Verizon Voice Link: The company’s landline replacement, works over Verizon Wireless.

The New York Public Service Commission has granted limited approval for a Verizon Communications plan to replace traditional landline service on the western half of Fire Island with a wireless voice service some users complain is unstable and unreliable.

Verizon claims its landline network on Fire Island has been damaged irreparably in places, and argued it needed to immediately deploy a wireless alternative before the arrival of thousands of tourists on the island, a popular summer destination.

On May 3, Verizon asked the commission to approve the use of Voice Link, which provides fixed wireless phone service, anywhere in the state if the company can prove there is an equal competitor or if existing copper-based facilities are damaged or too costly to upgrade.

Stop the Cap! reminded local politicians, union representatives, and consumer advocates Verizon’s CEO earlier promised it would decommission its copper wire networks in rural areas in favor of wireless, mostly for financial reasons. The New York State Attorney General’s office took careful note of McAdam’s commitment to abandon copper in their objection letter to the commission.

Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam in 2012:

The vision that I have is we are going into the copper plant areas and every place we have FiOS, we are going to kill the copper. We are going to just take it out of service and we are going to move those services onto FiOS. We have got parallel networks in way too many places now, so that is a pot of gold in my view. And then in other areas that are more rural and more sparsely populated, we have got LTE built that will handle all of those services and so we are going to cut the copper off there. We are going to do it over wireless.

Verizon’s efforts to rush a tariff change without adequate public notice or formal hearings brought complaints from affected customers, unions, and area politicians.

The Communications Workers of America called Verizon’s emergency “self-made.” The company could have begun repair work on Fire Island as early as last November, but instead only came to regulators earlier this month with its Voice Link proposal, while much of the western half of the island remains out of service.

CWA officials are concerned Verizon is using Hurricane Sandy as an excuse to carry out its broader agenda of abandoning rural New York’s landline infrastructure in favor of wireless service.

“Playing on sympathy for the plight of customers whom it has left without service for more than six months, Verizon proposes to implement broad, generic rules that go to the core of its obligation to serve,” said CWA vice president Chris Shelton.

The union considers Verizon’s wireless alternative less adequate than the wireline facilities Verizon wants to abandon. The CWA wants the PSC to study Voice Link’s performance during times of peak cellular usage times, power outages, adverse weather, and inadequate reception.

Thomas Barraga, a legislator in Suffolk County, says his constituents with Voice Link service are already unhappy with its performance and reliability.

“Residents and business owners who had Voice Link installed after Sandy say the connection is unstable and unreliable, and doesn’t provide for DSL Internet or fax service,” Barraga wrote in a letter to the PSC.

“Internet service is so much a part of everyday life it should be consider a basic service and they should be mandated to provide this as well,” writes Fire Island resident Robert Gonzalez. “They should provide this for the same fees and usage rates as they had previously been charging.  As of today they are price gouging.  Prior to Sandy we paid approximately $50 per month for unlimited Internet access.  Now they are putting low limits on our usage for the same $50 per month with severe penalties for going over.  You can opt for higher usage plans at a much greater cost and they are not offering an unlimited plan.”

Stop the Cap! also continues to hear from Fire Island residents about their dissatisfaction with the service. Among the newest complaints we have received:

• “It doesn’t work with collect calls and you cannot dial “0″ for operator assistance;”
• “I have to dial 10 digits for all calls, seven digit dialing no longer works even though it did before;”
• “Call Waiting and Caller ID often do not work, and my unit does not ring for incoming calls about 30% of the time and people have to keep calling me back;”
• “When you attempt to take a call when on the line with someone, you cannot get them back after answering a new call;”
• “I cannot use this with my home alarm system at all and the monitoring company keeps notifying police because they think my phone line was cut;”
• “If we had a major storm with three days of power being out, Verizon’s claim Voice Link will work for two hours without power means I would have to feed it up to 72 ‘AA’ batteries, costing more than what the phone line costs me every month;”
• “What does this do to our future? It makes us second class citizens without access to the Internet except through very expensive wireless capped usage plans that cost much more.”

The PSC ruled that allowing Verizon to deploy Voice Link on Fire Island during the peak tourist season will make sure adequate phone service is up and running as quickly as possible. But the commission also made it clear it is unwilling to approve Verizon’s request to extend the service further into rural New York without a thorough review of its performance and customer reaction.

Other stories of interest:

1. Verizon to Rural America: Voice Link is Coming Soon; Buy a Satellite Dish If You Want Data
2. Verizon Seeks to Abandon Landlines on Fire Island; Wireless or You Are On Your Own
3. Verizon’s Long Term Plan to Abandon Wired Landlines/Broadband in Non-FiOS Areas Begins
4. Pennsylvania: You Are Next for Verizon Landline Migrations to Wireless; FCC Says It is Fine
5. Verizon Files Tariff Allowing Company to Abandon Wired Phone/Broadband Service in New York; Fire Island First to Go

Wireless Industry: We’re running out of spectrum!
Wireless Industry: We’ve got plenty to room for unlimited ESPN!

