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Verizon Copper Cutoff Traps Customers
theodp writes with more mainstream attention to an issue discussed here a month back: "As it hooks up homes and businesses to its FiOS fiber-optic network service, Verizon has been routinely disconnecting the copper infrastructure that it was required to lease to other phone companies, locking customers into higher broadband bills, eliminating power outage safeguards, and hampering rivals. A Verizon spokesman argues customers are being given adequate notice of the copper cutoff, which includes this read-between-the-lines fine print: 'Current Verizon High Speed Internet customers who move to FiOS Internet service will have their Verizon High Speed Internet permanently disabled after their FiOS conversion.'" Customers are supposed to be informed by both the sales person and the installer that their first-mile copper will be cut, and this is not happening.
That's not entirely correct. We tried to call them, but couldn't get through. Not our fault.
Also it is stated numerous times if you do any research on the internet. I also heard that if you request it, they will keep the copper lines intact. I didn't really care, I never used the copper lines in the 2 years I had been in my house anyway, so they can disconnect whatever they want.
Well, telecom companies have the unique property of being unreasonably bloated bureaucratic beasts with a very naughty agenda that make the 3v1l [MP|RI]AA gang look like really angry little kids throwing a temper tantrum. Indeed, pretty much all American phone companies spend their free time trying to figure out how they can squeeze out more profit--does the name "Ma Bell" and what happened to it ring any, er, bells? I think this is less "omg! liberal media bias!" and more "Yes, corporate interests really are that malicious, and they've probably got lobbyists changing the definition of common carrier status to make this all legal."
From a sales point of view, why would you want to tell someone "Oh by the way, there's no turning back, if you decide you don't like FIOS, you're fucked because we're going to cut the old line as soon as you switch" ? Alot of people are going to be disturbed by that & it could be the deal breaker in alot of cases.
From a Verision point of view [font size="0.002"]maintaining both networks must be pretty expensive[/font].
It's like polar bears going to a new iceburg when they realize the one they're on is about to rollover. Some polar bears are going to have a shitty time making the swim to the new iceburg, but the quicker everyone gets over there it better.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Wilful destruction of existing infrastructure for no reason exception to "cut off" their competitors? They're going to the special hell.
As part of the "deal" the phone companies made with the government a long time ago I thought POTS was one of the "Universal Services", which has a federal tariffed rate. My feeble understanding is that obligated the phone company to provide that service to anyone at the federal rate.
So, once the copper is cut, shouldn't you be able to order that service, and make the reinstall cost be on Verizon's nickel? If enough people did that, might they not find it unprofitable to cut the copper?
Nothing like screwing over any future resident of a house. I guess that's something that would need to be included in a home sale. "By the way, buying this house will lock you into Verizon's broadband." Doesn't seem right.
You can't please the average Slashedotter. You guys have complained for years that telecoms are not replacing copper with fiber. Now Verizon replaces copper with fiber, and you bitch.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Maybe it is news because verizon and the other telcos and cable companies keep coming up with new (which makes it "news") shaft the consumer things? I'd go as far as saying cutting the copper is deliberate sabotage of critical national infrastructure and a violation of the implied trust the telcos got when AT&T was broken up and they were allowed to take over parts of the publicly paid for copper infrastructure. Yes, that's right, the public paid for every penny of it, and the telcos got free eminent domain seizures for running it over private property, something rather valuable in today's world. They've also gotten billions of dollars to maintain it, with those frakking service fees you see on your bill that they asked for and received.
The copper built this nations telecommunications and cutting it is at a minimum consumer unfriendly and is destroying quite decent backup that is already there and works. They could like, just leave it the fuck alone when they install the fiber in case the customer wants to use it for something else or have a backup connection, perhaps from another company. And if verizon doesn't want that copper, it should be taken away from them with no recompensation whatsoever, just like any other abandoned property on the street, and given to someone else who would actually use it after being held and auctioned off by the local marshals or sheriffs, just like they do with abandoned cars or abandoned buildings.
I work for a small cable company and its basically a 50/50 situation. Either the customer completely forgets what is disclosed to them, or the CSR flat out never mentions it. Often in sales, its the promotional rate the customer is never informed about, they assume that 30$ is what everyone charges for 8mb connections. So they switch to another company, get hooked up on a promo rate for 6-12 months and when it ends they come back to us, wash, rinse, repeat.
When new homes are wired up, it can take 4-6 weeks to have the trench buried (mostly for locate purposes). You explain this to the customer, but if you check the notes on the account, you'll see them calling several times a week wanting an ETA on when someone is going to bury the coax line. You connect them to the field ops manager who repeats exactly what the CSR says, they feel better, but a week later its back to the same routine.
