Fiber to the premises (FTTP), has the potential to deliver the most advanced HD services today, and although it isn't available in most of the country, Verizon (and others) are bleeding money digging up neighborhoods all over the US to install the magical stuff. Just because you have fiber to your home doesn't mean life is perfect though, there are still plenty of things that can get in the way of your viewing pleasure -- like franchise agreements. Verizon recently announced that they were testing HD VOD in their labs and have an internal time line for launching the service -- that they aren't ready to share. But with their competition already offering this service in some areas they can't wait forever.

Verizon may be upping the prices for DVR usage, but now we get the chance to see what that extra fee buys you. According to Dave Zatz, Verizon is launching FiOS Interactive Media Guide -- also known as FiOS 2 -- in Fort Wayne, Indiana, with rollouts occurring nationwide via software upgrades this summer. There are plenty of features to bullet-point, including an all-new 32-bit interface with 8-bit transparency, tabbed interfaces with a better central focus, global content searches (that also include local Media Manager content like photos and music), trailers and poster art for On Demand content, and traffic and weather widgets. See our gallery below for more screencaps from the FiOS presentation.

[Via Zatz Not Funny]

In Verizon's never-ending quest to continue bumping the bandwidth to the four or five lucky customers that actually have access to its FTTH network, the firm is planning to implement a new technology which will hopefully increase the speed of FiOS fiber-to-the-premises links "by four to eight times." Of course we jest about the amount of you oh-so-fortunate ones that can actually get ahold of such speedy luxuries, but Verizon is looking to Alcatel-Lucent to help with the forthcoming gigabit passive optical network (G-PON), which is slated to "increase the aggregate broadband speeds on Verizon's FTTP systems by four times downstream to the customer, and by eight times upstream back to the Internet." The outfit also stated that it would "continue deploying the broadband passive optical network (B-PON)" that it has been using since 2004, and took a moment to boast about "how simple" upgrading FiOS actually was. Still, the vast majority of you won't even be in the general vicinity necessary to acquire the newfangled G-PON niceties, but the soon-to-be-celebrating town of Lewisville, Texas can keep an eye on Q2 of this year, while folks in Kirklyn, Pennsylvania should have it sometime "over the summer."

[Thanks, Jim V.]

If you think AT&T is troubled by Verizon's direct FTTH route while the company sticks with copper, you'd apparently be mistaken. The firm's CFO, Richard Lindner, recently shrugged off concerns that AT&T would need to get on the ball with regard to implementing their own fiber optic infrastructure. While select customers are already receiving U-Verse content, it appears that the majority of AT&T's future will rely on tried and true copper wiring, at least for the time being. Lindner stated that he was "pleased with the bandwidth that they're seeing over copper," and felt that there wasn't any urgent need to "get fiber to the home." He also boasted that the company's current pipes were "producing about 25Mbps," noting that "some locations" were receiving "substantially more than that," but curiously omitted the locales receiving substantially less. As expected, industry analysts have mixed views on the outfit's hand-to-the-face approach to fiber, with many suggesting that "it would need to upgrade its network again" when more consumers start to demand even more HD channels / movies. Nevertheless, AT&T seems to be holding its own at this point, but we're not so certain the old coax can do the same for very much longer.

[Via eHomeUpgrade]

While everyone's getting all excited by that FiOS, fiber-to-the-home, fiber-in-the-home or even Google's alleged DWDM -- there's another futuristic bandwidth project currently afoot, the Dynamic Spectrum Management. The advantage of DSM -- which aims to replace DSL if its creators have their way -- is to use current copper wiring to create 100Mbps service in the home by futzing with the way that signals and packets are processed and transferred. Naturally, if DSM turns out to work, it would likely be a much cheaper alternative to digging trenches for fiber in the ground. In any case, this requires a fair amount of cooperation between those telecom firms who control the pipes, and so today, a group of tech and telecom companies (including the Israeli firm ECI Telecom and the Spanish giant Telefonica), have joined forces to try to work out all of DSM's kinks. The consortium announced that it will receive €8 million ($10 million) in grant money over the next three years from the Chief Scientist Office of Israel.

