NYC Sues Verizon For Breaking Promise To Make FiOS Available To All Residents (washingtonpost.com)

New submitter erickessler writes: 1 million NYC homes can't get Verizon FiOS, so the city just sued Verizon. Verizon wants another four years to cover remaining 1 million households. Washington Post reports: "New York City has sued Verizon, saying the phone giant broke its 2008 promise (PDF) to make its Fios cable service available to all city residents. The city said in a lawsuit (PDF) Monday that Verizon missed a 2014 deadline to extend wire by every home or apartment building in the city -- in technical parlance, "passing" the home. The city also argues that Verizon hasn't installed service for thousands who requested it. Verizon disagrees with the city's definition of "passing" a home and says it has done its job. Spokesman Ray McConville said Monday that Verizon sees "passed" as meaning that it can reach every home, provided a landlord gives permission. Verizon wants to reach some buildings through other buildings. In a letter to the city Friday, Verizon says 2.2 million households have access to Fios, a phone, cable and high-speed internet network. Verizon said Monday that it is committed to expanding Fios availability to the city's remaining 1 million households."

Comments

They won't come into my building

[Anonymous Coward]

I talked to the techs about it when they were repairing my POTS copper recently. Corporate figures it's not worth their while as the building's too small and other tenants are already with Time Warner, who renamed themselves Spectre excuse me Spectrum. Heard some horror stories about the local low income high rises getting their FiOS boxes and then residents, some of whom use their net connection for health monitors and are on fixed incomes, being told - FiOS or nothing, here's your much larger bill.

Dealt with their techs a lot over the last couple of years, Sandy for one thing, and the techs are uniformly cool and mostly competent. But Verizon corporate does not intend to put FiOS anywhere they can't make an immediate buck. Then they'll claim that the super won't let them in or something which in my case is nuts as I'm the super.

Re:Open the floodgates

[bill_mcgonigle]

The telcos took billions and billions of dollars of tax money in exchange for upgrades they have no intention of ever providing. Fuck them all. The FCC obviously won't be doing anything now, so it's up to the courts, the only sane branch of government left.

Seriously, if the courts were going to enforce any of this it would have been fifteen years ago. Bless his heart, Bruce Kushnick will not let this go, but the telcos used the government to fleece the "ratepayers" and they have no intention of allowing that government to claw any of it back. Whomever needs to be paid, it's a lot cheaper than building infrastructure.

Meanwhile, regulations prevent any effective competition, so that's as good as you're going to get without an Administrative State revolution.