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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.
Although this seems to formalize a policy, the reality is that the various telephone companies have been cutting budgets for maintenance of copper phone lines, switching stations, and networks for many years. Ask anybody who has a business need for POTS lines about how hard it is to get any problems with them corrected--it's basically impossible. If you fight with them long enough and ward off enough attempts to be switched to a VoiP service to replace the broken lines, they'll trigger a "truck roll" and then tell you "it's all good" when it's clearly not "all good."
For example, every one of our remote sites we have a POTS line for the times when (not if, when) the main internet access is offline, taking the VPN to access that facility from HQ offline as well. I have a POTS line at each that I can dial-up to and remotely administer things. Guess how much fun it is to discover a noisy line with a modem? (Hint: Not fun.) Guess how even much more fun it is to discover you have a noisy line at a site in the middle of the only time of year you ever need to use that POTS line, during the Internet outage at that site? (Hint: Super-not-fun.)
Who did what now?
Apparently it's not enough to getfederal subsidies for copper telecom.
No, they want to destroy the infrastructure they're getting federal subsidies to maintain.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Technicians can fix the copper line “if the customer does not qualify” for wireless service. In those cases, the tech must document the reason the customer didn’t qualify for VoiceLink.
“It is a requirement that migration to VoiceLink be your first option when the customer qualifies and the trouble is in Verizon's network,” the memo says.
So it looks like if a tech is called to a site where all they have is voice over copper, and they're having issues with said VOC, then the techs are to simply test to see if the wireless service will work there, and if so, switch them to it. If not, then fix the copper line.
I'm not defending Verizon, but the headline here is misleading.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
I'm sure your cable TV provider could provide you with a land line. Hmm ... maybe you need to become more tolerant of douche bags? ;-)
Basically, not only is Verizon abandoning the copper cable plant that they built and were expected to maintain because they accepted government money to build it and maintain it in the first place, but they are also involuntarily switching customers from a Public Utility Commission regulated utility to an unregulated one that lacks features of the land line service. I'm absolutely sure that the obvious illegality of this has been appropriately muted by well applied lobbying and campaign dollars to the appropriate local and state politicians right?
When asked about raising the data limits on wireless, they cry about how overloaded their wireless is.
One problem I can foresee is that although there is a process in place *now* for keeping the copper in place (it it can be justified), once the FIOS or wireless solution is in place, that premise will probably never be "qualified" to have a copper line hooked back up, so a future need for the copper line cannot be met. The other is that the Verizon "battery backup" is ridiculous - my FIOS backup battery lasts for 8 hours from the time that the power goes out (not 8 hours of call time) and it needs to be replaced every 1 to 2 years. When I had copper service, and we had a house power outage of a week or so in duration (happens roughly 1/year), I could still make phone calls. Now... tough luck. And this means that the E-911 system/service that I've been paying for years to build and maintain won't be there for me if my emergency happens when the power is out.
Dismantling the copper telephony infrastructure should be a public utility decision, not something the phone company does by subterfuge and one-on-one interactions with home owners who don't understand the ultimate ramifications.
The native New Hampshire people want you to fucking quit polluting their state with stupid.
The cordless phones and phones like that need power from the outlet in order to work. That's why one should keep an extremely cheap, no-frills phone on hand in case there's an emergency so that there is something that will work with the landline if nothing else does.