North Baltimore broadband meeting: Verizon has ‘no plans’ to expand FiOS service

Members of the North Baltimore Broad Initiative pleaded their case for wanting better broadband options to Comcast and Verizon representatives the evening of March 14.
Their efforts, however, appear futile.
Said Tad Bishop, Verizon’s vice president of governmental affairs, “At this time we’ve not been extending any [FiOS] franchises anywhere in the country,” reports North Baltimore Patch. As a point of comparison, Bishop told attendees at the meeting that FiOS service is also unavailable in Boston.
A collection of representatives from several North Baltimore neighborhoods, the Broadband Initiative’s main goal is to increase the availability of broadband service options in the city in an effort to receive better Internet access at lower prices.
Publicly-owned broadband service, with Internet provided by the city in the form of a utility, similar to how some cities provide electricity, is an option for increasing broadband access, as Technically Baltimore has reported. But large telecom firms often lobby against such efforts.
Read the full story at North Baltimore Patch.