America is on the verge of a wireless traffic data jam so bad, it could bring America to its knees.

Or not.

Stop the Cap! notices with some interest that while wireless carriers continue to sound the alarm about a spectrum crisis so serious it necessitates further compressing the UHF television dial and forces other spectrum users to become closer neighbors, the same giant phone companies warning of impending doom are negotiating with online video producers to offer customers “toll-free,” all-you-cat-eat streaming video of major sports events that won’t count against your usage allowance.

ESPN is in talks with at least one major carrier (AT&T or Verizon Wireless) to subsidize some of the costs of its streamed video content so that customers can watch as much as they want without running into a provider’s usage limit. Both Verizon and AT&T have signaled their interest in allowing content producers to pay for subscribers’ data usage. In fact, they don’t seem to care who pays for the enormous bandwidth consumed by streaming video, so long as someone does.

At a recent investment bank conference Verizon Wireless chief executive Dan Mead explained the next chapter in monetizing data usage will allow the company to rake in more revenue from third parties instead of customers already struggling with high wireless bills.

“We are actively exploring those opportunities and looking at every way to bring value to our customers,” said Mead.

Content producers are increasingly frustrated with the stingy caps on offer at AT&T and Verizon Wireless because customers stop accessing that content once they near their monthly usage limit. One large provider admitted to ESPN that “significant numbers” of customers are already reaching their cap before the end of their billing cycle, after which their online usage plummets to limit the sting of overlimit charges.

Offering “toll-free” data could dramatically increase the use of high bandwidth applications and increase profits at wireless providers based on new fees they could collect from content producers. Customers would still be subject to usage limits for all non-preferred content, a clear violation of Net Neutrality principles.

The buffet is open.

But in case you forgot, wireless carriers won exemption from Net Neutrality, arguing their networks lack the capacity to sustain a Net Neutral Internet experience. These same companies claim without more frequencies to handle the massive, potentially unsustainable amount of wireless traffic, the wireless data apocalypse could be at hand in just a few years. It was also the most-cited reason AT&T and Verizon discontinued their unlimited use data plans.

But unlimiting ESPN video? No problem.

In January 2010, Verizon Wireless was singing a very different tune to the FCC about the need to control and manage high bandwidth applications like the “toll-free” streaming video service ESPN proposes (underlining ours):

Wireless broadband services face technological and operational constraints arising from the need to manage spectrum sharing by a dynamically varying number of mobile users at any time. Thus, unlike, for example, cable broadband networks, where a known and relatively fixed number of subscribers share capacity in a given area, the capacity demand at any given cell site is much more variable as the number and mix of subscribers constantly change in sometimes highly unpredictable ways.

Are wireless carriers now part of the problem?

For example, as a subscriber using a high-bandwidth application such as streaming video moves from range of one cell site to another, the network must immediately provide the needed capacity for that subscriber, while not disrupting other subscribers using that same cell site. Of course, the problem is magnified many times over as multiple subscribers can be moving in and out of range of a cell site at any given moment. Moreover, the available bandwidth can fluctuate due to variations in radio frequency signal strength and quality, which can be affected by changing factors such as weather, traffic, speed, and the nearby presence of interfering devices (e.g., wireless microphones).

These problems compound those resulting from limited spectrum. As the Commission has repeatedly recognized in proclaiming an upcoming spectrum crisis, “as wireless is increasingly used as a platform for broadband communications services, the demand for spectrum bandwidth will likely continue to increase significantly, and spectrum availability may become critical to ensuring further innovation.”

A wireless carrier cannot readily increase capacity once it has exhausted its spectrum capacity. Thus, wireless broadband providers are left to acquire additional spectrum (to the extent available) or take measures that use their existing spectrum as efficiently as possible, which they do through a combination of investing in additional cell sites and network management practices that optimize network usage and address congestion so as to provide consumers with the quality of service they expect.

Regulators need to ask why wireless companies are telling the FCC there is a bandwidth crisis of epic proportions that requires the Commission to exempt them from important Net Neutrality principles while telling investment banks, shareholders and content producers the more traffic the merrier, as long as someone pays. Customers also might ask why their unlimited use data plans were discontinued while carriers seek deals to allow unlimited viewing with their preferred content partners.

What is the real motivation? The Wall Street Journal suggests one:

“Creating a second revenue stream for mobile broadband is the holy grail for wireless operators but collecting fees from content companies would probably make the FCC take a close look into the policy implications,” said Paul Gallant, managing director at Guggenheim Securities. An FCC spokesman declined to comment.

