senior analyst Craig Moffett estimated that Verizon could potentially spend $6,000 to acquire a family of five’s business.

Xfinity Mobile isn’t spending nearly that much. Comcast estimated it would spend about $200 million to $300 million for the first year of the service and said at the launch event that it would be profitable.

Wireless has been an elusive target for the cable industry for decades. From the PCS (short for Personal Communications Services) partnerships with Sprint in the 1990s, to joint ventures in the 2000s with Sprint again that were supposed to usher in the age of mobile video, cable has spent years and billions of dollars to pair its superior wireline network with wireless. It came close in 2005 with the Pivot joint venture with Sprint that was abandoned in 2008. Later that year, it invested in WiMax pioneer Clearwire, but ended up selling its interests to, you guessed it, Sprint in 2012, some at substantial discounts.

Not every cable wireless venture went bust. Its investments in WiFi have proven to be a major customer retention tool, ironically as a way to offset high wireless data charges from Sprint and other carriers.

Cable appeared to throw in the towel in 2011 when the SpectrumCo consortium, a group of Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, sold its wireless spectrum licenses to Verizon for $3.9 billion. That deal included a provision that allowed the parties to activate an MVNO agreement, which Comcast did in October 2016. Charter, which purchased Time Warner Cable and Bright House in May, inherited that MVNO agreement as well.

Comcast and the rest of the cable business are attacking the wireless business at a time when margins are at an all-time low, customer growth has peaked and the two largest players, Verizon and AT&T, have essentially started a price war that will eventually suck in every participant, including cable. Just how long cable would be able to stomach a lengthy price battle — it has vehemently avoided them in the past — is the big question.

Whether this product will be a gateway toward 5G, the newest wireless technology that promises to deliver ultra-fast broadband speeds over short distances, remains to be seen. But for the time being there appears to be some wiggle room, as Comcast will initially test the service with employees and fully roll it out to its footprint by the end of the current quarter. That gives it time to work out any kinks in the service and add any features.

And as is the case with most technological endeavors, there are likely to be kinks. It will be up to Comcast and the rest of the cable industry to make sure those kinks don’t end up strangling what could finally be a lucrative wireless opportunity.

Verizon Communications said Wednesday that it had closed its acquisition of XO Communications’s fiber-optic network business, wrapping up a $1.8 billion deal announced almost a year ago.

RELATED: Verizon Puts Up $1.8B for XO’s Fiber Business

Verizon noted that the deal will play into its plans to build and deliver next-gen networks, and is expected to provide some critical backhaul capabilities for its 5G deployment.

The XO deal “will add to our fiber footprint and provides us with additional metro rings in 45 out of the top 50 US markets,” Matt Ellis, Verizon’s EVP and CFO, said on the company’s recent Q4 earnings call. “5G wireless technology is a focus for us. We are now launching about 10 pre-commercial pilots across the country with multiple use cases including dense urban and suburban neighborhoods.”

He later noted that “fiber is going to be critical for us” as Verizon densifies its cellular network and preps for 5G.

Verizon said it will immediately get to work on integrating XO’s operations and facilities, and that it expects the deal to deliver north of $1.5 billion in operating and expense savings in net present value.

Tied to the fiber deal with XO, Verizon has struck an agreement to lease certain wireless spectrum from former XO affiliate NextLink Wireless. Verizon also has an option, exercisable under certain circumstances, to buy NextLink.

Comcast reinforced its commitment to a wireless product last week after naming longtime executive Greg Butz to head up its new Comcast Mobile division, a unit that could be the next step in the cable company’s journey toward offering customers full mobility.

The move, part of broader changes including the departure of chief network officer John Schanz and cable division chief financial officer Cathy Avgiris (see sidebar), comes about eight months after Comcast notified Verizon Communications last October of its intention to activate its Mobile Virtual Network Operator agreement with the carrier.

