In fact, the company is experiencing their biggest sales growth in three years. To keep the momentum rolling they have turned to the iPhone. Rumors have been confirmed that Verizon will begin to offer the sought after Apple phone in early February. Analysts expect Verizon to sell roughly 13 million iPhones this year. The iPhone will be a welcome addition for Verizon’s already popular smartphone line, which feature Google’s Android operating system.

But the wireless segment is not the only area that experienced growth in this last quarter. Their wireline industry also grew by adding more than 200,000 new FiOS internet user’s and almost 200,000 new FiOS video connection customers.

While it isn’t clear how the iPhone will impact the bottom line at Verizon, it appears they are heading in the right direction again this year.

"Verizon is pushing the boundaries of TV with innovative technology that continues to spur the industry’s evolution," said Eric Bruno, vice president of product management for Verizon.  "We’re giving customers more control over their TV entertainment whenever and wherever they want it.  Extending our FiOS Mobile app to customers using iPads gives more subscribers more ways to conveniently manage their FiOS TV services."

The app will automatically personalize options based on the tablet connected to the set-top box, with customized favorites and other preferences. Verizon says it has virtually the same functionality as the standard FiOS TV remote.  

"Customers can change channels; manage parental controls; and pause, rewind and fast forward or record a TV show," the company explains. "Subscribers can also click on the video-on-demand (VOD) button and browse and search on-demand titles; or click on the FiOS TV button and jump to live TV when watching recorded programs."

The feature is available on over 40 mobile devices including Android, iPhone, and iPod Touch. 

Verizon says more features will come to the app soon. 

FiOS is Verizon’s new fiber-optic television system that just might help everyone say goodbye to the cable guy a whole lot sooner. Verizon’s FiOS TV boasts the “best picture quality around,” more than 100 HD channels, over 500 all digital channels, and “room-shaking Dolby 5.1 surround sound.” But now Verizon is hoping to make the FiOS viewing experience even better by bringing the show’s audience right into your very living room. At least, via Twitter, anyway.

Twitter users already do a lot of twittering about their favorite (or hated) shows, but most of the twittering takes place after the show. What Verizon’s FiOS Twitter marriage hopes to accomplish is to bring the twittering live to the same screen as the show through a “Twitter widget.” With the widget, viewers could select tweets about the current channel, show, or movie, and then jump into the conversation themselves. Even if you’re home alone, this experience might make you feel like you’re at a huge party where everyone is discussing the show.

One issue that is unclear is how user/viewers will tweet. Will Verizon issue a special keyboard designed to interact with FiOS equipment? Or will mobile devices be used? The first option seems more likely, since it’s already quite possible, albeit inconvenient, to watch a program while tweeting via laptop. It would be surprising if Verizon did not already have something in the works that would enable to user/viewers to use only their FiOS TV and a keyboard (or similar device) to share tweets.

Meanwhile, Verizon may also be working on a similar widget for Facebook users, but of course it would most likely work a bit differently. Regardless, it’s obvious that one thing is certain: social media is changing just about every media in which we interact and receive information.

With the same flavor of disclaimer that Twitter uses to clear up TV show rumors, they also add, “Some Hollywood folks are developing something that leverages Twitter and they are extremely enthusiastic as evidenced by all the media hubbub yesterday and today. We have little to do with their efforts but we wish them success.”

Could this be a vague reference to Verizon’s plans? Most likely, yes; but Verizon may not be the only company attempting to bring Twitter to TV. Meanwhile, stay tuned…

FiOS is Verizon’s digital fiber optic high speed Internet for homes. It is combined with their phone service and you can also get on-demand television through the same lines. The maximum connection speeds is 50 Mbps or 30 Mbps downstream and 20Mbps or 5 Mbps upstream, depending on where you live.

PC Magazine’s Lance Ulanoff described it this way: “…virtually every web page I visited popped up as if the servers were sitting in my living room.”

