On 7/24/14 10:51 PM, Bill Bogstad wrote:
On Thu, Jul 24, 2014 at 5:12 PM, Tom Metro <tmetro+...@gmail.com> wrote:
Bill Bogstad wrote:
VZ for land lines (and even FIOS) is at least somewhat a regulated
monopoly. ...you could get the appropriate state regulatory agency
involved on your side.
My understanding is that once you get rid of your copper phone lines,
the state regulatory agency is out of the picture, and you are under the
jurisdiction of your town's cable franchise agreement, which likely
gives you far fewer options for recourse.
This is part of why Verizon yanks out the copper lines when they install
FIOS. They don't want you going back, or for a third party to come along
and re-activate those lines, which under state telco regulations, they'd
be obligated to accommodate.
Your and Dan's note make an interesting pair. Sounds like copper is
the way to go if you
want to remain a "regulated" customer.
Bill
Copper is definitely the way to go if you want regulated service. BUT
you'll never get Verizon to install a new copper line, AND if you
already have copper like I do, good luck hanging onto it! Verizon is
doing everything they possibly can to coerce their copper customers into
giving up their copper connection.
Last summer I needed Verizon to repair one of my copper landlines
because there was some static in the background. Verizon repeatedly
lied to me, and did everything in their power to try to coerce me into
allowing them to rip out my landlines and replace them with FIOS. It
was only because I contacted every governmental entity I could think of
who might have some power over them, that after about 2 weeks they
acquiesced and finally repaired my copper line.
It's worth noting that in the midst of the battle, one of their managers
told me that if I wasn't willing to allow them to switch me to FIOS, he
was going to schedule my lines to be disconnected within 7 days!
Also, although I spoke to someone at the Mass. Department of
Telecommunications who tried to help me, she told me that the law
doesn't give them the authority to require that Verizon do the repair.
The best she could do was to contact Verizon and beg them to repair my
copper line.
In the end, it appears that my persistence in reporting their egregious
behavior to governmental authorities, and my mentioning that I was
considering going to the press, scared them enough that I got a call
from what Verizon calls their "President's Office", which is not
actually the office of Verizon's CEO. It's really nothing more than an
ombudsman's office. They offered me a few months free phone service,
presumably in the hope that I'd be placated and stop publicly complaining.
Apparently I'm not Verizon's only victim. Verizon's coercing customers
all over the country to give up their regulated copper line service and
replace it with unregulated FIOS. Here are just a few of the many
articles about this on the web:
*
http://bgr.com/2014/03/24/verizon-fios-migration-accusations/
*
http://www.extremetech.com/internet/179022-verizon-accused-of-tearing-out-copper-telephone-lines-to-force-fios-and-wireless-on-customers
*
http://forums.verizon.com/t5/High-Speed-Internet-DSL-and-Dial/Attempting-to-force-DSL-users-to-change-to-FIOS/td-p/479121
*
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/03/verizon-accused-of-refusing-to-fix-broken-landline-phone-service/
I've learned from TURN (The Utility Reform Network - turn.org
<http://turn.org>) that the FCC is dealing with this issue by making
light of or ignoring the problem.
Mark Rosenthal
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