City Council Approves FiOS

Hot diggity! Today City Council gave final approval to a 15-year franchise to Verizon for its FiOS TV service.

Here’s my favorite part of Catherine Lucey’s Clout post on the decision:

Councilman Bill Green had proposed adding an amendment to make the company pay more for public-access programming. But he withdrew those plans today after Mayor Nutter resolved the issue with local public access advocates.

Hey, know what we should do before making Verizon pay more for public-access programming? GET PUBLIC-ACCESS PROGRAMMING!

Council Gives Final Approval To Verizon FiOS Franchise [Clout]

City Council To Vote On Verizon

If Comcast is circling the PR wagons, that can only mean one thing: Competition is coming!

And, at least in Philadelphia, what do you know: Today’s City Council meeting has just started, and today our fine public servants will vote on Verizon Fios’ entry into the city.

Though, reports the Inquirer, we won’t be sitting with faster Internet speeds and cheaper TV anytime soon:

[T]he council’s public works commission may finally decide whether to allow Verizon to offer cable television inside Philadelphia. Building the Verizon network would be a multi-year construction project.

I’m still not sure how this isn’t a done deal already, as Philadelphia is not known for needing palm-greasing or any other kind of back-scratching in order to get things done. We will have to wait and see.