I am neither a fan or opponent of Verizon (technically my company competes with them in certain areas for phone), but its very possible that alot of customers are indeed informed about the loss of copper, they either don't remember, don't care or are so technically retarded they don't even understand the basic premise of copper vs fiber.
I don't mean to belittle customers, most companies get a strong following of loyal customers who both enjoy and understand the service with very few problems (My Qwest DSL has been going strong for years now). Anyone who's worked in a call center for a few years will understand this. I've had some calls where I've had to repeat the same thing over and over again and in the end, I got the feeling they didn't understand one word I said.
Not at all. They are replacing it with technology locked into Verizon. With copper, other companies could lease the lines from the line owner. Not so with fiber. It would be one thing if Verizon were using wholly private land for their fiber, but they are putting it on public easements and public property with public infrastructure-improvement subsidies. They should serve the public first -- which means allowing competitors to use the equipment that they install on public land.
If you want a deregulated, private network -- buy your own land to lay your own lines using only your own money. Verizon is doing none of those things.
What do they have to gain? What every good editor wants, eyeballs. The more eyeballs the more they can charge for ads. To do that, editors post what people will read. The Slashdot readers hate Verizon, so they want to read articles giving them even more justification for hating Verizon.
Also, though, I think they keep posting articles about how crappy Verizon is because there's no such article about good things Verizon has done. The editors "motive" for hating Verizon is probably for the same reason as the rest of us, they've dealt with Verizon.
From personal experience I will say that Verizon is worse than the IRS. A couple years ago I had to deal with both the IRS and Verizon at the same time. I forgot to send in a worksheet with my taxes, so I had to spend time on the phone trying to get that worksheet to the right location so they could give me my credit. Don't get me wrong, the IRS is a pain and the left hand doesn't know what the right hand was doing. But everyone was nice and did everything they personally had power to do. We finally got my taxes straightened out.
At the same time, I was moving and signed up with Verizon for telephone and internet service. I signed up about a month ahead of time and asked them to activate my land line phone service and DSL the same day I moved in. That was a nightmare. First, the phone service connection was a couple days late. Then, when I went to hook up to the internet I discovered they had never actually set up the DSL. I found the email with the confirmation number and called about the problem. The service rep asked me for my phone number and then told me there was no record of ordering DSL. When I asked her about my confirmation number, can she try looking up my order through that, I was told that she couldn't look up anything with the confirmation number. Basically, the confirmation number does NOTHING except make me feel good, until I call and try to use it to prove confirmation. So I spoke to higher-ups about the problem and was told, "Oh, we're sorry, we'll have it set up in a couple days." A couple days go by and still no DSL. I call again and am told there was a communication problem and it will be just a few more days. Still no DSL! The last person I talk to says, "What? It's impossible to get DSL set up that fast. The last person you spoke with lied to you [yes, he really said "lied"]. It takes about two weeks to set up DSL." So, I finally got DSL about a month after the originally "confirmed" installation date.
Then, to finish it off, when I moved from my apartment after I year I had them disconnect the phone line. Well, the line got disconnected (I tried it, I couldn't make a phone call) but the next month I got a bill for DSL. For the month AFTER the phone line was disconnected! It actually took some time to convince the service rep that I couldn't have DSL after my phone line was disconnected, but FINALLY, they agreed to "refund" us. Yes, after all that, we still had to pay the stupid bill and wait for them to send us a reimbursement check!
I have sworn off Verizon for good. THAT is why people hate Verizon.
I got FIOS installed a few days ago. We decided we didn't want cable TV service and 20/6Mbit for $45 is so much cheaper then the 6/2Mbit we were getting from Comcast for $57/month. From my experiences there seems to be a lot of disinformation about the Verizon install.
1. They didn't cut the existing copper to the house. The installer said they don't do that if there is more then one family or if the customer asks them not to. But even if they had I could still get phone only service over fiber for the same price as over copper. It doesn't matter much as we don't have a LAN lane, only cell phones.
2. They install a battery backup with the fiber that will keep it alive for 6+ hours if the power goes out. But honestly, most people have cordless phones and other phones that require 120v AC so they lose phone when the power goes out anyway. True, if you power goes out frequently and you need to use the phone then FIOS isn't for you. But most places like that are rural areas where FIOS isn't being installed anyway.
