Verizon will start selling FiOS TV in New York City on Monday. The announcement will be made at a glitzy ceremony at the Grand Central Station, and will be webcast as well. NYC had granted Verizon a television franchise in May, and the franchise was confirmed by the New York Public Service Commission on July 16. The company today announced that it was getting into offering web video on its set-top boxes.

On the FiOS NYC announcement, this move should turn the heat on Time Warner Cable which is finally going to see some aggressive competition in its home market. It would need to not only increase broadband speeds, it would need to give consumer a reason to stay with them for cable TV.

In its second-quarter earnings call this morning, AT&T highlighted the awesome growth of its wireless business, which surged 14.8 percent to $11 billion and accounted for roughly a third of its $30.9 billion in revenue for the period. The company also said that the 3G iPhone was selling twice as fast as the first one, which given the price cut, isn’t too surprising.

Equally unsurprising was the 10 percent rise in the number of smartphone subscribers over the second quarter of 2007 (AT&T is the sole carrier of the iPhone in the U.S.). And those users are surfing the web, pushing AT&T’s data revenue up 52 percent from the same period a year ago, to $2.5 billion. After adding 1.3 million wireless subscribers during the quarter, AT&T is still the largest cell phone carrier with 72.9 million subscribers. However, Verizon said yesterday it had added 1.5 million subscribers, so the iPhone exclusivity can only do so much.

The tethered world was a little less rosy, however. AT&T did add 170,000 new U-verse subscribers, bringing that total to 549,000; it also reiterated its goal of having a million subscribers by year-end. But triple-play services were down and broadband growth is slowing. Subscribers to voice, data and TV fell to 48.4 million from 49.5 million at the end of the second quarter of 2007. And AT&T’s total broadband connections now number 14.7 million, up 1.4 million over the same quarter last year but a mere 46,000 higher than the first quarter of the year.

Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t write a more necessary (and sarcastic) article about U.S. ISPs’ efforts to craft a nationwide broadband policy than the one over at DSL Reports. AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and others have signed onto a plan being pushed by nonprofit group Connected Nation to measure broadband penetration that’s aimed at increasing broadband usage. However, as DSL Reports makes clear, the package is hardly something to cheer about.

As alleged by another not-for-profit organization, Public Knowledge, Connected Nation’s mapping abilities are questionable and much of the group’s efforts go toward selling consumers the services of the larger incumbent carriers. Connected Nation’s ties to AT&T (through BellSouth) set off alarms a few years ago, much the way the embrace of its policies by the ISPs do today. These are the same ISPs currently trying out some very unfriendly consumer tactics, such as tiered broadband and traffic blocking, which makes Connected Nation look like the fox guarding the hen house.

Essentially the ISPs want Connected Nation to take public money and create a map of the U.S. that shows which communities have broadband, and which ones don’t. They want this even though they could just as easily ask the ISPs for that data (after all, some of them have given up a lot more when asked) themselves.

The FCC has let the inmates run the asylum and dictate broadband policy for a long time. Perhaps as broadband becomes more necessary to our entertainment and work, consumers will recognize that these issues are not abstract ones, but rules that affect our ability to get streaming HD content, high-quality medical care in rural areas and other such services that have broader repercussions on our daily lives.

As the average consumer embraces ever more complex technology, Verizon is offering a series of classes beginning in New York City to show consumers what their PDAs and smartphones can do for them. I’m sure many of our readers aren’t in need of such a class — which will teach users all about texting, syncing music and emails — but it’s a great idea.

I hated my BlackBerry Pearl when I first got it; it took what felt like forever to figure out how it was supposed to work. If done well, teaching people like me to use their phones should increase data revenue and overall ARPU for Verizon. If done well, it will also make committed smartphone users out of most participants. And luring people into the store and to teach them the “Verizon way,” means consumers are likely to pick up a few high-margin accessories to bolster their education.

People in the technology field know that poor usability and device complexity hurts customer satisfaction, but keep cramming more features into them. As consumers, rather than enterprises, buy more devices and drive technology adoption, usability needs to improve, or else vendors such as Best Buy with their Geek Squad or Verizon with its classes will take up the slack. At that point, consumers are more likely to heed the advice of their favorite Geek rather than the glossy ads of an OEM when looking for their next purchase.