Rockville Gets FIOS TV

The City of Rockville has agreed to adopt the Verizon cable franchise held by Montgomery County. This means that Rockville inhabitants will be able to get TV service as well as internet and phone service. Briana Gowing, Verizon VP of External Affairs said that Verizon hopes "to begin construction in mid to late September, possibly selling FiOS bundles in limited areas before the end of the year." Verizon's full press release covers more detail about the new service.

I imagine that Verizon will push service into Rockville very quickly. Verizon says that roughly 23,000 households will be eligible. The downside is that residents in other parts of MC may have to wait even longer to get FIOS. Here is Verizon's list of roads where they're working during August 2008.

Rockville residents will soon enjoy the same thing that I enjoy - namely, advertisements many times a month for Verizon service bundles. As a reminder, service bundles (TV, internet, and phone) sound attractive. However, I feel obliged to remind you that bundles have their downsides. Here's a discussion from dslreports as well as an earlier analysis that I made specifically about Comcast's bundles.

To be fair, there are people for whom bundles make sense. I just don't think any of them would be reading my blog.