Monday, March 23, 2009

VZ versus BH

Sunday's St. Petersburg Times offered an interesting glimpse into the battle between Bright House Networks and Verizon for a greater share of the business and consumer telecom and entertainment market. Both have moved toward offering bundled services that include such services as cable, internet, phone, and fax. In terms of their differences, Verizon also offers wireless services while Bright House Networks currently does not. However, Bright House points to its numerous J.D. Power awards for excellent customer service and the exclusive availability of Bay News 9 as key strengths in its favor.

BH has taken 500,000 lines in the Tampa Bay market. VZ claims that it has 225k FiOS customers - no idea how many are TV too. Neither of them are doing well - it's a zero plus game. Daily marketing - in the multi-millions of dollars - to take away a customer. The customer acquisition costs are huge - but definitely higher for VZ who mails me something every single day (that's about $4 per week). To move me to FiOS would require an ONT, a modem, wiring, and a fiber team to split off the fiber run to my adobe. Two install teams. Lots of dough. How do they get that back at $99 packages? Well, one way is that with VZ $99 is not $99 -- it's $170+ and its only for 6 months and you have a 3 year contract (that BH will buy out to switch you back). What a game.

No comments: