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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.
Posting my trouble ticket here where it will be read by verizon tech's quicker than staying on hold with them for the next century.
Can't loop the smart jack on circuit 36.QGDQ.684591..CD LC 703/26
Come on fix it....replaceing f2 pairs can be fun...come on guys.
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?
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.
The local cable provider around here is very good about fixing things and running a fast network, but even they don't have the power a single provider would.
Consider some of the items you get with open-competitive comm service:
Now, think of the stuff we had under the previous system:
I think it's time to re-regulate all telecom. The private companies have been given a chance, and proven they can't police themselves.
A lot of people who didn't like the old system complain that they had to rent their phone, or that the pace of innovation wasn't as fast under a single provider. In my opinion, having reliable service is worth forgoing the buzzword-of-the-week. I'd be interested in hearing what people think about this.
You're pretty close I'd say, but then miss your own point.
Unions are a victim of their own success. They got better contracts and better benefits, which raised the price of the goods and services produced by union shops. Laws of the free market then shifted business away from union shops to offshore and non-union shops. Unions then resorted to some questionable tactics to "fight to keep what they have" from heavy lobbying and lawmaking to outright extortion and violence.
This fight has cost our country, and has negatively affected *your* wages as well as mine. This is not information from Faux News, just google economists and unions. E.g. , economists Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway of Ohio University calculated that labor unions have cost the American economy $50 trillion over the past 50 years alone and it also found that wages in general suffered dramatically as a result of an economy that is 30 to 40 percent smaller than it would have been in the absence of labor unionism.
Sorry, I know it's good for you and your family right now, but you can't mess with the free market without consequences down the road.
-Ryan C.
The net effect here is that people in poor areas face degraded service while people in wealthy, high-density areas have enhanced service and options. This is exactly what common carrier status and state funding of telecomm was supposed to avoid.
The regulations pre-date the Internet, that's the problem. Here in NH, Verizon is putting nothing into its telecomm infrastructure except in the very densely populated part of the state near Boston, where they want to sell TV over FiOS. The rest of the State they're happy to leave at 35% (it varies) DSL service penetration.
And in a way, who can blame them? They're a public company, they only have so much money to invest, and it's not maximally profitable to invest in rural areas.
That's a failing of the Government granting the monopoly status, not Verizon. Yeah, I hate to defend them, but it's not useful to attack them - it's not going to help. This problem can only be solved by the regulators, either by requiring service levels or doing away with the monopoly grant. If one believes natural monopolies exist, then a service level requirement is the only way forward.
Ironically, it's the rural areas that can most benefit from high-speed Internet, and the least likely to have it (in the US anyhow).
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Verizon does not need to share the new fiber plant. The copper plant is what Verizon has to share with other people. Why invest in something you don't get all to your self. It will be interesting to try and get T1 and DS3 lines from AT&T in the Verizon footprint. Although I suspect that AT&T is doing the same thing with their copper plant.
The regulators are getting exactly what their policies have said they want.
Remember Ma Bell is back! and this time she's pissed.
A trade union is a monopoly. A trust concerning itself with (mostly — anti-competitive) efforts towards maintaining and ever increasing the prices of its members product (labor).
Nobody likes monopolies — the sooner you are busted with RICO and other anti-trust laws, the better. Your corruption and violence have made you far less likable, than most corporations are or deserve to be.
Those, who have grown up in a Soviet Union and similar countries, have particular dislike for trade unions — workers' solidarity, May 1st, class warfare... As far as I am concerned, for example, your sorry Socialist union-official neck belongs on a lamp-post... Nothing personal.
Those (truly) poor, who wish to immigrate to this country to work, are appalled by your arguing, that Americans are, somehow (by birthright?), entitled to better jobs, than Mexicans or Thais or Uzbeks.
And all — including the natively born and raised Americans — still remember the crookery surrounding the name "Hoffa", and the recent NYC-transit strike. We are all wondering, for example, why using the electronic EZ-Pass is only $0.5 cheaper, than going through a unionized toll-collector (EZ-Pass would've fazed those bums out, so extra is being collected for your undeserved pensions). Etc.
I do strongly dislike Microsoft. But:
- it is possible to not buy them;
- they don't slash anybody's tires;
- they don't beat the competition up on the street;
.Much like the Luddite's of the past, you tend to stand in the way of progress — except now you phrase yourself differently. Instead of the honest "this will eliminate my job", you are lying: "it is not safe" (witness the union opposition against automated subway trains, for example).
Got the idea, on where the subject comes from, yet?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
(@$!sd2
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OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
I bought a house with FiOS installed. When I went to have my speakeasy VOIP and DSL service transfered I found out that it couldn't be done. Why, because when the prior owner had FIOS installed they disconnected the copper lines. Verizon is bringing back the phone company monoply one house at a time. Once you get FIOS, no more copper and no more alternative providers. FiOS is pretty cheap right now but I'd like to see what happens when it gets to be the only game around.