Verizon Forced to Update Aging DSL Networks in New York Verizon will finally repair and upgrade a large chunk of its New York State infrastructure, two years after the state began investigating the company's neglect of its aging network. Verizon froze its FiOS expansion years ago, and has been plagued since by accusations that it's just letting many parts of its network just rot on the vine. From Pennsylvania to New Jersey, millions of customers have lamented either DSL lines that don't get upgrades, or lines that aren't being repaired on a timely basis as Verizon shifts its focus to media and advertising.

Occasionally, Verizon faces something vaguely resembling accountability for this neglect. In New York, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) have announced has reached a settlement with Verizon requiring it repair 54 central offices across the state, replace bad cable, defective equipment, faulty back-up batteries, and to take down 64,000 double telephone poles. The agreement also requires that Verizon expand broadband to a few additional apartment buildings in New York City and more than 30,000 homes across the state. That's of particular importance given New York City's lawsuit against Verizon for failing to adhere to FiOS deployment requirements embedded in the company's 2014 franchise agreement with the city. "The settlement is the result of a CWA campaign to pressure the New York Public Service Commission (PSC) to require Verizon to upgrade and repair the legacy telephone network and to expand consumer access to broadband," notes the union. "In 2015, CWA, 20 allied organizations, and 70 legislators filed a request for an investigation, providing substantial documentation of Verizon’s failure to maintain its copper network," the CWA added. "In April 2016, the PSC opened a formal proceeding with extensive discovery and evidence collection. CWA and Verizon agreed to a settlement, which has been endorsed by the PSC staff. The PSC must approve the final settlement." Verizon was forced to do something similar in Pennsylvania, after the union shared Verizon was forced to do something similar in Pennsylvania, after the union shared embarrassing photos of the company's network in disrepair , ranging from disintegrating cabinets to lazy remnants of double poles . Verizon, of course, sees fare more money to be made in pivoting to video, wireless and advertising, leaving cable broadband ISPs with a bigger monopoly than ever across a large number of markets Verizon used to actually care about.







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Most recommended from 44 comments

axiomatic

join:2006-08-23

Tomball, TX 13 recommendations axiomatic Member fiber could have run fiber.... twice by now.

mt999999

join:2016-06-16

East Liverpool, OH ·AT&T DSL

13 recommendations mt999999 Member Finally Hopefully, other states do the same with incumbent Telcos and ISPs.



There is a dead tree, a decent sized one, that has been hanging on a Frontier communications line around where I live for OVER 3 years. You can see where the line is bowing heavily and the poles around it are even starting to shift; it's a heavy-looking tree. Right along the main drag - rte 30 - in the top of the WV pan handle. I've seen people park cars under it for weeks at a time, probably hoping it will collapse and they can collect insurance cash on their junkers. Lol SArcanine

join:2009-11-09

New York 5 recommendations SArcanine Member How does video earn money? I thought that studies found that video only earned like $5 per subscriber per month. How does focusing on it earn money when wireless and advertising are far more lucrative? dtv757

join:2008-09-20

Virginia Beach, VA 3 recommendations dtv757 Member Good 2 see fios expanding Good to see fios expanding hopefully they will do this in other states like VA.