3. The worst part of FIOS is that we now need to pay for the 15 watts the transformer uses. This really does piss me off but even with the $30 a year it will cost me it is still a much better deal then Comcast. Oh, and I can still use Comcast for Internet/TV/Phone if I so I have not lost my choice of connections. I would need two separate coax runs if I wanted both at the same time though. The installer asked me if I wanted him to run new coax in the house which I declined.
I'm not overly impressed with the actual speed of FIOS now that we have it but it still is a better deal then Comcast. When Comcast becomes cheaper, I'll probably switch again. We have more competition now then we ever had in the past and it is saving us money.
I think I said that, and it is the consumers-the publics-copper after all. If verizon doesn't want it, it should be taken away from them then and someone else can use it. In fact, I'd go as far as saying all the damn copper should be reseized from the telcos so they can't pull any bogus additional fee nonsense on the public. They keep saying it is "their" wire,pure horse hockey, they just sort of gradually assumed ownership of it, it's always been the publics wire with a limited granted monopoly to maintain it. If they cease maintaining it, they have given up any claims to control over it and should leave it alone.
No maintenance means they have abandoned it, back to my original point, the sheriffs take it and auction it off and their workers stop touching the stuff.
As to the wireless everything, I'll believe it when I see it. At best wireless today is half assed and half working and still pretty insecure and flaky. How long have we been waiting for wimax for instance?
Until then, they shouldn't deliberately destroy that which is still working, at least leave it intact for backup purposes.
The US has a primitive broadband infrastructure BECAUSE of this sort of activity.
With a more competitive marketplace there would be pressure to improve quality, reduce prices, and expand the market.
If Verizon has no competition they charge what they want, provide crappy service, and dont invest in their infrastructure.
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And maybe everyone will forget you invented the rules in the first place...
1996 "Let's make everyone pay each other for calls from their network to another network..." rule to keep CLECs from being a viable business (oh wait dialup ISPs are all inbound calls, D'OH!) followed by the
1999 "The Internet is not the telephone call so we don't have to pay those competitors the BILLIONS of reciprocal compensation for all our customers dialling up to d/l pr0n" rule which made
2004 "Packet based voice not subject to the same regulations as POTS" rule
Which means that now Verizon is rolling out a pure packet switched network that they don't have to share... Oh yeah and practicing a scorched-earth policy it seems.
How do you explain the existence of contract lawyers? You know; people highly trained and well paid to spend their days understanding how to read and write small print. --If every working Joe was fully trained in the reading and understanding of deliberately deceptive small print in deliberately confusing contractual agreements, then why, oh, why do we have contract lawyers and schools dedicated to teaching contract lawyers?
Some people who sign contracts are not the same as you; they might be, say for example, overwrought working parents who may not have the same time and ability to focus their attention that you enjoy. Some people didn't have the proper nutrition or the same educational opportunities while growing up that you did, and so have fewer skills with regard to understanding the technical minutia in contractual agreements. Or are you suggesting the people who are not like you should be punished in some kind of 'Survival of the Fittest' line of myopic thinking? Should people who are not the same as you be fed to the sharks? I disagree, especially when 'Fittest' actually means, 'born to parents who happened to grow up in the right place and the right time with the right skin colour.'
I've met sharp-witted poor people who are among some of the hardest working humans on the planet, and I've met dull as doorknob rich people who are not, so 'lazy' and 'unfit' are piss-poor generalizations against people who aren't as advantaged as you. --That's a pre-emptive, "Don't even go there," in case you were wondering.
There is more than one kind of person on this planet; and thank goodness for that! Otherwise we'd have a world filled with tight-ass conservatives. The world would be missing good sex, 95% of the creative arts, spicy food and automobiles which come, "in any colour we want so long as it's black". In other words, the world would run like a Swiss watch, but there would be little appeal in actually being alive there.
Which is to say. . , some people spend their time developing skills other than the understanding of legal fine print and technology. Thank goodness!
Corporations which go to lengths to exploit people, and even create weakness in people which can then later be exploited, should not be held blameless while those they harm are sneered at for not being white and rich and mono-cultured enough.
-FL
http://www.newnetworks.com/broadbandscandals.htm
When communities started deploying their own fiber optic cable systems the communications industry was alarmed, even though they had plenty of opportunity to begin laying FOC themselves. They went to congress (lobbied and bribed congressmen) and got a law which forbid local governments from "competing" with free enterprise and paid the companies an advanced "reinbursement" to lay the FOC themselves. The communications companies, including Verizon, took the money but never laid the FOC. By ignoring the companies lack of compliance, even though they took the cash to do so, Congress has given defacto approval to the theft.