The Wall Street Journal takes a closer look at a plan to manage an end run around Net Neutrality by allowing preferred content partners to offer streaming video services exempt from your usage cap. (4 minutes)

Other stories of interest:

1. What Spectrum Crisis: Verizon Wireless Tries to Monetize Video Usage With New App
2. Bulldozing Wireless Net Neutrality: Carriers Want “Toll-Free” Data for Their Partners
3. Proof Verizon’s Banishment of ‘Unlimited Data’ is a Money Grab, Not a Capacity Concern
4. AT&T’s Internet Overcharging Merry-go-Round — Billing App Makers for Your ‘Overusage’
5. AT&T’s ‘Data Tsunami’: Upselling Customers for Higher Profits During Spectrum ‘Crisis’

Verizon casts off its rural landline network for some customers.

Verizon landline customers reporting problems with their service in Pennsylvania may be soon targeted for Verizon’s wireless landline replacement — Voice Link — according to two sources sharing an internal memo with Broadband Reports.

The May 7 memo states that a significant number “selected customers” will be migrated off Verizon’s copper landline network to the Voice Link wireless service. One of the sources recognized the move as an end run around regulators:

“It has become painfully obvious to both our employees and customers that Verizon wishes to divest themselves of all regulated services,” says the source. “Abandoning our regulated wire line customers in favor of fixed point LTE may seem like a clever move but it violates “The Negroponte Principle” and will ultimately bump-up against the immutable laws of spectrum conservation physics.”

“It’s a shame that corporations like Verizon can build a FTTCS based wireless empire with regulatory subsidies provided by their wireline customers and then force them onto the unregulated wireless side,” argues the insider. “Questions of ethics and legality abound and perhaps regulatory over-sight is warranted here.”

Verizon may not get too much oversight from Pennsylvania regulators hoodwinked by the telecom company in the past.

Voice Link is a voice-only wireless home phone replacement that lacks certain calling features, Caller ID with Name for one, and requires the homeowner to provide power (and backup batteries in the event of a power failure). Customers are also dependent on quality reception from the nearest Verizon Wireless cell tower and that it remains in service during severe weather events or prolonged power outages.

Some of the customers likely targeted are still waiting for DSL broadband service from Verizon. If those customers are identified as Voice Link prospects, they will be waiting for broadband forever because Voice Link does not support data services and Verizon cannot supply DSL over a scrapped landline network.

Stop the Cap! has also learned today that the Federal Communications Commission has no problem with Verizon’s unilateral action to switch landline customers to wireless.

A FCC representative told our reader Anne, who is currently fighting Verizon over its plans to abandon landline service on the New Jersey Barrier Island, that they consider Voice Link a functionally equivalent landline service. In a response that could have come directly from Verizon customer service, the FCC helpfully describes the new service Anne already understands and does not want:

Q. What if Verizon is NOT replacing copper with fiber, but is going strictly to wireless?  There will be no landlines whatsoever.  Is that acceptable?

A. “Yes that is acceptable and it is called Verizon Voice Link.  It is a wireless device that plugs into the telephone lines in your home, allowing customers the ability to use their home telephone to make and receive calls.” — FCC Representative Number : TSR54

“This second FCC response, like the first one, ignores the issue, is unprofessional and is insulting,” says Anne. “Obviously, I already know what Voice Link is.”

Other stories of interest:

1. Verizon to Rural America: Voice Link is Coming Soon; Buy a Satellite Dish If You Want Data
2. Six Months After Sandy, Verizon Abandoning Wired Network in Mantoloking, N.J.
3. Verizon’s Long Term Plan to Abandon Wired Landlines/Broadband in Non-FiOS Areas Begins
4. Verizon Seeks to Abandon Landlines on Fire Island; Wireless or You Are On Your Own
5. Verizon Will Cease Selling Standalone DSL Service May 6th; Voice With DSL Only, Please

Verizon Communications has filed a formal tariff obtained by Stop the Cap! with the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) that would establish conditions under which it can abandon its wired network in favor of wireless-only service.

If approved, Verizon will be able to drop wired landline and broadband service in any area of the state if the company can:

• certify that a substantial portion of its facilities in an area are destroyed, rendered unusable, or beyond reasonable repair, or,
• demonstrates that the use of wireless to serve specified customers, or groups of customers, is otherwise reasonable in light of the geographic location, the availability of competitive facilities to serve those customers or groups of customers, or in light of other criteria acceptable to the PSC.

Verizon is using the case of Fire Island, N.Y., to attempt a rewrite of New York’s communications tariffs. Although eastern Fire Island suffered some damage from Hurricane Sandy, a considerable amount of Verizon’s infrastructure further west did not survive the storm. Verizon wants to abandon that wired infrastructure, avoid spending money to upgrade the island to fiber optic service, and switch customers to a voice-only, wireless service called Voice Link that would leave Verizon’s DSL customers without broadband.