The MVNO agreement, part of the deal by SpectrumCo (a consortium of Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks) to sell its wireless licenses to Verizon for $3.9 billion in 2012, would essentially allow Comcast to resell Verizon wireless service under its own brand name, a dramatic change from its past endeavors in the wireless business.

Comcast has been part of wireless partnerships that all went bust: Sprint PCS and Pivot with Sprint; and one with WiMax pioneer Clear-wire. An MVNO would allow Comcast to resell a reliable service with lower upfront costs.

Selecting Butz to head up the group was no accident. As executive VP of sales and marketing, Butz has been a key part of Comcast’s sales success, and past wireless endeavors have lacked a strong marketing component, according to some people familiar with the company.

“Selling to the base is going to be critical, and Greg [Butz] knows how to sell into Comcast’s customer base,” one source said.

Butz helped create Comcast’s broadband business in the early days of high-speed data, responsible for product strategy, business strategy and marketing. He also has a cellular business background, serving stints at Comcast Cellular and Bell Atlantic Mobile.

Comcast declined to comment on the Comcast Mobile unit, but sources familiar with the company said its formation is a logical next step in what may be a slow and steady process. Comcast Cable CEO Neil Smit has said publicly that the cable operator was in “test and learn” mode concerning its wireless plans, and that still appears to be the case.

“I expect Comcast to go about this pretty slow,” Pivotal Research Group CEO and senior media & communications analyst Jeff Wlodarczak said, adding that it could be one to two years before Comcast unveils a product.

While Comcast isn’t letting on what that could be, most analysts believe a hybrid WiFi-cellular phone could be first out of the gate — a mainly WiFifirst phone that hands off to the cellular network when the customer leaves a hotspot. It could give Comcast the ever-elusive quad play of video, wireline voice, data and wireless that operators have chased for decades.

The timing is better now than in the past, Wlodarczak said, for two reasons: Wireless pricing is high and wireless usage is off the charts.

Wlodarczak said offering a service over an already reliable wireless network at a cheaper price could gain traction. However, operators would have to be careful as to how low they go.

“If you really only need the MVNO as a fill-in — the tech is not quite there yet — you could seriously squeeze the telcos using their own network,” he said. “But this is the flaw with MVNOs; at some point the deal ends.”

Verizon Fios sub growth slowed again on a year-over-year basis in Q1.

The telco, which recently closed the sale of wireline assets in California, Texas and Florida to Frontier Communications,  said it added 36,000 Fios video subs in Q1, down from 90,000 adds in the year-ago quarter, and added 98,000 Fios Internet customers, down from 133,000 adds.

Verizon ended the quarter with 5.86 million Fios video subs, and 7.13 million Fios Internet subs. That equated to a Fios video penetration of 35.2% (down slightly from 36% a year ago), and Fios Internet penetration of 41.9% (versus 41.5%) in the year-ago period.

With DSL factored in, Verizon also shed 10,000 total broadband connections in the quarter, versus a net gain of 41,000 a year ago. Verizon ended the quarter with 9.21 million total broadband connections.

Verizon said about 78% of Fios Internet subs took tiers of 50 Mbps or more, and that 38% of Fios video sales in Q1 were for its slimmed-down Custom TV offering, which was recently revised into two different types of packages, including one with ESPN.

Verizon also added 46,000 Fios residential digital voice connections in the period, down from 59,000 in the year-ago period. It ended the period with 4.8 million Fios voice connections.

Verizon, which has embarked on a plan to expanding Fios into the Boston area, pulled in $3.52 billion in Fios revenues in Q1, up from $3.35 billion in the year-ago period.

On the wireless end, Verizon added 640,000 retail postpaid subs, ending the period with 112.6 million retail connections, a 3.7% increase, and 107.2 million retail postpaid connections, a 4.4% rise. Wireless revenues were $22 billion in Q1, down 1.5% as more subs selected unsubsidized device payment plans.

