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“I will be dead in the ground before Verizon gets around to restoring my phone line, and I have been their customer for 72 years,” says Irene, 95, one irate now-ex Verizon customer in New Jersey.
She, like many others, lost her Verizon landline during Hurricane Sandy and has waited for its return ever since.
“She has the patience of a saint, but if Verizon was in charge of admitting people beyond the Pearly Gates, there would be a line stretching endlessly across the heavenly clouds,” shares Irene’s daughter Agnes.
Irene and her late husband had their telephone hooked up by Verizon’s predecessor three days before Pearl Harbor. For the non-history initiated, that was Dec. 4, 1941.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt called Dec. 7, 1941 a Day of Infamy. Irene’s family calls Oct. 29, 2012 “The Day After Infamy” after Hurricane Sandy slammed ashore in the northeast and wiped out phone service up and down the tri-state coastal area. She is still waiting for her dial tone to return on her 1972 rotary dial phone.
“Everyday I pick it up just to see if there is anyone there, and of course there isn’t,” Irene tells Stop the Cap! “I used to worry about the cat knocking the phone receiver on the floor, but it does not make much difference anymore.”
Irene cannot understand why Verizon is allowed to get away with such shoddy service.
“Just a few years ago, if your phone was out for three days you would have a supervisor apologizing and sending repairmen out even if their supper was waiting on the table getting cold,” Irene remembers. “Those days are over I suppose.”
Irene lives with her daughter in a home that escaped the worst of the storm, but unfortunately her phone service was not so lucky. Verizon has not provided fiber optics in her part of New Jersey yet either, so FiOS is not an option.
“You call Verizon and they are very apologetic on the phone and keep writing up service calls, but unfortunately nobody ever comes and nobody will tell us anything,” Agnes said. “We even tried praying, but Verizon answers to a different God.”
Irene’s great-grandchildren visit with cell phones in hand and cannot understand why Irene still bothers with her home phone, and the family purchased her a cell phone for Christmas to use in the interim but Irene has thrown it in a drawer.
“My phone has been with me since Richard Nixon was in the White House and it is all I have ever needed or wanted,” Irene says. “Agnes will answer the cell phone and hand it to me but the sound on it is terrible, like everyone is in the shower when they are calling.”
Agnes also dials outgoing calls for Irene, and her grandchildren helped her compose the e-mail sent to Stop the Cap! asking if we could help.
“My kids told me Verizon has installed these wireless boxes and screwing them into the wall and I don’t want that,” Irene insisted. “I just want them to fix the phone line and leave it be.”
Irene adds she has paid The Phone Company more than her fair share during the last seven decades.
But during a recent emergency family meeting, a decision was made to deal with a half-year of the “Verizon Problem” once and for all. After corresponding with us, they are signing up for Comcast phone service instead.
“The man at Comcast said I could keep my current phone and I don’t have to have an ugly box screwed into my wall, which suits me fine, but they should know I don’t care for their prices or all of that nonsense they put on the television.”
Comcast installed the family’s phone service yesterday and all is well, at least until the cat knocked the phone off the hook again.
Irene asked her last name be omitted for privacy.
Other stories of interest:
- Landline Decline: NY Woman Dies After Verizon Phone Service Remains Out for Days
- Verizon Leaves Ailing Elderly N.Y. Couple Without Phone Service for Three Weeks
- Goodnight Irene: Some Customers Will Have to Wait Until October for Restored Internet Service
- Six Months Later, Still No Verizon Phone Service in the Rockaways
- Six Months After Sandy, Verizon Abandoning Wired Network in Mantoloking, N.J.
In response to the deadly tornadoes in Moore, Okla., Cox Communications today said it would lift viewing restrictions for dozens of networks for Cox Cable customers who want to watch cable programming online using Wi-Fi or mobile broadband.
Time Warner Cable customers in Central New York will be the first to test the cable company’s newest plan for a nationwide channel realignment that will move almost every cable channel into a new “theme-based” lineup.
Time Warner Cable has used a theme/genre-based channel lineup for several years, but new or renamed networks have occasionally turned up in unexpected places. The increasing prevalence of HD networks has also made a mess of things, with some markets featuring HD basic cable networks nestled between premium movie channels. The channel realignment is designed to “simplify” things.
Neighbors say the incident made them more wary of cable repairmen, some not directly employed by the cable company.
AT&T wants everyone in Oklahoma City to stay off the phone and rely on text messaging for communications with family, friends, and loved ones “given high call volumes.”
Time Warner Cable executives 
Helderle eventually escaped the apartment while police untied the victim. He was arrested hours later.