Although Verizon has currently only applied to drop wired service to the “western portion of Fire Island,” the tariff would set conditions under which Verizon could abandon its landline network for financial reasons in other portions of the state. For example, Verizon could argue that its declining number of rural landline customers are no longer financially viable to serve because of wired network upkeep and upgrade expenses. Verizon’s application would also allow it to abandon older facilities where competitive services (wireless or wired) are available, and allow Verizon’s wireless products to be considered a suitable alternative to meet universal service requirements.

Verizon says it will offer the same basic calling packages that landline customers can get at the same or lower prices. The company also promises to adhere voluntarily to PSC regulations on customer protection, customer complaints, service quality, safety and reliability.

But Verizon does not promise to offer a functionally equivalent wireless replacement for the landline.

For example, Verizon only promises to support voice calls, access local and toll calling, emergency services with E911 capability, assistance services, telecommunications relay services, and directory listings, including the option of non-published service.

Data services are not supported. Current Verizon DSL customers with unlimited use plans will be forwarded to Verizon Wireless to sign up for the same limited use wireless broadband plans already available in the rest of the country (the ones that charge $50 for up to a handful of gigabytes of monthly usage, depending on the plan). Business customers will need to buy new equipment and sign new contracts with Verizon Wireless (or other wireless carriers) to process credit card transactions. Although some voice calling features are supported, an exact list remains unavailable.

In the event of a power failure, a built-in backup battery will provide up to two hours of talk time, after which the line will stay out of service until commercial power is restored.

Verizon Voice Link: The company’s landline replacement, works over Verizon Wireless. (Asbury Park Press)

Because Verizon Wireless’ existing cellular network serving Fire Island is inadequate, the company has agreed to upgrade and improve service to the island.

Verizon argues its wireless solution is the only answer that makes sense.

“The cost of replacing facilities is very high, and if hurricanes or other severe storms occur in the future, there is a significant risk that the newly installed outside plant would again be damaged or destroyed,” argues Verizon’s Manuel Sampedro, who is overseeing Verizon’s service restoration effort on Fire Island. ”Wireless service is already the predominant mode of voice communication on the island.”

But in the event of another major storm, Verizon’s wireless facilities could also be knocked out of service, potentially for weeks, as happened during Hurricane Sandy.

In the nearby coastal city of Long Beach, N.Y., every cell tower in the area failed because of the storm . City Manager Jack Schnirman told the FCC at a recent hearing wireless proved no more robust than any other technology, and described a frustrating experience attempting to reach representatives from major cell phone carriers about when exactly service could be restored.

“Long Beach reached out to one of the carrier’s customer support departments, explained the devastation and inquired about the carrier deploying a cell on wheels,” Schnirman said. “The customer service rep replied, ‘you might want to look that up on the Internet, I don’t know what that is.’ Well obviously, ironically, we had no Internet at that time.”

Customers did not fare any better.

“There was one woman in particular who passed away, of natural causes, an elderly woman,” Schnirman said. “And her daughter had to walk literally a mile and a half from her home to police headquarters just to say, ‘Listen, my mom has passed, and I thought I should tell somebody.’ ”

Wireless carriers are not obligated to provide backup service in the event of a power failure. An FCC effort to set minimal standards for backup cell service was met with legal threats by the wireless industry and the FCC backed down.

Verizon is in a hurry to win approval of its tariff change, requesting its filing be approved and take effort on less than 30 days’ notice with a waiver of the requirement that it publish a public notice about the change in area newspapers.

Reporter David Cay Johnston says Verizon and AT&T’s efforts to abandon the landline are no accident. They are part of a larger lobbying effort to abandon company obligations under the “carrier of last resort” policies that guarantee every American access to quality landline telephone service. Wireless phone service is unregulated. Johnston isn’t the only one reporting on this story. Stop the Cap! has covered it repeatedly since early 2010. (2 minutes)

Other stories of interest:

1. Verizon Seeks to Abandon Landlines on Fire Island; Wireless or You Are On Your Own
2. Verizon’s Long Term Plan to Abandon Wired Landlines/Broadband in Non-FiOS Areas Begins
3. Six Months After Sandy, Verizon Abandoning Wired Network in Mantoloking, N.J.
4. Verizon Will Cease Selling Standalone DSL Service May 6th; Voice With DSL Only, Please
5. AT&T Will Invest $14 Billion to Expand Wired/Wireless Broadband, Abandon Traditional Landlines

Six months after Hurricane Sandy struck the northeastern United States, a significant number of Verizon customers are now learning they will never get their landline service back.

Mantoloking is the first town in New Jersey — but not the last — that will no longer be able to get landline service from the telephone company.

In its place, Verizon offers Voice Link, a home phone replacement that works exclusively over the Verizon Wireless network.

About 30 customers have signed up for the service after being without a home phone for a half a year.

The device looks like a wireless router, with an antenna and several jacks on the back to deliver service over your home’s existing telephone wiring. Instead of connecting with Verizon’s wired network, the unit receives a signal from the nearest Verizon Wireless cell tower to make and receive telephone calls.