On a consolidated basis, Verizon posted earnings of $1.06 per share in Q1 2016, up from $1.02 per share in Q1 2015. Total operating revenues in Q1 reached $32.2 billion, up 0.6% year-on-year.

Verizon’s fiber-based Fios platform will finally extend into Boston following a commitment by the telco to invest more than $300 million over the next six years.

Verizon, which tangles with Comcast and RCN in Boston, said construction of the FTTP network will be completed on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis, starting this year in Dorchester, West Roxbury and the Dudley Square neighborhood of Roxbury, and follow with Hyde Park, Mattapan, and other areas of Roxbury and Jamaica Plain.

Verizon said Boston has also “agreed to provide an expedited permitting process to encourage this build.”

Sharing some similarities with Google Fiber’s “rally” process and use of “Fiberhoods,” , Verizon and Boston are also asking consumers to “vote” in order to bump them up higher on the priority list as the Fios expands across the city. Under that plan, Boston has been divided into four groups (A,B,C, and D), with each group divided into “Fiber Zones.”

Notably, the site dedicated to that process notes that there must be a “minimum level of interest in order to bring Fios” to specific Fiber Zones. Groups A and B will be targeted during the first couple years of the build, followed by C and D. Voting for Group A continues through July 3, 2016, while voting on Group B is set to close on September 4, 2016. 

In an FAQ about the fiber project, Verizon said it expects to start building the network in Boston this summer, and launch services in select areas by "early 2017." 

"We estimate the build throughout the city will take 5-6 years, as we complete one area and expand to others. This is a big project, but Fiber Zones allow for more rapid deployment," the telco said. 

In addition to Fios residential services and “advanced business services,” Verizon said it has also committed to improving its 4G LTE network and a pledge to “usher in 5G.”

To assist on the mobile side, Boston will also take friction out of Verizon’s ability to attach wireless equipment to city street lights and utility poles.

The city also announced, as a next step, that it will begin the cable television licensing process that will help Verizon to launch Fios TV service in Boston.

Verizon and Boston will also work together on a way to bring new tech and services to low-income residents, kicked off by a $100,000 “Digital Equity” contribution to Boston that will be used for a new mobile hotspot lending program at the Boston Public Library. Also factored in is a “Smart Cities” trial focused on addressing traffic safety and congestion along the Massachusetts Avenue Vision Zero Priority Corridor. 

“Boston is moving faster than our current infrastructure can support, and a modern fiber-optic communications platform will make us a next-level city,” Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh said in a statement. “Additionally, it is a priority to ensure that every resident has expanded access to broadband and increasing competition is critical to reaching that goal. I thank Verizon for their investment in Boston and for partnering with the city to provide the foundation for future technology growth.”

“This transformation isn’t just about advanced new fiber-optic technology – it’s about the innovative services this platform will allow people to create and use, today and in the future,” added Verizon Wireline Network president Bob Mudge. “We are delivering the promise of the digital world to families, schools and medical facilities, businesses and entrepreneurs, while strengthening our neighborhoods and communities. We are a proud partner in building toward a brighter, shared future.”

Applying some additional competitive pressure on cable-delivered broadband services, Verizon Communications has unveiled an upgrade initiative for FiOS that will enable customers to receive upload speeds that match their download speeds at no added cost.

Under the upgrade program, which will standardize on symmetrical broadband speeds, here’s now the new FiOS Internet tiers will compare:

-Existing customers on the 15 Mbps down by 5 Mbps tier will be upgraded to 15/15; new FiOS service bundles will start at 25/25 going forward;

-50/25 tier will be upgraded to 50/50;

-75/35 tier will be upgraded to 75/75;

-150/65 tier will be upgraded to 150/150;

-300/65 tier will be upgraded to 300/300; and

-500/100 tier will be upgraded to 500/500.

Verizon said it will begin to offer the upgrades and new speeds on Monday (July 21) for both existing and new Verizon FiOS residential customers. The Wall Street Journal first reported about the coming Verizon speed upgrades on Sunday night.

