New York City Report Slams Verizon for Missing FiOS Goals Back in 2008 Verizon negotiated a closed-door agreement with NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg that agreed to wire all five boroughs with FiOS by June of 2014 -- sort of. Fine print in the deal allowed Verizon to back away from that promise if they pay a few small fines and/or aren't seeing the kind of TV subscriber uptake they'd like. The language also allowed Verizon to "pass" most of these homes versus actually "serve" them. In short, Verizon signed a deal knowing full well large sections of NYC wouldn't be connected via FiOS.

As it became clear that Verizon wasn't going to meet its obligations, the company increasingly started publicly blaming landlords for holding up its deployment plans. And while difficult landlords surely do play a role, when reporters have dug into Verizon's claims they've often found that Verizon incompetence often played a role in whether buildings got connected. It's now 2015, and the city has woken up and is seriously criticizing Verizon for failing to live up to its promises. While the city has yet to release the audit publicly (we'll release a link when available), the Wall Street Journal states the report illustrates that there's a large number of outstanding requests for service that Verizon hasn't responded to: quote: There are more than 40,000 requests for service pending, about 75% of which have remained outstanding for 12 months or longer, according to a copy of a municipal audit reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The audit was conducted by the city’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications. Of course Verizon never actually intended to wire all five boroughs, something that was made clear in the agreement if anybody had bothered to actually read it (or had paid attention to any of the few reporters that Update: the full audit can be found Of course Verizon never actually intended to wire all five boroughs, something that was made clear in the agreement if anybody had bothered to actually read it (or had paid attention to any of the few reporters that had ). As it stands, estimates peg NYC at somewhere between 45 and 60% wired with FiOS, and with Verizon's primary focus being wireless and FiOS expansion largely frozen, there's little to no indication that will be shoring up the gaps anytime soon.: the full audit can be found here







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Most recommended from 47 comments



karlmarx

join:2006-09-18

Moscow, ID 6 recommendations karlmarx Member Verizon is obligated to lie Verizon has ZERO financial incentive to wire up the entire city, and they have a fiduciary obligation to LIE to the government in order to increase profits for their shareholders. Like Ford Motor and the Ford Pinto, Verizon calculated the COST of providing what they 'promised' vs the cost of fines to be heavily skewed towards NOT doing the right thing (ford refused to spend $7.00 to fix the car, knowing the lawsuits from deaths would be cheaper). The solution is very very simple. Since you can't FORCE verizon to do the right thing, the only thing you can do is change the balance of the equation so the PENALTY is greater than the cost of non-compliance. The penalty should be in the range of 8 BILLION dollars (with interest). There are appx 9 million residents in NYC. Only 20% can actually get FIOS. NYC was able to get 5% of the $1500/year bill per customer, so that's $500,000,000 a year that NYC is not getting. That times 5 years, and triple damages are standard, leaves verizon with a liability of $7,500,000,000.00 bsangs

join:2002-08-21

Montclair, NJ 5 recommendations bsangs Member How about looking in the mirror NYC? So wait, Verizon signs an agreement in which it has a LEGAL out and when they abide by the terms of said deal, they're the bad guys? How about putting this on the morons that green-lit the language of the contract in the first place? elefante72

join:2010-12-03

East Amherst, NY 2 recommendations elefante72 Member Auction Cash Put plainly the Vodafone absorption has put Verizon debt levels to the brink so that they sold their towers and now wireline is going to Frontier. Frontier is debt loaded to the brink also, so they could never absorb the cost to purchase the NE. Verizon needs to conserve cash to get at the spectrum bounty next year, so capex spending is going to be minimal as possible AND they have added BTL fees to existing users like crazy.



What Verizon didnt count on is Tmobile being scrappy and they are starting to chip away at "dumb and dumber" so that is putting a crimp on FCF (free cash flow) so it appears their singular focus on wireless may have not been a bright idea.



Once this juicy low frequency block goes, the party is over for a few decades so all these guys are just saving up cash. Even though AT&T/VZW dont need the spectrum if Sprint and TMO get their hands on it, this will give them a weapon to go after them and chip away at the "gross" gross margins. Worse if Dish and TMO marry, that will be a serious credible threat to the duopoly...



My point is that they are strangling FiOS to save up for the spectrum auction which is surely a profitable asset--much more than wireline. This is the wireless equivalent of selling lower Manhattan all in one auction. It will be pricy and it is prime real estate.

rollinraver

join:2002-04-27

Buffalo, NY 2 recommendations rollinraver Member Partially... First and foremost, I'm definitely NOT backing big red... One of the BIG hurdles is that NO existing building has a fiber pre-run to each apartment. So there has to be a way of getting one there. This brings in the micro ducting concept, which is "construction" that needs to be done. Let's face it, there are landlords/building supers that will NOT allow the company to run it. Therefore, no fios can be installed. Getting it TO the building is one thing, which it is CLAIMED they have PASSED most buildings, however getting the fiber to each unit/apartment is something completely different. I would agree that the company DEFINITELY COULD AND SHOULD be trying a lot harder to push it through.