Verizon is enticing customers to use this device instead of repairing its damaged network by promising free installation, unlimited nationwide calling and support for 911 and basic phone features like Caller ID and voice mail. For now, the service will not cost any more than a wired landline phone.

For Verizon’s bean counters, Voice Link is an inexpensive alternative to replacing copper wiring with FiOS fiber optic service. Verizon previously announced that maintenance on its aging copper wire network was becoming increasingly expensive.

“It acts just like a regular phone,” Tom Maguire, Verizon’s senior vice president of national operations told the Asbury Park Press. “There’s a dial tone. It has 911 capability, so if you dial 911 the emergency services guys are going to know exactly where you are.”

But members of Verizon’s unions who have had hands-on experience testing Voice Link suggest it isn’t everything Verizon says it is. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers’ Local 824 points out Voice Link was not intended to serve just anybody. It will deliver a voice-only service unsuitable for faxing, DSL, or data communications of any kind.

Mantoloking is located on New Jersey’s barrier island.

Stop the Cap! has also heard from Verizon customers directly affected by the forced migration to wireless, and many are unhappy about it.

“This is the death knell for wired broadband in areas bypassed by cable along coastal New Jersey,” shares Dale Smith. “We lost our Verizon landline and DSL service during Sandy and have had nothing but a cell phone for the last six months because Verizon has dragged its feet.”

Smith says a Verizon manager told him the company was “evaluating certain service areas” for an “exciting new wireless product” instead of repairing or replacing the company’s wired network.

“While they were ‘evaluating,’ we were getting no dial tone and huge cell bills from Verizon — good for them, but not for us.”

Smith had a chance to view Voice Link in action and thinks it represents a Verizon wolf in sheep’s clothing.

“It sounds remarkably better than a cell phone, which tells you something about how much effort manufacturers of smartphones spend on voice calling, but that is where the good ends and the problems begin,” Smith said. “The most annoying is no caller ID with name and fairly frequent call delays and failed calls.”

Smith says the Caller ID displays the caller’s number, but not name – a feature he relied on heavily. He found about 30 percent of test calls either took more than 10 seconds to start ringing, or never rang at all.

“Sometimes the calls would time out and other times you would just sit and listen in silence until the phone at the other end finally started ringing,” Smith said.

He also worries about call reliability.

“What happens if you are in a marginal signal area or the cell tower gets overcongested and starts dropping calls, or the power goes out at the cell tower? You can’t use your cell phone either in that case.”

Anne contacted us after complaining to the Federal Communications Commission that Verizon is dumping its reliable landline network for unreliable wireless, and is frustrated the FCC does not seem to understand what is going on in New York and New Jersey.

“The response from the FCC doesn’t even bother to recognize that Verizon isn’t going to fiber service from copper, but is relying on very unreliable wireless,” Anne tells Stop the Cap! “For a vulnerable area such as the barrier island, wireless will likely be useless during a disaster/big emergency, especially where electricity goes out.”

The FCC’s short response to Anne’s detailed complaint:

If Verizon wishes to replace the copper wiring with fiber it is strictly their business desicion (sic).  – Representative Number : TSR54

“I can’t believe this email is a product of the United States government,” Anne told us. “Why does the FCC exist at all?  It is a complete waste of taxpayer money.”

In addition to filing a complaint with the FCC, Anne has tried to help her elderly mother get her home phone back on the barrier island that was damaged by Hurricane Sandy. As of a week ago, every utility, except Verizon phone service, has been restored.

“Trying to get a straight story from Verizon has been impossible,” Anne said. “What a nightmare.”

The landline network is dead.

Jim Mudd also takes care of his parents who are headed back to the New Jersey coast in an area that still lacks Verizon phone service after Sandy washed away utility infrastructure. New poles have been placed and the power is back, but Verizon is nowhere to be found.

“Our local town officials tell us Verizon was hinting we might end up with Voice Link as well, although nothing formal has been announced,” Mudd writes. “This would be a major problem for us, because Voice Link will not work with our home alarm system or my parents’ medical monitoring service.”

Mudd says Verizon confirmed to him that data services of any kind, including faxing or credit card processing is not possible with the first version of the service, although Verizon said it was exploring better options in the future.

“After waiting a half a year for Verizon to restore my home phone, I hope they pardon me for not waiting around for them,” Mudd said. “We signed up with Comcast the moment they got service back, but they know they have a working monopoly here now, especially with Verizon signaling it wants to pull out of anything that is not wireless.”

“What annoys me is Verizon wanted rate increases back in the 1990s and on to pay for upgrading their network and replace it with fiber,” Mudd adds. “We paid those surcharges or higher rates like everyone else and we are going to get nothing to show for it. Don’t replace the copper, but don’t abandon us with wireless either. We paid for something better: fiber.”