What does one expect when "campaign contributions" can be so easily converted to personal use?
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
less onimous than these posts want to make out
Good luck selling your house to someone who just wants plain old phone service, unless Verizon's going to put the copper back in or charge normal phone rates for people not using the internet stuff.
FCC regulations require them to lease the copper to other broadband providers. They have no such obligation with the fiber. Once the copper is gone, you're locked into Verizon broadband (unless you switch to cable). At that point, especially for those households without cable available, Verizon has no reason not to jack up your prices and/or provide shitty service.
It's the same thing we always see from the telcos, and which explains the terrible Internet, cellular, and POTS service we have in the U.S. Instead of competing, they run whining to either Congress or the regulators for special protection. Because there is no way for consumers to counteract well-funded political interests, Congress gives them whatever they want, and they don't have to compete anymore.
This is something all nerds would love, unlimited bandwidth to the home but the only article I see are about how they're cutting copper off and replacing it with fiber? Who cares?
The next tenants/home owners who move in. While a nerd/geek may be happy paying tens of dollars each month for cable/broadband/telephone service, the next tenants may resent being forced to pay for a whole load of services they don't want. This might even affect the rental/property price of the location in question.
Having freedom of choice is far better than having no choice at all.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
they started fios in "green zones", where there was no pre-existing copper. this gave them the work around where they didn't have to share their lines w/ other telcos. its only a logical conclusion to land lock the customer back into their territories by cutting the coper. if you are going to spend the billions in infrastructure and lines then you might as well block all others from access.
A large portion of the copper infstructure was paid for by the public, NOT verizon. Also, is there some technical reason that the old copper needs to be removed to install fiber? No, there isn't a compelling reason other then to lock people into their service.
Good day, my dim witted friend.
Actually in seriousness, I did the research and was sort of informed that my copper would be shut off. I told them that I didn't want the service unless they left my copper lines alone. The Verizon folks agreed. However, to them copper left alone, meant converting my phone lines to fibre anyway and taking the phone company box with them!!! I called and complained and they said my copper lines were still there. Yes, soft of true. I was extremely pissed off to say the least.
There are 2 problems with having your copper lines switch to fibre. Aside from the obvious vendor lock-in, fiber telephone service isn't going to stay on for too long if your power goes out (they don't run their own generators to keep it going unlike with copper). (We have terrible power here near Washington, DC.) My wife and I work at home. With two of us using the phone, the batter backup on their router won't stay going for long. Plus batteries age!
So if you want reliable phone service do what we did, change local service on (at least one) of your phone lines to another company. It took months to get a Verizon guy to actually come over and rehook one of the lines up and a ton of bitching. So my advice is DO THIS STEP BEFORE GETTING FIOS! However, I don't know if it can be Sprint anymore (that's what we used) since Verizon bought Sprint. If you use another local carrier they have to work via copper.
If you have another local carrier, you can still get Fios. Apparently, they then have to bill your credit card. There really should be some class action suit about this stuff. It is nuts. However, Fios is still pretty darn good Internet.
Actually its worse than that. The FCC ruled that if you roll out fiber you are exempt from competition. Verizon is not leasing their fiber to anyone, and they aren't required to. They are cutting the copper because as they do that, the are creating 100% monopoly service areas.
Verizon, at&t, and any other Fiber service provider owns a 100% monopoly as long as there is no copper. Verizon is not required, and has no natural incentive to lease their fiber to competitors at any price. If they were to allow a competitor to "lease" the fiber, I guarantee they would say "Ok, well our retail rate is $49/mo, so we'll let you use the connection for $45/mo" or some other really impossible to compete with price. The competitor would still have to provide all of the connection termination equipment, and the bandwidth, and would probably have to sell the service at ~100/mo just to cover costs. So obviously no one would sign up for that.
Verizon isn't doing that though, as they cut the copper they are removing competitors and creating 100% monopoly service areas where customers have absolutely zero choice.
Wrong. Fiber is a whole new animal. If you roll out fiber, the FCC turns a blind eye, there is no regulation. In fact, the FCC ruled that you don't have to allow competitors access to fiber that you roll out. Fiber for the telcos is just like cable networks which people have requested access to multiple times, and the FCC has consistently ruled that the cable cos don't have to allow access.
But I'm very sad to hear this about Verizon. This is the final nail in the coffin of the ultra-reliable count-on-it-in-emergencies service that Theodore Vail, AT&T, and the Western Electric engineers brought into being. Through pure self-interest, and I know that the days of Ma Bell had their downside, but it was one of the wonders of the world. The phones always worked and in the extremely rare occasions when they didn't, the phone company acted as if they had a responsibility to make them work.
