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• Verizon to raise FiOS rates – FierceIPTV

  verizon to raise FiOS rates FierceIPTV verizon (NYSE: VZ) customers can expect to see bigger bills for FiOS TV and Internet services, as part of the carrier's efforts to recoup infrastructure costs and boost earnings. Verizon Communications plans, in the coming months, an "across-the-board … Verizon confirms plans to raise FiOS ratesFierceTelecom Verizon Says FiOS Rate Hikes Coming High Satisfaction Rankings Mean Crappier …Dslreports all 4 news articles »

• Exclusive: FiOS Speed Hikes Coming Soon – Dslreports

  Exclusive: FiOS Speed Hikes Coming Soon Dslreports We've been nudged by a reliable source with supporting evidence who tells us Verizon will be raising the speed of several of their FiOS broadband tiers very soon. According to the source, Verizon's symmetrical 25 Mbps tier will soon be changed to 50 … Consumer Reports: Getting The Best Deal On Cable BundleHartford Courant Haggling for a lower telecom bill really works, says one CR editorConsumerReports.org (blog) all 3 news articles »

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verizon (VZ) is in a real sweet spot and continues to sell more devices and add on new customers in addition to getting more revenue out of existing customers due to bandwidth pricing. A nice business model to have. The market has taken notice and the stock is up over 11% in the last month as this hourly trading chart provided by Barchart illustrates:

Over the past 50 trading sessions the market as measured by the Value Line Index was down 5% while the stock was up 8% over the same period:

verizon Communications Inc. provides communications, information and entertainment products and services to consumers, businesses and governmental agencies worldwide. It operates in two segments, verizon Wireless and Wireline.

The Verizon Wireless segment offers data services and applications comprising Internet access through smart phones and basic phones; mobile broadband services; messaging services, which enable its customers to send and receive text, picture and video messages; customer-focused and business-focused offerings; location-based services; and global data services, as well as access to data applications and services of third parties. It also provides voice services; other connection-related services, such as data access and value added services to support telemetry-type applications; and M2M services that support devices used in healthcare, manufacturing, utilities, distribution and consumer products markets. In addition, this segment sells smart phones and basic phones, tablets and other Internet access devices.

The Wireline segment offers video services over its fiber-optic network; data services comprising high-speed Internet and FiOS broadband data products, as well as local exchange capacity, managed, mobility and security services; voice services, such as local exchange, regional, long distance, wire maintenance and voice messaging services, as well as voip, and landline and wireless services; and local dial tone and broadband services to local exchange carriers. This segment also provides networking products and solutions, such as private Internet protocol services, and ethernet access and ring services; and infrastructure and cloud services.

As of April 30, 2012, it served 93 million retail customers. The company was formerly known as Bell Atlantic Corporation and changed its name to Verizon Communications Inc. in June 2000. Verizon Communications Inc. was founded in 1983 and is based in New York, New York. (Yahoo Finance profile)

Factors to consider:

Barchart technical indicators:

• 100% Barchart technical buy signal
• Trend Spotter buy signal
• Above its 20, 50 and 100 day moving averages
• 10 new highs and up 11.18% in the last month
• Relative Strength Index 72.37%
• Barchart computes a technical support level at 40.38
• Recently traded at 41.85 with a 50 day moving average of 39.32

Fundamental factors:

• Widely followed on Wall Street where 29 brokerage firms have assigned 39 analysts to monitor the numbers
• Analysts predict revenue will increase by 3.80% this year and another 3.30% next year
• Earnings are estimated to increase by 16.30% this year, an additional 11.60% next year and continue at an annual increase of 10.98% over the next five years
• These consensus numbers result in analyst issuing seven strong buy, eight buy, 21 hold, two2 under perform and a single sell recommendation
• If the numbers are met investors are predicted to get a 13% – 15% annual total return over the next five years
• Are these numbers stable? The stock has a very high price stability and earning predictability rating so I believe the numbers
• The P/E ratio of 18.25 is slightly higher than the market P/E rate of 18.25 – remember the earnings forecast are double digit so the P/E seems deserved
• The dividend rate is 4.89%, about 75% of expected earnings and twice the 2.30% dividend rate of the market
• The company enjoys an A++ financial strength rating
• Biggest pluses are sales of new devices up, opening of new customer accounts up, usage of bandwidth per customer up
• Although Hudson Square gives a thumbs down, Barclays, and Oppenheimer give a thumbs up