Basically the team of technicians (2 men and a woman) go into homes to install everything, capture it all on video, and in the process outfit the families with a lot of high tech goodies. Things like a new Verizon cell phone, super fast internet, a high tech network, a theater and maybe gaming equipment – depending on the family. Plus they’ll throw a block party for your neighbors to celebrate. They get people to audition while they’re there and give away big screen televisions and other things. So the turnout is pretty good.

They have started off with three families in the Philadelphia area and two families in the Pittsburgh area. The families submit their stories and are featured on the blog. Plus they’ll be on TV – major local network channels are covering the shows or you can watch them online at FiOS TV video-on-demand at http://2pointhome.com.

What’s really impressive is that the concept is on Facebook, photos are on flickr, del.icio.us is bookmarked, and the videos are on YouTube. And the technicians try to be entertaining (two men and a woman with personality, which if were more like most technicians, they probably wouldn’t talk to you).

Here’s an example: husband and wife Lora and Scott were using a typewriter. After the crew helped them out they started blogging, Twittering, buying things online, and making their own movies on the internet. They have properly turned them into geeks.

Lora is on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/lorakaczor and Scott is at http://twitter.com/scottkaczor. Not a long list of followers but they just started.

All households will be considered for this home makeover (so couples, roommates, and singles can apply too.) While I consider high speed and high tech hip, it’s not so in an entertaining sort of way. More in a nerdy way. In the meantime, I can think of a few families I would recommend. I have tried teaching ecommerce to farmers in the Midwest with dial-ups. I think I’ll have them apply.

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The new FiOS service will be available in parts of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Verizon has plans to introduce the service in 13 other states that offer FiOS.

"Verizon’s new 20/20 FiOS service blows cable away. Their upload speeds don’t even come close," said Susan Retta, vice president, Broadband Solutions for Verizon.

Verizon is offering the 20/20 plan for $65 a month if a customer has existing Verizon VoIP service and has subscribed to an annual plan. The service is $73 a month with a voice plan and a current month-to-month broadband plan.

The new speed will allow a 250-megabyte upload of 200 photos in around 90 seconds compared to 47 minutes over a 768 kilobits per second upstream connection. A 500-MB file of 400 photos could upload in under four minutes and a 3-GB, one-hour video could upload in about 20 minutes.

"By 2010, we expect 100 million Americans will be teleworkers in one way shape or form," Retta said. "Video conferencing will be commonplace online collaboration" and people will need to upload "extremely large files," she said.

Verizon Cuts Copper, Installs Incentive To Invest

I’ve argued for a while now that there’s no incentive to invest in the network as it is now, anyway. The world is shifting to fiber optics and away from copper wires. The incentive is in fiber, as he who controls the fiber, controls everything, and bandwidth concerns are a thing of the past.

That doesn’t mean traffic shaping and creating a tiered Internet wouldn’t be desirable for incumbent providers. No, having unlimited bandwidth for voice and video and piecing it out to those who can pay would be quite lucrative.

There is incentive in fiber, or else Verizon has wasted $23 billion to connect 18 million homes to its FiOS network, a move that the company says will ultimately save it $1 billion per year in maintenance fees while providing blistering speeds (speeds other providers can’t match). 

Saving on maintenance fees is the chief reason the company says its technicians have been permanently disabling the copper connections at the homes they pass, and not telling customers about it. Well, Verizon says they should have been told at least three times.

But according to customers quoted in by the Associated Press, there was no option given regarding whether or not to retain the copper connections. And as one notes, that sort of voids the 30-day money-back guarantee.

It does something else as well: It locks the customer into Verizon’s fiber optic network, which at present isn’t required to be leased to competitors the way copper is, and gives the customer no (cheap) alternative to returning to copper, which is still used by AT&T and other competitors who plan to deliver fiber-to-the-node rather than fiber-to-the-premises to save money. (AT&T has publicly bemoaned the cost of increasing capacity on copper networks in AT&T-funded unbiased studies).

And boom. You’ve got a nice monopoly developing. Add that to the ability to direct traffic and dole out bandwidth at a premium to content providers, and you’ve got more incentive to invest than you can shake a bottom line at.

To be fair, Verizon did say they would restore the copper connections if the customer "insists," but they’d rather not.