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Olympics bait-and-switch

What happened to the FIOS Internet Olympics coverage?

Two weeks ago, Verizon's press release said this:

Online: Verizon's FiOS Internet and High Speed Internet customers will have access to more than 400 hours of live event competition and more than 1,000 hours of on-demand access to full-event replays from Vancouver, as well as extensive highlights such as event recaps, best-of montages, commentator analysis and athlete-specific clips.

But today, that's only true if you also have FIOS TV service. What gives?

Comments

spacedebris

NBC is the host of the web site that is providing the coverage. Verizon has an agreement to allow Fios TV customers that subscribe to any package that included NBC or MSNBC (meaning all Verizon packages) access to the web page for no additional fee.

VZ_Christian

@somajuro wrote:
What happened to the FIOS Internet Olympics coverage?

Two weeks ago, Verizon's press release said this:

Online: Verizon's FiOS Internet and High Speed Internet customers will have access to more than 400 hours of live event competition and more than 1,000 hours of on-demand access to full-event replays from Vancouver, as well as extensive highlights such as event recaps, best-of montages, commentator analysis and athlete-specific clips.

But today, that's only true if you also have FIOS TV service. What gives?

somajuro,

In addition to what spacedebris said, you will also need to have a FiOS internet account as you will need to authenticate with your .net account.

Regards,

Chris

somajuro

Thank you, spacedebris and VZ_Christian, but that's not what the announcement of the Olympics coverage says. I don't have FIOS TV -- just FIOS Internet -- and the plain-and-simple read of the text I forwarded suggests that I should be able to get Olympics video. And I can't. I could last Olympics though -- why has this changed?

spacedebris

This really has nothing to do with Verizon. Not really. They are giving access and advertising it but are not in control of it.

NBC is the host of the Olympics and these are the policies that they have put into place. They have exclusive rights to the coverage. However they made agreements with some tv/internet providers to provide free access to the website IF the customer is subscribing to NBC. Now all Verizon packages Qualify for the NBC requirements. To verify that you do subscribe to NBC, they have to have you log in, Hence the reason you need Verizon internet. Your internet username/password, is what they use to confirm that you subscribe to NBC and once they confirm that you are allowed access. From what I understand, several companies are offering the same systems and have the same requirements.

But the reason for all this is that NBC is requiring this. It would have been nice if the web page was a little more clear on this but thats about par for the course anymore because nothing is proof read anymore before it is posted to the public.

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