[After a promise made in 1994 to provide cable service in RI,] Verizon has won final approval from state regulators to begin service as early as Tuesday in seven communities in the West Bay area.

[Verizon] has seen its traditional telephone business steadily erode because of competition from other firms, such as Cox Communications, which began offering phone service here in 2000. Competitors controlled 43 percent of all telephone lines in Rhode Island last year, according to figures from the Federal Communications Commission. A decade ago, Verizon had a virtual monopoly on phone service.

In addition to Rhode Island, Verizon has entered the cable TV business in California, Delaware, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia.

Verizon’s challenge here will be to convince potential customers that its offerings are competitive with those of Cox Communications, the company that provides service to 98 percent of all cable customers in Rhode Island.

[Verizon uses...] fiber-optic cables, which use pulses of light to transmit information, have more capacity than the coaxial cables that most cable companies use. Cox also uses fiber-optic cables, but those extend just to the neighborhood level; the company uses coaxial cables made of copper for the final link to a customer’s home.

[Cox spokesman John Wolfe,] “Their network is different, but that doesn’t mean it’s better than ours.”