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Content tagged with "verizon"
Verizon Caught Forcing Customers to Take Voice Link Service Across New York
The war over keeping copper alive rages on in New York with more stealthy antics from Verizon. Stop the Cap! now reports that, rather than wait for a hurricane to take out the copper lines in the Catskills, it will quietly shift seasonal home owners to VoiceLink as they request reconnection. Stop the Cap! also published a letter [PDF] from the Communication Workers of America (CWA) who allege Verizon has also been installing VoiceLink in the City.
We recently visited this drama with Harold Feld from Public Knowledge on Broadband Bits podcast #52. He and Christopher discussed the issue as it applies to Fire Island in New York and Barrier Island in New Jersey. Verizon has permission from the New York Public Services Commission (NYPSC) to use the VoiceLink product in place of copper wires on a temporary basis as a way to get service to victims of Hurricane Sandy. Seven months is a long time to go without phone service.
Our readers know that VoiceLink short changes users, especially those that rely on phone connections for Life Alert, want to use phone cards, or want the security of reliable 911 service. Feld also noted in his Tales from the Sausage Factory blog, that Verizon was rumored to be making secret plans to expand VoiceLink well beyond the islands, regardless of the limitations of the NYPSC order.
IP Transition Catches Fire Island - Community Broadband Bits Podcast Episode #52
Verizon Plans to Abandon Copper Wires In Islands Damaged by Sandy
Victims of Sandy are still recovering from the killer storm that ripped through the east coast last year. Two places hardest hit by the "Frankenstorm" were Fire Island, New York and the Barrier Island in New Jersey. In addition to homes and property, residents lost phone and Internet communications when telephone wires went down. They are still waiting to be reconnected.
Our readers know about the huge fight that has embroiled consumer advocates and the leading telephone providers in the past few years. AT&T and Verizon seek deregulation to escape the "carrier of last resort" obligation that requires maintenance of traditional copper lines for telephone service. AT&T and Verizon want to shed that responsibility in favor of wireless service that is less expensive to maintain, even though it does not support the range of uses today's copper networks do.
Verizon is the incumbent telephone provider in Fire Island and Barrier Island but decided it will not repair damaged lines. It wants to instead deploy its inferior Voice Link wireless service on the island.
The Voice Link technology basically attaches to your house and uses Verizon's cellular network to connect the telephones in your home. Homeowners can continue to use their home phones, but the quality tends to be worse than on a proper wired telephone network.
Under federal law, telephone providers are obligated to replace or repair downed copper lines unless they substitute with a "line improvement," such as fiber-optic lines. Voice Link cannot be described as a "line improvement" - the only benefit it provides is that it costs Verizon less to build and maintain.
Carroll County Public Network Changes Education, Saves School Funds
Carroll County is a bedroom community, with a variety of economies all around it. Washington, D.C., Camp David, Baltimore, Harrisburg, Fort Detrick, and the Aberdeen Proving Ground are a few of the places surrounding Carroll County. There is very little major transportation infrastructure and no major waterways. Many of the county's 167,000 people commute daily to jobs outside of the bullseye.
Gary Davis, Chief Information Officer at the Carroll County Public Schools (CCPS) and Chairman of the Carroll County Public Network (CCPN) started at the school district in 2002 and immediately recognized that the telecommunications arrangement was insufficient.
Schools and other facilities were connected to the hub via 1.5 Mbps T1 connections and the whole wide-area-network was connected to the Internet via an expensive Frame Relay DS3 connection. The total cost ran as high as $600,000 per year.
When CCPS approached Verizon about increasing bandwidth, Verizon’s proposal was extremely cost-prohibitive. Verizon wanted a long-term commitment that resulted in more than 10 times their current costs. Basically, Verizon would own the network but capital costs would be funded by CCPS and maintained with ridiculously high recurring fees. The return on investment for Verizon was just too low owing the community demographics.
At that time, Davis met Robert Wack of the Westminster City Council and the two compared notes. Davis' vision for Carroll County Public Schools and Wack's ideas for Westminster and Carroll County were very similar. Both involved a high-speed network and Westminster is currently involved in its own municipal network project (to be covered in an upcoming post).