Verizon’s Tom Maguire demonstrates the company’s Voice Link landline replacement, courtesy of the Asbury Park Press.  (1 minute)

Other stories of interest:

1. Verizon’s Long Term Plan to Abandon Wired Landlines/Broadband in Non-FiOS Areas Begins
2. Verizon Seeks to Abandon Landlines on Fire Island; Wireless or You Are On Your Own
3. Verizon Ending DSL Service in FiOS Fiber-Wired Service Areas
4. Customers Abandoning Verizon’s Dead NYC Landlines, Internet 4 Months After Sandy
5. Verizon Cutting Costs, Raising Prices & Profits; Unlimited Data Customers Invited to Leave

The company that charges customers north of $90 a month for cell phone service with a tiny data plan has introduced Verizon Cloud, a ho-hum free cloud storage add-on for Android devices that is leaving customers cold.

Verizon Wireless is applying the same stingy standards to its online backup service it uses for its paltry data plans, providing customers with less storage than the competition:

• Verizon Wireless: 500MB
• Dropbox: 2GB
• Google Drive: 5GB
• SkyDrive: 7GB

Run over your allowance? A premium plan comes with premium pricing: $2.99 per month for 25GB up to $9.99 per month for 125GB.

The ‘could you spare it’-storage allowance is bad enough, but the service’s performance is much, much worse judging from more than 5,700 scathing customer reviews. The majority of users rate Verizon’s app just one star, primarily because they couldn’t give it zero stars.

“It’s disappointing that Verizon would release this piece of crap and then encourage people to download it,” writes Andrew Gardner.

That’s okay Andrew. Verizon is gradually pushing the app to compatible phones with no uninstall option. Those using Verizon’s Backup Assistant will find all their content automatically transferred over to Verizon Cloud whether they want it floating there or not.

“I can’t wait not to use this,” shared Gabriel Rodriguez.

Some customers don’t want Verizon force-feeding apps on their phones, particularly ones designed to chew at their data plan allowance while unintentionally crashing their smartphones.

“This app is responsible for 99% of the crashes on my poor, aging Droid X over the last few months,” writes Tim Odell. “The update came through and was like ‘you must sign up for….’ Seeing any changes and a “plus” associated with a Verizon mandate also left me assuming it would (secretly) cost me money. For my troubles I’m awarded 1-2 crashes per day.”

“Verizon apps run flawlessly as long as you allow them to do whatever they want (ie. turn off your Wi-Fi) and use your data plan without your knowledge,” offers David Lawrence. “[A Verizon rep told me] ‘It’s good for business [and] job security.’ At this point I didn’t have enough bread crumbs to find my way home. Maybe she had just come from an internal training seminar and she missed the ‘don’t repeat this to a customer’ part. Or, maybe, we have come to a point in this world where some people are completely blind to theft and unfairness, as long as it’s marketed as ‘good business’. Either way, the app sucks.”

Other stories of interest:

1. Verizon Wireless Earns More from Wireless Data Traffic That Costs Them Less
2. Amazon Introduces Free Personal Cloud Storage; Will Consumers Use It on Capped Accounts?
3. Verizon Wireless Hotspot Pricing Will Burn a Hole in Your Wallet With $20/GB Overlimit Fee
4. Verizon Wireless Charges $5 a Month for Tool To Prevent Paying Even More
5. Verizon Sneaks Customer Off Unlimited Data Plan, Despite Promises It Wouldn’t

Circling…

While tens of thousands of customers in the southeastern United States might describe the quality of Windstream service as something to avoid stepping in, turkey buzzards are generating plenty of the real thing in Nebraska, creating two major headaches for the independent telecom company.

As of this afternoon, at least 30,000 Windstream customers in the southeast U.S. cannot make or receive long distance or toll-free calls without encountering a fast busy signal or an intercept recording. In case callers forget what a regular busy signal sounds like, one can be heard by dialing Windstream’s national customer support number, which is overwhelmed with complaint calls from annoyed customers.

“Windstream’s network operations and engineering teams are working a widespread outage affecting long-distance and toll-free call processing,” Windstream customer support acknowledged this afternoon. “This has also affected inbound calling to our support centers. An estimated time for restoral is not known.”

That is not good enough for Windstream customer Megan Short. Anyone calling her business number is likely to hear a Windstream recording telling callers: “The number you have reached is not in service, disconnected, or has been changed.”

“I am trying to run a business here, and this issue needs to be resolved ASAP,” she wrote on the company’s Facebook page. “This is your job, you know. You have ONE JOB.”

Other customers are complaining the outage is affecting local calls as well.

Veterinary Ophthalmology Services near Nashville is having a very quiet Monday with “few calls in or out, so it can’t be just long distance numbers. The majority of our clients are local.”

The employees of Don Meyler Inspections had plenty of free time to inspect the morning newspaper, afternoon lunch, and their frustration level, because the phones simply are not ringing in south Florida either.

