After winning lawsuit, ActiveVideo asking courts to shut down Verizon FiOS

August 13, 2011 By Mike Flacy

It's possible that customers of Verizon FiOS are going to lose service due to ongoing litigation between Verizon and a company that builds interactive TV applications.

A jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia awarded ActiveVideo Networks a $115 million payout after it was determined that Verizon infringed on four patents owned by the company. As of Friday, ActiveVideo announced intentions of seeking an injunction against Verizon to shut down the entire FiOS network. FiOS makes up nearly $2 billion of Verizon’s total consumer revenue due to the 3.8 million FiOS TV users and 4.5 million FiOS broadband customers. If an injunction is successful, Verizon also has to worry about losing customers unhappy about the outage.

The patents specifically refer to interactive applications as well as video-on-demand elements, thus it’s possible that Verizon could remove a portion of the service while finding new methods to work around it. Verizon plans to appeal the lawsuit verdict as well. The ActiveVideo CloudTV platform is currently being utilized by one of Verizon’s competitors, Cablevision. ActiveVideo was an early developer of video-on-demand technology over the last two decades and has turned to developing platforms for interactive applications as of late.

Verizon also faces a massive problem with organized labor as about 45,000 wireline workers are on strike due to rising health care costs. 35,000 of these workers are members of the Communication Workers of America union and 10,000 are members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union. The union members currently don’t pay any health care premiums, only co-payments when visiting a health care professional. Since older retirees outnumber younger active workers, the health care costs are rising rapidly for Verizon. Verizon is also seeing a rapid decrease in wireline usage as more Americans are switching from landlines to cell phones for primary home lines. According to the CWA, Verizon is requesting about $1 billion in concessions from union employees. Verizon’s last worker strike was in 2000 and cost the company about $40 million after an 18-day negotiation period.

Showing 17 comments

Jeff at 9:07am 15th August 2011 Maybe if the top executives weren't pocketing all that cash and put some of it towards getting more fiber optic lines on the poles, then we could all get fios and e everyone would be happy. Executives, shareholders, employees, and most importantly the consumer. Dsl and the fios network are all "land lines", they are not in decline. If anything, they are growing.
Steve at 9:43pm 14th August 2011 Verizon, whose top 5 executives made $258 million combined, is claiming poor and hoping to outsource as many jobs as possible, all while gutting healthcare and pensions. It's total greed and I'm tired of massive companies pillaging the middle class!
gibby at 8:31pm 14th August 2011 Local 2222 steward, false news reports, we are not striking about health or pay, we are striking for job security and movement of work , they will layoff thousands and more all possible work overseas, meaning thousands of Americans out of work,bad for America, good for Verizon profits. CEO only makes 55k. ( a day ). Verizon has ads on tv and paper, which is how these companies make money, they will never be on are side, they put out whatever vZ tells them..... this battle is for every middle class worker, not just us.......ty
Jessica at 11:46am 14th August 2011 Gee, I find this out about 4 hours after ordering TV and internet from them. Now it turns out they won't even be able to install the FiOS because of the worker strike. (Which makes for a frusterated me because I have been living in my apt for a week now with no TV or web access outside of my phone!) I was wondering why the deal was 40 dollars cheaper than the competitor's cable prices in my area...
Nicholas Eix at 4:28pm 13th August 2011 Did I miss something? I thought Frontier bought out Fios TV and Internet from Verizon, because my bill doesn't say Verizon it says Frontier now.
1. Ian Bell at 5:58pm 13th August 2011 I think only on the West Coast, the East Coast is still Verizon I believe.
Zekkou Ultimedia at 11:25pm 13th August 2011 I must be psychic! LOL!!
Philip Palmer at 11:02pm 13th August 2011 activewho? don't take away my 50mbps internet!
Tonio Johnson at 10:38pm 13th August 2011 Wow and we JUST got Fios last week, this kinda sucks.
Jade Zekkou at 10:37pm 13th August 2011 Exactly what I said was gong to happen 2 weeks ago on my Twitter!! ROFLMFAO!!! Phureaking Idiots!!
TechFreak at 10:39am 13th August 2011 I hope they shut down Verizon. Verizon and Comcast are running their businesses unchecked out there. They take advantage of consumers with fake fees and data overages (Comcast), clearly they rip off patents from others. They need to be taught a lesson.
1. Mike Marra at 11:17am 13th August 2011 Come on! Every big company infringes on other's patents. Examples: Apple Samsung Google
  1. TechFreak at 2:52pm 13th August 2011 Yeah, but this is Verizon. VERIZON man. Don't you want to see them suffer just a tiny bit? :)
    Mike Marra at 10:04pm 13th August 2011 uh why? How come they deserve this? Isn't the strike enough?
    TechFreak at 9:31am 14th August 2011 Their employees are striking because Verizon wants to cut their pay and benefits. If Verizon is growing as a company (and their profits show that), shouldn't they pay their employees the same if not more? Why cut their benefits?
    Mike Marra at 3:45pm 14th August 2011 Good point, but i think that all these big corporations should just get settlements, unless it's something massive.
    
    chris zapata at 5:13pm 15th August 2011 I work for Verizon in brooklyn and im on strike for the middle class we are tired of Verizon making all the money its time to share it they don't even pay taxes and post record profits 16+ billion dollars somebody needs to take stand against greed we need you the public for support its a fight for the middle class let's WIN! !!!!!!!!