Verizon is presently competing with cable TV companies in some markets with fiber to the home (FIOS), offering TV, Internet and phone. They will continue to expand that network since it's very profitable and vastly easier to maintain than their old copper-based network. It also has lots more bandwidth potential (virtually unlimited) than any copper network. They've already installed the nationwide, self-healing, easily upgradeable/expandable and reliable backbone to support the bandwidth folks will expect with FIOS and are in the last (and most time consuming) stages of deployment.
That old copper-based network still has some value since there's plenty of customers that will never pay for FIOS, FIOS may be a long time coming, and there are some areas that may never get it. Verizon is willing to sell the network at a loss today, just to avoid having to maintain the network in the future and to avoid trying to sell it later while its value continues to decrease. Fairpoint, in the mean time, can make lots of money on the network where they are the only game in town since Verizon will not be able to get FIOS out quickly.
I don't really care either way because I have Comcast for phone, internet and TV.
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