“We’re severely impacted for inbound calls and outbound is sporadic,” the company writes on DownDetector.com. “It is the worst outage we’ve had in six years.”

Those tenacious enough to wait for customer support are not exactly getting total customer satisfaction:

“The big kicker was being on hold with the online chat for over an hour only to inform me there was ‘a high call volume’ and then the chat session ended,” said Chad Spaulding in Louisville, Ky. “You can’t even reach the corporate office for support. This is the fourth outage in our area in two months.”

With outages like this, some might thing the buzzards would be circling, and in Beatrice, Neb. they literally are, according to the Omaha Herald-World, fouling Windstream-provisioned Verizon Wireless cell towers where the federally protected birds favor building their nests.

Windstream’s John Dageford presented the company’s solution to the annual poo-problem from the birds: shoot them.

Dageford thinks if someone kills a handful of the large birds, the rest will flee in terror.

The Beatrice council reserved its decision on how to proceed for now, although a number of Windstream customers affected by today’s outage may not.

Other stories of interest:

1. Windstream Suffers Major Landline Failure in Nebraska; Several Counties Lose Phone, 911 Service
2. Another Huge Outage for Time Warner Cable Hits Rochester, N.Y.
3. After-Christmas Refund for Pre-Christmas Time Warner Cable Outage – Rochester, NY
4. Windstream Prepares for Investigation Into Major Nebraska Service Outage
5. Updated: Time Warner Cable Experiencing Widespread Problems With Phone Service in Northeast

AT&T and Verizon Wireless have the largest share of wireless customers. (Wall Street Journal)

The Department of Justice has recommended the Federal Communications Commission promote competition by setting aside certain future low-frequency wireless spectrum for auctions open exclusively to smaller wireless carriers including Sprint and T-Mobile USA.

“Today, the two leading carriers have the vast majority of low-frequency spectrum whereas the two other nationwide carriers have virtually none,” the Department of Justice wrote in comments to the FCC. “This results in the two smaller nationwide carriers having a somewhat diminished ability to compete, particularly in rural areas where the cost to build out coverage is higher with high-frequency spectrum.”

The Justice Department’s antitrust division has monitored the wireless industry with increasing concern consumers are not getting benefits from a robustly competitive marketplace increasingly concentrated in the hands of two wireless giants: AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

That dominance is made possible, in part, from the control of lower frequency spectrum, particularly in the 600-800MHz range that easily penetrates buildings and delivers a more reliable signal over longer distances than frequencies counted in the gigahertz. Verizon and AT&T control large swaths of these lower frequencies that work well indoors and provide longer distance coverage in rural areas. Conversely, Sprint and T-Mobile, among other smaller carriers, rely heavily on higher frequencies that need a larger network of cell towers to support good signal levels.

It often means rural customers may find reception with AT&T or Verizon Wireless but end up with a roaming indicator or no service at all with smaller providers.

The Justice Department worries that auctioning off future prime 600MHz spectrum carved out of the UHF television band reallocated for wireless services will end up in the hands of the deepest pocketed providers — AT&T and Verizon Wireless, and further hamper the ability of Sprint, T-Mobile and other small carriers to compete.

“Due to the scarcity of spectrum, the Department is concerned that carriers may have incentives to acquire spectrum for purposes other than efficiently expanding their own capacity or services,” writes the DoJ. “Namely, the more concentrated a wireless market is, the more likely a carrier will find it profitable to acquire spectrum with the aim of raising competitors’ costs. This could take the shape, for example, of pursuing spectrum in order to prevent its use by a competitor, independent of how efficiently the carrier uses the spectrum. Indeed, a carrier may even have incentives to acquire spectrum and not use it at all.”

The Justice Department echoes critics’ contentions that given a chance, large wireless carriers will “warehouse” acquired spectrum, unused, denying it from the competition. Carriers object to that claim, calling it baseless. But incentives remain for providers to drag their feet: spectrum warehousing forces competitors to pay even higher prices for other scarce spectrum, the necessity of constructing a larger network of costly cell towers to offer robust coverage, and fighting customers’ perceptions of inferior quality indoor phone reception.

In response, AT&T sent a multi-page, thinly veiled threat to sue if the Commission adopted the recommendations of the Justice Department.

“The Department is quite candid about its motive for this blatant favoritism: it hopes that reducing competition for the spectrum may enable Sprint and T-Mobile ‘to mount stronger challenges’ to AT&T and Verizon,” AT&T wrote in response. “Picking winners and losers in this fashion would be patently unlawful.”

