Located in the northeast Bronx, Parkchester contains 12,271 apartments in 171 buildings. Parkchester was the first housing community developed by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. in the late 1930s and served as a model for the Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village complexes in lower Manhattan, where residents in 11,232 apartments already have access to Verizon FiOS.

Under recently signed agreements with the members of two condo boards at Parkchester, Verizon will start providing FiOS TV and FiOS Internet to some residents by the end of the year. The agreements are Verizon's largest to date in the urban multiple-dwelling-unit market, a company spokesperson says.

A few weeks earlier, Verizon signed an agreement with the Municipal Housing Authority for the City of Yonkers to bring FIOS to 2,029 apartments in the public housing buildings. Verizon has already begun the build out of the network and expects to have service available to all residents by the end of the year.

Before it can offer FiOS to residents in multi-unit buildings, Verizon needs permission from the property's owner or condo association. So in the past three years, the company has done just that--aggressively pursuing agreements with multifamily owners and developers.

Verizon said it generally absorbs the costs associated with bringing its fiber network to a property. The company also offers property managers and leasing agents incentives when residents sign up for the services.

To date, Verizon FiOS is available to residents in more than 870,000 apartments in 16 states and the District of Columbia, the company reports. Third-quarter profit at Verizon Communications Inc. grew 31% as the company added cable television, Internet and wireless phone customers despite the weakening economy. "FiOS continues to show good subscriber growth, deeper penetration and growing average revenue per user," Verizon President Dennis Strigl said this week.

"We have more than doubled our video subscribers to 1.6 million and increased penetration about 500 basis points. For the quarter, we had 233,000 net ads and opened 1.2 million additional homes for sale in the quarter. Despite the rhetoric of cable companies and their advocates, FiOS is a growing formidable competitor."

Verizon's efforts to woo the multi-family sector intensified late last year when the FCC banned apartment owners and condo associations from granting a single provider exclusive rights to offer TV service to residents. The decision cut the traditional hold that cable TV companies had on multi-family dwellings and opened the door to alternatives including satellite and Internet-based TV. That's also created opportunities for property owners, says Eric Cevis, vice president of Verizon Enhanced Communities, the business unit that markets and sells communications and entertainment services to single and multiple-home communities.

"In real estate it used to be about 'location, location and location.' But in today's competitive environment, it's all about 'location, location and connection' because it matters which network you can offer your residents and tenants," he says.

Verizon Enhanced Communities signs access, service and marketing agreements with developers of single-home complexes, new apartment and condo and co-op high-rises, military installations, and student housing. The business unit also retrofits multifamily properties with the company's most advanced services, including FiOS TV.

Verizon changed the name of the business unit to Verizon Enhanced Communities from Verizon Avenue in early 2006 to reflect a broader base or communities of customers. In August, it revamped the unit's website to focus on FiOS and "better serve the real estate industry," the company said. The site targets real estate owners and developers, property managers and leasing agents, and small-commercial-property owners of small and medium-sized commercial properties ranging from multi-family complexes to strip malls, and street-level shops and offices.