Hey FCC: Time to Expand Unlicensed Spectrum!
This past week, we’ve had quite the discussion around Cecilia Kang’s WashPo piece describing a plan by the FCC to create a national WiFi network by making the right decisions about how to allocate spectrum between licenses for auction and what to leave available for the unlicensed TV white spaces (“TVWS” aka “Super WiFi” aka “Wifi on steroids”). As Kang describes, the FCC’s opening of sufficient spectrum for TVWS could lead to “super WiFi networks (emphasis added) around the nation so powerful and broad in reach that consumers could use them to make calls or surf the Internet without paying a cellphone bill every month.” Needless to say, the article faced much pushback, despite a subsequent Washpo clarification to indicate the FCC was not, actually, planing to build a network. Amidst the various critics, there were some general defenders of the concept.
Lack of Competition Creates Capped Connections
This post comes to us from Patrick Lucey of the Open Technology Institute at the New America Foundation. The post was originally published there, but we are excited to feature it here as well.
Susan Crawford on Bloomberg TV
Six minute interview from Susan talking about the failure of policy in America to expand access to fast, affordable, and reliable networks.
Verizon Begs Regulators for Protection While Demanding Deregulation
Fire Guts His Apartment, Verizon Demands $2,300 NOW
When we hear the news of a tornado, fire, flood or other natural disaster, most of us feel empathy for victims whose lives are disrupted by loss and upheaval. But AT&T, Comcast, Charter, and CableOne have all been criticized for their callous behavior in the wake of disasters. Now we can add Verizon to the list.
In a recent DSLReports story, Karl Bode shares the story of Jarrett Seltzer, whose apartment and possessions were destroyed by a fire. Seltzer was a FiOS customer and, even though he called to cancel service and explain the situation, Verizon demanded he hand over $2,300 to cover the price of four cable boxes (each 6 years old) and an old FiOS router. Karl writes:
Seltzer notes that Verizon continued to bill him after learning about the fire, and his attempt to resolve this with Verizon has involved being on hold for several hours, being transferred fourteen times, while speaking to fifteen different Verizon support representatives.
We would like to report that Verizon had a change of heart, realized their callousness, and reached out to be more cooperative with Mr. Seltzer. Unfortunately, Verizon only eased up after Jarrett's video on YouTube began to get noticed.
As part of a longer response to DSLReports' request for comment, Verizon said this:
Even though this (customers are responsible for maintaining the equipment in good condition while in their possession) is a part of the terms of service with all of our customers, we need to be empathetic with our customers in such difficult situations.
So far, it sounds like we could have done a better job of communicating with him and been more helpful in addressing next steps. At the same time we are reviewing our internal processes to ensure we are providing appropriate consideration for customers in situations like these.
Jarrett's video sums up the situation:
New Book Investigates How Big Companies Like AT&T Rip Us Off
A recent book by David Cay Johnston, The Fine Print, examines specifically how big companies have found ways to take advantage of the tax and regulatory systems to their benefit and to the detriment of consumers. The sad part - we don't even realize it.
Johnston discusses how big companies and their leaders exploit tax rules to re-distribute wealth upwards. Johnston also examines how this exploitation is almost never covered in the media, encouraging big companies to stoop to new lows in ripping off consumers. Telecommunications is one of the industries he covers in the new book.
In the first chapter (read the first chapter via Democracy Now!), Johnston describes how friend and journalist, Bruce Kushnick, came across twenty years' worth of telephone bills in his elderly aunt's possessions. Kushnick tracked the changes in her bills, systematically reviewing and comparing every charge. Kushnick found an array of confusing and cryptic "fees," "charges," and "taxes." The end result:
When he cross-checked his aunt’s telephone bills over the years, he could hardly believe the numbers. His aunt paid $9.51 for her local phone service in 1984. By 2003 her bill had swollen fourfold to $38.90. In the two decades since the breakup of the AT&T monopoly, even after adjusting for inflation, his aunt’s telephone cost $2.30 for each dollar paid in 1984. And that was without any charges for long-distance calls.
Johnston notes the method used by telecoms to increase prices over time: