Verizon chasing cable with FiOS Digital Voice service introduction

The world is most definitely turned upside down when a telephone company plays catch-up with cable on a telephone feature. That's the case, however, as Verizon is touting the introduction of Caller ID on TV as part of its FiOS Digital Voice service.

The introduction is part of an ongoing series of one upmanship between cable and telco providers as to who can more tightly tie subscribers into service bundles. Earlier this week, cable vendor Cedar Point Communications unveiled a new Visual Communications Suite (VCS) [1] that takes a "holistic view" of how cable subscribers interact with multiple cable-provided telecommunications services and said an unnamed MSO was not only trialing the features but would be rolling them out in September.

Caller ID on TV has been a staple of cable telephone offerings--"table stakes," as Cedar Point Marketing Vice President Jeff Walker put it--and is only one part of the new digital voice package Verizon touted in a news release, noting that many of the features were not available on more conventional Verizon Freedom Essentials voice packages. Some of these new digital features include live voice mail screening, call logs, the ability to have calls rings at as many of three different numbers, notification by e-mail or text message when a new voice mail arrives and a "do not disturb" feature.

For more:

- see the release [2]
- see this story [3]

Related articles:
Cedar Point and cable operator testing converged visual communications applications [1]
Verizon joins TV caller ID crowd [4]

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