Verizon introduces now FiOS TV guide

July 18, 2007 –Verizon has launched a new interactive media guide for its FiOS TV service in the US, enabling customers to find content more easily as well as offering new features.

The guide allows users to search TV listings, video-on-demand catalogues and digital video recorders (DVRs), as well as music and photos from the home network.  Future iterations of the guide will add Internet radio, video, podcasts and games to the service.

The new guide is currently deployed with customers in Indiana, Rhode Island and parts of New Jersey, and Verizon plans to extend it to other markets in the near future.  FiOS TV customers will be upgraded automatically via a network download at no cost, and customers will receive a manual and other information about the new service in the run-up to launch.

"We listened to our customers and created a next-generation guide that is attractive, amazingly responsive and easy to use," said Shawn Strickland, Vice President of video solutions.  "No other experience on the market can match the innovation we're delivering to customers with the interactive media guide."

Verizon is also extending the network-based capabilities for when customers are not at home – by the end of 2008 they will be able to use mobile phones and the Internet to manage their home entertainment, including scheduling their Home Media DVR to record programmes.