Although downstream usage currently outpaces that in the upstream, Verizon cited projections that it expects upload activity on its fiber-based FiOS network to double by late 2016, and that more symmetry of the upstream and downstream will be required thanks to apps such as video chatting, file sharing via social networks, the increased use of big file transfers and cloud-based file backup systems, and to satisfy the data requirements of so-called “Internet of Things.” Verizon also cited a study from IDC that more than 20% of U.S. broadband homes are “Power  Users” that upload nearly as much content as they download.

“Faster upload speeds means better sharing experiences,” said Mike Ritter, Verizon’s chief marketing officer for consumer and mass business, in a statement. “All Internet sharing – whether videos, large photo files or gaming – starts with uploading. FiOS all-fiber-optic technology offers a unique opportunity to enhance our customers’ Internet experience on a mass scale by increasing our upload speeds to equal to our industry-leading download speeds. As the Internet of Things becomes a reality, equal download and upload speeds will become essential.”

Verizon said the faster upstream speeds will be rolled out through the fall, and that more than 95% of existing FiOS customers are in position to get the upgrade automatically.

Verizon will certainly use the speed upgrades to put pressure on cable competitors that have historically taken an asymmetrical path whereby max downstream speeds are paired with smaller maximum upload speeds. The latest line of DOCSIS 3.0 modems, for example, can bond up to 24 downstream channels – enough to produce bursts near 1 Gbps – alongside the ability to bond up to 8 upstream channels. The next-gen DOCSIS 3.1 platform will be capable of delivering multi-gigabit speeds, targeting as much as 10 Gbps down and at least 1 Gbps up.

Verizon’s decision might also cause Comcast to explore faster upstream capabilities for a fiber-only residential service that currently tops out at 505 Mbps down and 100 Mbps up, and is being offered limited areas, including Chicago and its systems in the Northeast.

Verizon will also look for the new speeds to help it gain and retain subs in a category that has seen some recent growing pains. The telco added 98,000 FiOS Internet subs in the first quarter, down from the 188,000 it added in the year-ago period, giving it 6.2 million subs in the category.

Verizon also announced a new promotion for new triple-play customers through September 30 that pairs its 25/25 Internet service with free  Quantum TV-Enhanced service (not counting equipment rental fees) for 24 months. The offer includes a two-year price lock of $89.99 per month when ordered online, and $99.99 per month otherwise.

Introduced in April, Quantum TV-Enhanced features an Arris-made Verizon Media Server with six tuners and 1 terabyte of DVR storage. Verizon’s Quantum TV-Premium service lets customers link together two VMS devices – allowing customers to record up to 12 shows at the same time.

You don’t have to convince Verizon Communications that there’s something to this whole binge-viewing trend.

The telco said this month’s FiOS On Demand Marathon, which ran April 1-7, produced nearly double the on-demand requests and orders it received during last year’s spring binge-fest.

This year’s set-top-focused VOD promo served up more than 2,300 movies and 100 TV shows, though TV was clearly the content of choice for most. Verizon said the top 10 TV choices totaled more than 2.2 million “selections,” about four times that of VOD movie selections during the tilt.

According to Verizon, the top 10 shows during the VOD-fest were: Resurrection,  True Detective, Scandal, The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, Modern Family, Believe, Grey’s Anatomy, and Bates Motel.

The top networks for the week, in order, were: HBO, ABC, CBS, NBC, Cinemax, Starz, Epix and Fox.

On the movie end, the most popular titles, in order, were: The Hangover Part III, World War Z,The Heat (2013), The Great Gatsby, Man of Steel, Now You See Me, Star Trek: Into Darkness, The Internship, Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted and The Heat (1995).

Earlier this month, Comcast said its latest  Xfinity Watchathon, which ran from March 25-31, set VOD records for views and hours watched.