Nosy Neighbor: When Will FiOS Come to Tribeca?

Can you find out when FiOS is coming to Tribeca? And if it’s by some chance already in the neighborhood, when is it coming to North Tribeca? —K.

Take it away, John Bonomo, Verizon director of media relations for the northeast:

I don’t know offhand exactly (what streets) where we have deployed FiOS, but it’s a good bet that we are in Tribeca and North Tribeca, but just not in the building your reader is asking about. The challenge we have with a city like NYC is that when we bring it “down the street” we need to negotiate with landlords and property owners to bring it into that building. That’s vastly different than in the outer boroughs or suburbs where there are more (and sometimes exclusively) single-family homes. The homeowner says install it, and we install it the next day. In a multi-apartment building, there are negotiations as to where will you bring it in? How does it get up to each floor? How does it get to each apartment? Once in the apartment, how is it wired? These and other things are negotiated, because it’s important to the building owners, and us too.

Having said that, is there any way to find out what street(s) in particular your reader is inquiring about? If not, I’ll try to get a general sense from our Operations folks where it’s deployed.

I told him the address. (K. lives on upper Hudson.)

Our FiOS network runs past this address, however, there is no negotiation activity ongoing with the building’s landlord or property owner. Nor are there any discussions ongoing with any of the nearby buildings, which would be helpful since that would enable us to work on a cluster of buildings. We will begin to knock on doors to get the ball rolling here. Again, more demand in a square block is a good thing.

Got a question? Email it to tribecacitizen@gmail.com.

Previous Nosy Neighbor posts:
What’s up with 60 Hudson?
Will the W. Broadway construction ever end?
What’s happening at 87 Leonard?
When will the West Street trailers be removed?
What goes on at 444 Greenwich?
When will the Chambers Street Elevators be fixed?
Why are Goldman Sachs’s lights always on?
When will Pier 25 be fully restored?
What’s the story with the Batmobile?
Is 5 Franklin Place stalled again?
What’s going on with 88 Thomas?
Is another Equinox opening in IPN?
Is this the new dog run?
Any update on the Chambers construction?
Who’s responsible for the snowflake lights?
Is the scaffolding on 110 Hudson ever coming down?
Are the Hudson and Chambers reconstructions delayed?
What’s going on at 165 Church?
Is 93 Reade adding a floor?
Why is Pier 25 ripped up?
Is 28 N. Moore going residential?
Why does cobblestoning require sprinklers?
Do newspaper boxes need permits?
Why does 161 Duane say “Whalebone”?
What’s the story behind those Harrison townhouses?
What are those white things at 137 Franklin?
What’s that thing at W. Broadway and Leonard?
What happens to old cobblestones?
Are buses allowed to idle on Laight?
What’s happening with the Verizon building?
Will the construction at Hudson and Laight ever end?
What is Esoteric on Walker Street?
Is N. Moore getting cobblestoned?
What’s happening at 73 Warren?
Can you recommend any Tribeca picture books?
Why are those shuttles on Greenwich?
Who enforces sidewalk-café regulations?
What’s going on at 27 Desbrosses?
When will those trailers on West Street go away?
Do you know anything about 20-24 Varick?
What’s happening to my parking lot?
Is Pier 26 being worked on again?
What are those black pellets on Pier 25?
What do the characters on 47 Vestry mean?
Where is the Special Forces monument going?
Who’s moving into 151 Hudson?
What’s going on at 172 Duane?
What’s up with those Verizon carts?
Where was the original Blues Bar?
Who are the guys in the geeky pants?
Why are the windows above Ponte’s boarded up?
Can we walk on the West Street medians?
What’s going on in 157 Hudson?
What’s the new painting at 153 Hudson?
What is this P.C. Richard & Son Theater I keep hearing about?
What’s the story behind the lights at 289 Church?
What’s the Dream House at 275 Church?
How come every every film and TV shoot seems to have a trailer with doors marked “Lucy” and “Desi”?

 

13 Comments

  1. FiOS is in 275 and 295 Greenwich.

    Building politics is definitely a factor, although the actual deployment is actually pretty low tech once they run into your building. Fiber runs to the building and then it is actually routed as DSL to your apartment over existing copper for buildings without fiber in unit.

  2. I have tried to contact Verizon several times to get them to come to our building in north Tribeca (Greenwich st) and received no response.

  3. Riverlofts is currently being wired for Fios.

  4. It’s more than just building politics. Sometimes it depends on other buildings on your street, or even a street away. Verizon needs to do street/sidewalk cuts to run the fiber to a building. So even if a building wants to get fios the lines need to get to the building in the first place. If neighboring buildings are unaccommodating, depending on the street (subway, drains, sidewalks, cobblestone…) getting fios may be near impossible even if the building wants it.

  5. We wanted Fios and asked for them, but they told us our building was too small (8 units) for them to cable us… so there is Fios on our street, but not in our building. They are really coy about it, as if buildings and landlords are saying no, but actually Verizon is the one holding back.

  6. My building on Chambers St is wired for FIOS but it took over three months for them to schedule the hookup for me when I moved in. They kept claiming there were “equipment issues” impacting their ability to add new customers anywhere in lower manhattan (this was Jan 2012 – March 2012). Finally, when they performed the install, it took 4+ hours and we discovered the next day that they accidentally cut the Time Warner cables running to the two apartments above me so they had to come back and fix that.

    I’m no fan of Time Warner but I have to say that the hassle I experienced with FIOS greatly outweighs the quality/speed, etc. of their service. Awful customer service.

  7. Omar hates Time Warner Cable

  8. Re: FIOS
    Our building at 459 Washington (bet Watts & Canal) is being wired for FIOS… We have 14 units.
    I am aware of an adjacent building on Watts street (same management company) also having been wired for FIOS
    They are almost done, now waiting for Verizon “turn on” and subscription availability

    p.s. Liat and others – If there is cable already on your street, and it’s now simply a matter of them running it from the street through to the separate floors in your building, you can do something to help motivate them.

    I think it would be beneficial to put together a petition signed by all the unit owners in your building requesting service availability in your building and a willingness to switch once installed. Get your management company involved as many have multiple buildings and may have already dealt with the installers and know how to get this done.

  9. Come on by 88 Leonard Street, Verizon. We’ve considered switching to shadow puppets in place of TWC.

  10. Our building management has asked for fios. So I don’t understand why Mr. Bonomo says they haven’t. Mr. Bonomo, can you tell us WHERE our building can ask for fios? Can we have a name and contact number/email address?

  11. Unlike for its copper plain old telephone service, Verizon does not have right-of-way to install Fios. They used to be a monopoly able to bully their way into buildings to install their equipment, often in a shoody and unworkmanlike fashion. It is not surprising that Verizon is now getting a poor “reception” from landlords. Verizon tried to use Hurricane Sandy as an excuse to install Fios by falsing claiming water damage to copper lines in central Tribeca and threatening to withhold telephone service.

  12. Everyone rellllllaaaaaaaax. Verizon called and said that they would be there to install the FIOS between 1-4…..years. So figure on them showing up at 6…..years because the previous installation took a little longer than expected.

  13. FioS – it is everywhere, can’t you see their vans are obstructing nearly every street? Open your eyes. Oh, you meant CONNECTING to FioS – Oh, that is different. Never in the field of human communications has there been so many vans with so little connectivity.