[Via Reuters]

Tennessee isn't exactly known for being the most wired place in the world, but an 18-month startup from Franklin, Tennessee -- a small wealthy town 20 miles south of Nashville (between Memphis and Knoxville) -- may soon change that. This fall, Tenvera will release its fiber in the home (FITH) product, called "System 5" (compare that to Category 5), which will be shown off at the CEDIA conference in Denver in a few weeks. This new technology blows current copper wiring out of the water and according to the company's COO, Tim Akers, will provide "virtually unlimited bandwidth" within new homes. FITH takes over where fiber to the home stops, and brings immense speed to your home's data infrastructure. System 5 is currently being installed in a housing development in a neighboring town, and promises to replace data and phone lines with FITH lines. Akers also told The Tennessean that a FITH outlet can be changed to accomodate phone or data via the quick swap of an outlet card, well after the home has been built. Tenvera is currently pricing its product at two to three percent of the total building cost of a home, or about $12,000 for a $400,000 home. Now how do we get this in the rest of the country?

[Via Talkabout:CEDIA]

The unsettling tension between cable, satellite, and now FTTH providers is growing ever tighter, and the delivery of HD channels, on-demand content, and internet services through aging coax pipelines is leaving little room for expansion. While some analysts are suggesting that cable companies should be prepared to spend big bucks in order to maintain their current service levels -- especially considering the seemingly imminent additions of HD content and higher-high-speed internet services -- they may not have to bust out that checkbook so soon. It's no secret that Verizon alone has spent $20 billion in fiber optic deployment in order to get FiOS services to various parts of the country, and cable providers can't exactly afford to sit around and get leapfrogged. Reportedly among the various suggestions (that don't involve just throwing down for a larger infrastructure) is one that focuses on changing the way channels are delivered entirely, requiring no expansion whatsoever. The (relatively) antiquated analog stations aren't doing cable companies any favors, and as they begin to (presumably) phase out in favor of the leaner, meaner digital flavor, the lines can start to breathe a bit easier. But probably more important than the switch to digital is, well, switched digital -- in a switched system, only the channel that's currently being viewed is sent out (much like current IPTV installments), thus freeing up loads of bandwidth. Apparently this efficient design allows for "hundreds of stations" to be available at any given time, while giving providers one less reason to crack open the piggy bank for fear of clogged pipes. It's fairly obvious that cable companies still have a firm, albeit loosening, grip on the television market, and until this newfangled FTTH thing can reach a few more folks (or Google breaks out a dark-fiber solution of its own), it's cable or bust for most of us.

[Via Ars Technica]

Sony seems intent to prove you can -- and one day will -- buy just about everything with FeliCa, their contactless payment system we've been talking up for years now. Latest on the block is So-net distributed high definition video on demand service, which plays back MPEG-2, VC-1, and h.264 video  on a Sentivision set top box with a 600MHz CPU and a 40GB internal drive; you pay for the privilege instantly with your FeliCa card, phone, implant, etc. We know, we know, it hurts; but one of these days when a large swath of this ginormous nation gets fiber to the home, we'll probably ourselves likely see similar VOD / IPTV systems.

[Via Impress]

Just because AT&T's Lightspeed and the late SBC and BellSouth's nascent FTTH rollout (which they now own, in a manner of speaking) aren't yet ready to provide prime time IPTV to the masses doesn't mean they will be stopped from taking on cable companies every which way they can; enter their new Homezone service. Since the DSL they currently serve up wouldn't be quite broad enough to give AT&T what they need for a true live-IPTV experience, they're bundling it with live TV from DISH, movie downloads from MovieLink, older programming from Akimbo, and DVR functionality in a single 2Wire-built box. It may seem a little piecemeal, but we're a little surprised this kind of  home entertainment hodgepodge angle hasn't already been explored -- our only real fear here is whether AT&T and 2Wire will nail it when bringing so many kinds of user experiences into a single livingroom box.