Verizon New York: Examining the Financial Shell Game
- NY PSC Proposed Settlement On April 16th, 2018, we filed requesting:
- We request an extension of the current comment period until July 15th, 2018 to examine the Verizon NY 2017 Annual Report to be published May 31, 2018.
- We are calling for a halt to the proposed settlement between Verizon, NY, the NYPSC and parties, which eliminated all mention of the investigation of the cross-subsidies between Verizon NY and Verizon’s other lines of business.
- We are calling for the NYPSC to continue to investigate the billions of dollars in cross-subsidies and the harms that have occurred between Verizon NY and Verizon’s subsidiaries, including wireless—then fix this ongoing shell game.
- NNI & IRREGULATOR FILINGS, NYPSC: August 8th, 2017
We submitted 3 documents: Comment 1 has a short overview as well as a bibliography of our research, which is directly tied to this proceeding. It also gives a brief discussion of issues that have been overlooked or are missing and need to be part of the next steps the State should be implementing. Comment 2 is a more detailed view (that has been published in Huffington Post) of the current proceeding and a Verizon settlement. Comment 3 is a full report based on our analysis of the Verizon NY’s 2016 Annual Report.
- COMMENT 1: Overview and bibliography
- COMMENT 2: Huffington Post: Verizon NY in Multi-Billion Dollar Settlement Tangle, Underway in NY State, August 4th 2017
- COMMENT 3: Full Report: Verizon NY 2016 Annual Report: Follow the Money: Financial Analysis and Implications.
Reports and Filings, 2010-
- Verizon’s State-Based Financial Issues & Tax Losses:The Destruction of America’s Telecommunications Utilities
- In 2010, NNI started an investigation of the financial books of five Verizon’s state-based utility phone companies, including Verizon New York and Verizon New Jersey and the ties to Verizon Communications affiliate companies, (subsidiaries) including Verizon Wireless, Verizon Online, Verizon Services, among others.Published in 2012
- Verizon Wireless and the Other Verizon Affiliate Companies Are Harming Verizon New York’s (The State-based Utility) Customers & the State. Examining Verizon New York’s Phone Rate Increases, Income Tax Benefits, Lack of Network Upgrades, Service Quality and Pushing Voice Link Wireless Deployment
- Verizon Wireless and the Other Verizon Affiliate Companies Are Harming Verizon New York’s (The State-based Utility) Customers & the State.
- In September 2013, our next report focused on Verizon New York and was the centerpiece of a filing by Common Cause, Consumer Union, CWA, and the Fire Island Association, which called for an investigation of Verizon’s financials and business practices, Alexander Goldman, Esq. co-authored the report.
- “It’s All Interconnected”,
- In May 2014, Public Utility Law Project, (PULP) published “It’s all Interconnected”, written by New Networks (with assistance by David Bergmann, Esq.) and it relied on unexamined data from Verizon New York using different Verizon supplied financials books.
- The Verge: Game of Phones: How Verizon is playing the FCC and its customers, May 2014
- The Connect New York Coalition, filed a Petition with the New York State Public Service Commission to do a formal investigation of Verizon New York. July 1, 2014. The Petition is based, in part, on NNI’s continuing research.
- Coalition members include AARP, Consumer Union, Common Cause, CWA, and NY state politicians.
Fixing Telecom
In December, 2015, we released the first two reports in a new series, “Fixing Telecom” a project that started 7 years ago. They are based on mostly public, but unexamined information, the findings impacts all wireline and wireless phone, broadband, Internet and even cable TV/video services in America.
- NNI Expert Independent Team: NNI is now a consortium of independent experts, auditors and lawyers.
REPORTS:
- Report 1: Executive Summary: Verizon’s Manipulated Financial Accounting & the FCC’s Big “Freeze”
- Report 2: Full Data Report
- Report 3: SPECIAL REPORT How Municipalities and the States can Fund Fiber Optic Wireline and Wireless Broadband Networks.
- REPORT 4: Data Report Proving Verizon’s Wireline Networks Diverted Capex for Wireless Deployments Instead of Wiring Municipalities, and Charged Local Phone Customers for It.
- Report 5: The Hartman Memorandum proves that the FCC’s own cost allocation rules created massive financial cross subsidies between and among the state-based wired utilities, and the companies’ other lines of business, such as special access, or the wireless service.
- Report 6: The History & Rules of Setting Phone Rates in America —The FCC’s ‘Big Freeze’ details that the FCC has set basic cost accounting expenses to based on the year 2000 and the FCC has never audited or investigated the impacts for 18 years.
- Report 7: SUMMARY REPORT: Verizon Massachusetts & Boston: Investigate the Wireless-Wireline Bait-n-Switch, January 17th, 2017
- Report 8: Full Report: Verizon NY 2016 Annual Report Analyzed, June 2017.
FILINGS:
Letter to the FCC for an Investigation of Cross Subsidies as detailed in the Hartman Memorandum
On December 16th, 2015, we filed the first reports in 31 separate FCC proceedings.
Joint Filings with CFA