General investor interest:

• Individual investor interest is high with almost 4,900 readers of Motley Fool offering an opinion on the stock
• Those voting gave the company a 94% confidence vote to beat the market
• The more experienced and savvy All Stars voted 96% for the same result
• Some popular columnists giving positive comments were Tobin Smith, Wayne Rogers and Gary B Smith

I always pay attention to what the market says and while Verizon is up 13% in the last year, China Mobile (CHL) is up 18%, ATT (T) up 8% and Vodafone (VOD) was down 6%:

Summary: Verizon should continue to please both growth and income investors. With sales of devices, additional new customers and revenue per customer up this stock has everything, As always nothing is forever so monitor the 100 day moving averages and the lower of the 14 day turtle chart to gauge the market support:

Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.

Article source: http://seekingalpha.com/article/601121-verizon-revenue-and-earnings-up

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verizon (NYSE: VZ) customers can expect to see bigger bills for FiOS TV and Internet services, as part of the carrier’s efforts to recoup infrastructure costs and boost earnings.  

Shammo

verizon Communications plans, in the coming months, an “across-the-board increase” in FiOS rental service prices, a top executive said at an investor meeting this week. 

The fiber-optic service’s price hikes are aimed at bolstering profitability for Verizon, its chief financial officer, Fran Shammo, told attendees at the J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in Boston. 

“We have to do a better job in discipline of price increases and I think that you’ll see us do some price increases here over the next two quarters to offset the content increase and that will also contribute more profitability to the bottom line,” Shammo said Wednesday at a panel moderated by JPMorgan Chase analyst Phil Cusick.

FiOS subscribers face increased rack-rate pricing as well as higher monthly rental charges for set-top boxes and digital converters, Shammo said.

“So, we were actually below-market compared to our competitors on the amount of fee that we charge on the rental of a set-top box or a digital converter box,” he noted.

The increased rental-fee rates are intended to offset some costs associated with the $23 billion fiber-to-the-home FiOS network buildout, among other major capital outlays by the company.

“We are switching around our bundles and the customers that are coming out of the current bundles will be priced up to the newer bundles. So you are going to see really a shift over the next two to three quarters in price-ups coming out of FiOS,” Shammo told investors at the JPMorgan TMT Conference.

FiOS, he added, is a “superior product,” noting that FiOS customer service received positive marks in the June issue of Consumer Reports, and an industry-high ranking in the recently released American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).

“We were happy to see that Consumer Reports claimed us the best overall against all cable and satellite providers,” Shammo said.

On fiber-optic FiOS service’s growth, Shammo said “each and every quarter” Verizon continues to increase profitability.

In terms of FiOS net subscriber adds per quarter, he said the ”sweet spot” is between 180,000 and 200,000 accounts.  That ideal pace, he said, allows growth but reduces expenditures such as overtime pay for backed-up installations.

New York-based Verizon reported April 19 it ended the first three months of 2012 with 5 million FiOS Internet subscribers and 4.4 million FiOS TV subscribers. In its first-quarter 2012 financial statement, Verizon reported that 63 percent of its wireline consumer revenues were generated by FiOS.

The global market research firm Strategy Analytics, in an April 27 report, said Verizon has a “promising” outlook for the remainder of the year. Noted were first-quarter increases in FiOS subscribers and an uptick in ARPU, or average revenue per user.

Strategy Analytics forecasted Verizon’s FiOS broadband and TV business will continue this year to grow, projecting FiOS Internet subscriptions will top 5.6 million and FiOS TV subscriptions will near 5 million by year’s end.

verizon fios is available in portions of 12 mostly Eastern states and the District of Columbia, southern California and Texas. Shammo told investors Verizon currently has no plans to build out its FiOS service to new areas.

For more:
- FierceTelecom has this story
– see the Verizon transcript (.pdf)

Related articles:
Verizon Q1: Wireline revenue impacted by wholesale losses; gains in FiOS, enterprise services
Verizon Q4 2011 wireline results get boost from FiOS video, broadband adds
Verizon’s Q3 wireline story driven by consumer, business gains

Article source: http://www.fierceiptv.com/story/verizon-raise-fios-rates/2012-05-18

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News
Study: verizon’s FiOS Tops In Customer Satisfaction

By Swanni 

Washington, D.C.
(May 16, 2012)
– Which major TV provider is doing the best job at customer
satisfaction?

