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Verizon Accused of Slighting Copper Infrastructure
High Fibre writes "Regulatory hearings in Virginia raise questions about Verizon's stewardship of its copper infrastructure, with workers accusing the telecom of cheaping out on maintenance in Virginia due to its preoccupation with its FiOS network. Ars covers the fracas and gives more time to Verizon than the local media do. From Ars: 'During testimony given before the Virginia State Corporation Commission last week... workers painted a dire picture of the state of Verizon's copper network, saying that the equipment required to make repairs — including tools and cable — is not even available.' Verizon disagrees, saying that while it's a challenge to manage and maintain both networks, they are not neglecting their copper infrastructure." A union official gave written testimony about the Verizon problems, presumably so that individual workers would not have to testify in public and open themselves to retribution.
But I suspect unions even more. Most likely, they are concerned about the jobs of their members, who maintain the copper networks.
My guess is, those involved with FIOS are either non-unionized at all, or are much younger and thus not as dear to the union bosses.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Verizon more likely wants to dump the copper and go with FOIS to all.
I am one of many who are not at all happy about the quality, level, and cost of telephony and digital access. I think our government has corrupted itself with the granting and enforcing of monopolies in this area. The access providers are screwing us and we have a third world infrastructure. It was inevitable that Verizion would skimp on copper to fund their build-out of FIOS. The suprise is that so few people seem to care, or even know, how badly we're being screwed.
Best regards.
You give customers what they pay for or you don't expand. I have to pay the whole bill, why shouldn't Verizon have to provide me with the full amount of service I pay for?
Not news...
A lot of Verizon's copper is from the old GTE and that was horrible 30 years ago.
I live in Vienna, VA and we had a line that would completely drop out for a day or two after it rained, and the line was also noisy at other times. Verizon would take days to come out the check it, and said that even though they could detect no carrier they couldn't fix it unless it was not working when they actually were out there. On top of that, after the first couple of times coming out the guy basically told us they were going to have to re-run the cable to the house and there was basically no chance of that ever happening.
Oh and they wouldn't give us credit for any of the downtime. So we canceled our land line and they can go to hell and die as far as I am concerned.
Verizon has been granted a monopoly on copper as long as they serve as a common carrier. If they are diverting funds from maintenance of their common carrier network to installation of selectively-installed FIOS, then they are violating common carrier rules.
The net effect here is that people in poor areas face degraded service while people in wealthy, high-density areas have enhanced service and options. This is exactly what common carrier status and state funding of telecomm was supposed to avoid.
Verizon should be forbidden from doing anything other than POTS (and DSL, provided they provide equal access to it, unlike the current situation). Let another company run fiber and operate a network over it, Verizon should not be allowed to run competing services when doing so violates their common carrier status.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
The problem is that they're not just letting copper go by the wayside where they're installing FiOS, they're letting copper go down the tubes (so to speak) everywhere - even where they have no real plans to install fiber. Fiber is expensive and they are cherry picking the hig-density, high disposable income areas. To fund this expansion of service, they are shorting funds to maintain copper to the rest of the area.
Now, that's all fine and good - I can always switch to any of a number of other telephone carriers who do a better job of maintaining my phone service. Oh, right - I can't because Verizon has a de facto monopoly on telco services in my area - much of it due to government regulation and exclusive rights.
That's the problem with the infrastructure being run by for-profit corporations - there is effectively no competition. Between rights of way, exclusive rights for areas, and a century of stacked up regulations the barriers to entry are insurmoutable for all but the most dense, wealthy areas of the country. Were I king, I would separate the infrastructure from the services. Sadly, I'm not (as I hear it's good to be the king). It would not solve all the issues, but it would at least start down the road of reducing the anticompetitive behavior of the incumbent utility operators against data (and power) providers which do not own infrastructure.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Now there's a knowledgable, unbiased, accurate source. Are contract talks coming up soon?
I'd trust anyone working out in the field compared to the suit and tie CEO who would could only be dragged into the trenches for photo-ops.
one of the nice things about FIOS is that it takes a lot less people to maintain. A 2U server running Vovida has the power of a DMS 500 switch at a tiny fraction of the costs.
Unions hate any efficiency that lets companies do more with less, so they are looking for ways to fight technological progress
They do if work for a CLEC.