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Verizon Workers Can Now Be Fired If They Fix Copper Phone Lines (arstechnica.com)
Verizon has told its field technicians in Pennsylvania that they can be fired if they try to fix broken copper phone lines. Instead, employees must try to replace copper lines with a device that connects to Verizon Wireless's cell phone network, ArsTechnica reports. From the article:This directive came in a memo from Verizon to workers on September 20. "Failure to follow this directive may result in disciplinary action up to and including dismissal," the memo said. It isn't clear whether this policy has been applied to Verizon workers outside of Pennsylvania. The memo and other documents were made public by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union, which asked the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission to put a stop to the forced copper-to-wireless conversions. The wireless home phone service, VoiceLink, is not a proper replacement for copper phone lines because it doesn't work with security alarms, fax machines, medical devices such as pacemakers that require telephone monitoring, and other services, the union said.
I left AT&T because they are fucking douche bags
I left Sprint because they were incompetent douche bags
I left T-Mobile because They were worse than AT&T...and they are douche bags
Now I'm with Verizon. Who do I go to next when they start pulling this type of shit on me?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Greed: Don't fix the copper wire infrastructure we get paid to maintain.
Control: If you're moved off of copper wire POTS, then in an emergency or power outage you cannot effectively call for help. Wireless systems get overrun with numbers of calls if the emergency is large enough (hurricane, tornado, flood, etc) and your call will not get through. Or you won't have power (wireless), whereas copper is designed to (almost) always have power and JUST WORK.
Power: See above. Put on your tin foil hat, but this is one step in a wave to disrupt and control communication when a "state of emergency" or "martial law" is declared. Just wait.
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
And if they fix the copper rather than switching to wireless wherever possible, they are subject to "disciplinary action". So yes, they can be fired for repairing the copper.
Looks like you didn't give Verizon their money's worth.
When asked about raising the data limits on wireless, they cry about how overloaded their wireless is.
I have, but I live on a dead end street and the outage involved a car and the pole that fed my street... I'll give them a pass on that.
As to this issue:
call in for "broken" Cu line (really just a yanked wire) and verify that the tech put on the wireless solution.
have your house robbed and the alarm fail because it's not a land line.
claim on your insurance and inform them why the alarm didn't work.
Let your insurance company act as a force multiplier in the ensuing sueball against Verizon.
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
A voip line from a cable company isn't a land line. A land line is a hunk of copper that doesn't go dead when the power goes out. I am 40 years old, and I have NEVER had a landline outage.
My cable provider's modem has an optional battery so that e911 functionality is still available during power outages.
If I did replace my current copper connection I might just plug the modem into a UPS I have layout around.
FWIW I used to work in telecommunications and spent some time in phone company central offices. They battery room was impressive and scary.