Joining AT&T who offered glimpses into their U-verse future, Verizon outlined future features of FiOS. Like the AT&T demo, Verizon’s demo provided a glimpse into a future where communications and entertainment converge to provide differentiation, and possibly, competitive advantage.
Some of the more interesting applications include an instant messaging application featuring picture messaging that will “sniff” out where the recipient is and display the message on the appropriate device, a mobile phone, PC, or television. Verizon is also studying interactive gaming, advertising, and home monitoring applications. Verizon sees real promise with interactive advertising and is exploring ways to allow subscribers to purchase items highlighted through product placement strategies through their phone bill and/or credit card. As I mentioned in our AT&T demo story, these convergence applications add a considerable amount of promise as competitive differentiators. But promise doesn’t pay the bills, so both AT&T and Verizon have their work cut out for them to bring these “promises” to commercial reality.
Read this Light Reading article for more details on the Verizon demo.
