Verizon-DirecTV alliance arrives
Their partnership already covers seven Northeastern states
10:43 PM CST on Sunday, March 28, 2004
By VIKAS BAJAJ / The Dallas Morning News
Verizon Communications Inc. will start reselling DirecTV Group Inc.'s satellite-TV service in Texas and Florida today, extending their relationship to nine states.
The move is part of a concerted effort by phone companies to blunt the impact of cable companies' plans to offer telephone service.
Recently, San Antonio-based SBC Communications Inc. kicked off a partnership with Echostar Communications Corp.'s Dish Network service in the 13 states where it operates local-phone networks.
New York-based Verizon started offering DirecTV last month in Rhode Island and now sells the service in seven Northeastern states.
In Florida and Texas, the company will offer the service in cities formerly served by GTE such as Plano, Irving and Tampa, Fla.
Customers will get $2 to $6 taken off their monthly bills when they buy satellite service with Verizon's telephone and broadband services, the company said. DirecTV is offering an additional $10 a month off for six months to customers who sign up before July 17. SBC's Dish package offers an ongoing discount of $4 a month.
"We saw the cable companies start to get into the voice business," said Mark Adams, Verizon's executive director of consumer mass markets. "And the one piece that we were missing in our consumer business was the entertainment bundle."
Phone companies are betting their discounts and the prospect of a single bill for phone and satellite services will attract customers.
Verizon customers will continue to be billed separately for phone and satellite service, at least initially.
But experts say that may not be enough to convert cable customers who have so far resisted satellite TV.
"It sounds good," said Imran Khan, an analyst at Frost & Sullivan. But "the key thing is how are you going to get customers to switch from a Cablevision or Time Warner to you?"
In the meantime, cable companies such as Cox Communications Inc. have won a few million customers to their phone service. Others such as Comcast Corp., which serves the Dallas area, have said they are working on new phone packages.
Verizon-DirecTV alliance arrives
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