Stop Verizon’s Wireless Voice Link

Stop Verizon’s Wireless Voice Link

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JOIN IN THE DISCUSSION

Starting in 2010, The Wall Street Journal reported that Verizon was going to stop their roll out of FiOS, And in 2011, DSL Reports reported that AT&T was not going to be expanding its U-Verse broadband/TV service. By 2012  Lowell Mc Adams, CEO of Verizon  :stated that Verizon would  “kill the copper.” and in rural areas the customers would be given wireless  and “so we are going to cut the copper off there”. AT&T announced in 2012, that they, too, had no plans to upgrade their existing footprint. Thus, 50% of their territories will never get cable TV competition,   and AT&T and Verizon customers will have their  copper turned off and be put  onto wireless.

At the same time, AT&T and Verizon have  been pursuing a massive state and federal campaign to close down all regulations and obligations, like ‘carrier of last resort’ which would eliminate any requirements to fix services if they break – or even provide service. With a group called ALEC, they have gotten 25 states to rewrite basic protections and have got the FCC to create a group to ‘sunset the networks  and more recently  a ‘Transition Task Force” to ‘close down the PSTN, the copper utility networks.

Sandy & Voice Link

In 2012, a storm named Sandy hit  the East Coast and true to their word, Verizon, instead of putting customers back into service after an emergency simply said — tough. Areas of New York City, including Manhattan,  or the Rockaways, had customers without service for over 6 months.

Verizon filed a wavier to not have to fix the Sandy-damaged locations and after some wangling, signed an agreement with the New York State Department of Public Service, claiming it would do a limited test  in the Western part of Fire Island  of Voice Link, a wireless box that is based on pre-smart phone cell service and can’t do basic data applications.

And on Fire Island and New York State, this has caused a firestorm: Moreover, the New York State Attorney General’s Office has found that Verizon has violated this state agreement.

We summarized some of these actions here:

 

 

 

One Reply to “Stop Verizon’s Wireless Voice Link”

  1. Would it have been okay if the VL system supported fax and modem calls and supported data? Or do you think fundamentally we need copper connections to each house?

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