Now we're slowly getting pushed back into cheap service that works except when you really need it. Because it's easy to evaluate what your phone costs, and it's easy to look at the list of spiffy features, but it's very hard for Joe Consumer to know how reliable the service is... so the free market can't put a proper value on reliability.
Six months ago, the company I work for installed spiffy VOIP telephones. Because of some issue or another, they kept the old I-know-it's-not-Centrex-but-whaddaya-call-it system connected for a while. And there were also about three individual plain old lines for some fax machines.
A few months ago there was a power outage that started around 9 a.m. and lasted into the early afternoon.
The spiffy VOIP phones went dead immediately.
The old company phones kept working for about an hour.
Apparently the local cell towers don't have much in the way of battery backup because a few hours later nobody's cell phone could get a signal.
But the three plain old phones were still working six hours later, and based on past experience I believe they would have worked for a couple of days.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
As much as I understand that regulation is sometimes necessary to keep a level playing field, it's no myth that regulation is also a barrier to free markets and the general principle of Capitalism.
Which is why any heavy regulations of Fiber at this point in time would almost certainly have the effect of stunting growth of fiber networks. These companies are spending billions. To invest that kind of cash you need to see a tempting ROI, which just won't happen if you saddle it with regulations.
If we want Fiber networks to be public infrastructure, then we need to pay for it with public monies. Regulate it, fine, but give them gigantic tax incentives to actually run the stuff.
I'll probably be modded down, or have some slashdotter call me a faciest right winger who is trying to protect TheEnemy. I don't care. In all honesty I'm probably one of the biggest supporters of Liberalism and the democratic party you've ever spoken to. But I also have a BS in Economics and this is economics 101.
That's odd. I work for Verizon as a lineman and do lots of FiOS installs in the Boston area.
My foreman told us a month ago to stop taking down the copper just to improve our install times. Maybe at the CEO level there's a big conspiracy to eliminate common carrier lines but the 1st and 2nd level managers certainly don't care about it. And I know for sure the linemen don't.
I know when I install I only remove the copper in a few circumstances:
1. The customer specifically asks me to (usually for aesthetic reasons, they don't care for all the wires running over their lawn).
2. They have underground conduit so I have to use the old copper line to pull the new fiber through it.
3. The drops to their house go through thick foliage and rather than try to weave the fiber through a bazillion branches I'll tape it to the old copper line and just pull it through.
Other than that? Why would I spend 30 minutes cutting the old line, getting dirty gathering it up and then finding a place to dispose of it when I'm all done? I'm not going to do extra work for no reason. Particularly if there's good reason not to do that work. I say just wait for the next hurricane to knock it down for you. Then we can take it away.
Basically I think it's going to go one of two ways in the future.
1. Consumer complaints over price and service will ultimately lead to making the fiber network common carrier in a decade or so.
or
2. WiMAX, BPL, Cable, Cellular and Satellite will provide enough options for consumers that the number of people calling for the fiber to be made common carrier just won't reach a critical mass because most people will be satisfied with the existing communications options.
Your scenario's a little strange. I don't know why those guys would risk losing a new customer over something as silly as that. In the Boston area anyway they seem to bend over backwards to save an install.
I expect that Verizon, assuming that it retains its status as the ILEC in a given territory, is still obligated to supply residential POTS service to anyone who applies for it at tariffed rates regardless of the technology they use to deliver that service. There has never been any provision that I know of in a telephone tariff that specified the technology through which basic residential service had to be delivered.
Mod parent as 'telco shill' who wants everyone to beleive it was the monopoly telco's that paid for the infrastructure, as opposed to their overcharged subscribers and the government. Your grandparents (and their parents) paid for this infrastructure many times over in the form of absurdly expensive telephone bills.
The simple truth is that the in-ground infrastructure is a natural monopoly, and while ideally it should be public property, if a private company continues to own it, then access to it and charges for using it should be heavily regulated, and any entity that wants to use it to provide services should have equal access at fixed rates.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
You're almost right - we actually paid billions for a fiber network we never received. Not only that, but it can be argued that the telco's don't actually own any of the wires/cables/fiber, as it was all subsidized by the people (taxes) one way or the other. The same can be said for cable companies.
While I'm not one to liek government interference in business, this really does appear to be a utility function that should be owned by the public, much the same as other municipality owned services.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.