According to the annual American Customer Satisfaction Index
survey, it’s verizon’s FiOS TV service.

The survey, which includes interviews with tens of thousands of
consumers, found that verizon fios’ customer satisfaction score
was 74 out of a possible 100. dish network finished second with
a 69 (a three point gain over last year) while satellite rival
DIRECTV had 68 (a one point loss from last year.)

Cox Communications suffered a six point loss from last year,
falling to 63. That put Cox in a fourth place tie with Time
Warner Cable. Comcast was sixth with 61 while Charter was last
with 59.

The American Customer Satisfaction Index, which is an
independent research group, said the pay TV overall scored a 66
for the first straight year. Among the industries that group
monitors, only the airline industry (65) and the newspaper
industry (64) did worse.

The group said consumers are most dissatisfied with pay TV’s
reliability and cost.

“Service providers need to improve reliability without upping
prices, which may be a tough balancing act in an economy where
the monthly cost of TV service can rival that of energy
utilities,” the group said.

_______________________________________________________________________________

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Phillip Swann is president and publisher of TVPredictions.com. He has been quoted in dozens of publications and broadcast outlets, including CNN, Fox News, Inside Edition, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Financial Times, The Associated Press and The Hollywood Reporter. He can be reached at swann@tvpredictions.com or at 703-505-3064.

Click TVPredictions.com to read more news and features on TV technology.

Article source: http://www.tvpredictions.com/customer051612.htm

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verizon (NYSE: VZ) plans to implement price increases for its FiOS service to offset content costs and increase profitability, a senior executive said this week.

Shammo

Speaking at the 40th Annual J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference, verizon CFO and EVP Fran Shammo said he believes that FiOS is now a premium service and customers should pay more for it. He pointed to a Consumer Reports article and American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) rankings that gave the telco high marks for customer service. 

“Look, we believe that it is a superior product in the marketplace,” Shammo said. “We were happy to see that Consumer Reports claimed us the best overall against all cable and satellite providers in the newest release for the third year in a row. We just won again the Consumer Satisfaction Index-American Consumer Satisfaction Index for the third year in a row.”

It’s likely that Shammo’s comments on FiOS were meant as a way to assure Wall Street that it’s going to get a good return on its Fiber to the Premises (FTTP) investment. Through the end of 2010, the service provider spent $23 billion on building out its FiOS network.

While the service provider publicly announced that it has no plans to expand the FiOS build out beyond the areas it already has built, Shammo said it would consider options if the service proves to be profitable.

“If we can penetrate the market and really turn the wireline profitability, could we potentially build out to other areas?” Shammo said. “Yes, but that is a decision that will be made in years out, not right now. So from a capital perspective, we are being very disciplined with where we are going to put that capital.”

In some of the market where it offers FiOS, it has gained 50 percent penetration. Despite the fierce cable competition it faces in those markets, Shammo does not think they have to lower their prices to attract new subscribers.

“I think you’re seeing a little bit of pullback on those promotional-type items and the aggressiveness that we have in the marketplace. And look, I mean given the Consumer Reports article and the Consumer Index article, I think we can be less aggressive. Word-of-mouth is the best advertising we can get.”

One of the key reasons Verizon wants to up the rates is to get a better handle on content costs. Among the new charges that consumers will see in their monthly bill are higher set top box and digital converter box rental fees.

“We have to do a better job in discipline of price increases and I think that you’ll see us do some price increases here over the next two quarters to offset the content increase and that will also contribute more profitability to the bottom line,” Shammo said.

For more:
- see the webcast
- see the Verizon transcript (PDF)

Related articles:
Verizon Q1: Wireline revenue impacted by wholesale losses; gains in FiOS, enterprise services
Verizon Q4 2011 wireline results get boost from FiOS video, broadband adds
Verizon’s Q3 wireline story driven by consumer, business gains

Article source: http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/verizon-confirms-plans-raise-fios-rates/2012-05-18?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss

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