AT&T also claimed the Justice Department’s recommendations were specifically tailored to help the two competitors, despite the fact neither company has shown much interest in acquiring low-frequency wireless spectrum, much less further expand the reach of their wireless networks:

“It is especially puzzling that the Department feels the need to help Sprint and T-Mobile in particular. Sprint already has by far the largest nationwide portfolio of spectrum, and holds vastly more spectrum than either AT&T or Verizon. It will also have ample financial resources at its disposal, as the Department has already approved Sprint’s purchase by Softbank, a financially strong Japanese company, and Dish Network has now made a competing offer for Sprint, citing the financial and strategic advantages of its own proposed combination.

Regardless of how this bidding war turns out, Sprint will receive a sizable infusion of cash, spectrum or both. T-Mobile, which is owned by Deutsche Telekom, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world, just recently acquired substantial amounts of spectrum from both AT&T and Verizon, and is on the verge of completing a merger with MetroPCS that will add another trove of spectrum. So it is surely not for a lack of spectrum resources or financial backing that the Department needs to propose a financial giveaway to these companies.

Moreover, neither company even chose to bid at the Commission’s last auction of low-frequency spectrum, nor have they availed themselves of opportunities to acquire such spectrum in secondary markets. If low-frequency spectrum was critical to their business plans, as the Department simply assumes, someone should have informed their management, which has, instead chosen to acquire deep holdings in [higher frequency] PCS, AWS, and BRS/EBS spectrum.”

The Justice Department filing did not name Sprint or T-Mobile directly, but both companies are the only remaining national competitors to both AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

Spectrum set-asides are not unusual in telecommunications regulation. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission set aside significant wireless spectrum exclusively for new entrants to promote competition. Ultimately, the new competitors had little impact with less than a 10 percent market share and all three are now considered up for sale. That spectrum may eventually end up in the hands of the largest Canadian wireless companies regardless of the CRTC’s original intentions when license transfer restrictions expire in 2014. All three could be acquired by one or more of the major providers.

Other stories of interest:

1. FCC on Verizon-Big Cable Spectrum Deal: Sure, Why Not?; But Justice Dept. Thinking Twice
2. Wall Street Wants Two Wireless Carriers for Americans: AT&T and Verizon
3. Moody’s Declares AT&T and Verizon the Winners — Sprint and T-Mobile Can “Never Catch Up”
4. Breaking: Justice Dept. Files Suit to Stop AT&T/T-Mobile Merger
5. The AT&T/Verizon Wireless Duopoly: “Humpty Dumpty Has Been Put Back Together Again”

Verizon Wireless is continuing its efforts to pull back on customer promotions that lower the price of your next phone. After eliminating discounts for loyal customers renewing their contracts, introducing a $30 “upgrade fee” for each new phone activated on an account, and eliminating one-year contracts, the wireless carrier is ending its 20-month upgrade policy, requiring customers to complete a full two-years of service before they can get their next subsidized phone.

The change was a point of contention on Verizon’s quarterly earnings conference call, as investors fretted about dissatisfied customers already upset that the wireless industry relies on two-year contracts while phone manufacturers release coveted device upgrades at least annually.

The wireless industry is already under pressure from Wall Street, prepaid providers and T-Mobile to abandon the traditional ‘subsidized phone for a two-year contract’-business model in favor of no-contract, carrier-financed phones.

In response to that pressure, Verizon Wireless has also introduced a 12-month optional financing plan targeting early upgraders, those who have lost or damaged their phones, or customers trying to hang on to their grandfathered unlimited data plans.

Verizon Wireless introduces its 12-month financing plan for devices.

Under the plan, credit-qualified customers can finance devices starting at $349.99 for 12 equal installments (and a $2 monthly finance charge) charged to your Verizon Wireless bill (first payment due at time of purchase).

Customers can prepay a portion of their purchase upfront to cut the monthly payment — an important option for premiere smartphones like the Apple iPhone 5 ($650) and the Samsung Galaxy S3 ($600). Finance that iPhone and your Verizon Wireless bill will increase by $56.25 a month, including the finance charge, for the next year. You will still pay Verizon’s regular plan prices, which are artificially inflated to recoup a device subsidy customers are not getting under Verizon’s finance plan.

Verizon Wireless says the total owed balance cannot exceed $1,000 per customer, which makes it less useful for families (and even for those two-person households who want the latest and greatest). There is also a limit of two financed devices at any one time. But customers can pay off the plan balance early, which stops the $2 monthly finance charge and opens the door to finance something else.

Shammo

Verizon confirmed customers grandfathered on discontinued unlimited data plans can also take advantage of the financing offer and not lose their unlimited data service. Verizon earlier announced it would allow customers to keep those plans indefinitely, as long as they paid the full price for subsequent device upgrades.

A $30 upgrade fee still applies for each new device activated on your account.

Revenues at Verizon Wireless rose 8.6 percent to $16.7 billion in the last quarter, accounting for more than half of Verizon’s overall revenue. The company has received accolades from Wall Street for implementing its revenue-enhancing Share Everything plans, which have turned into a major money-maker for the wireless carrier, even though only 30 percent of existing Verizon Wireless customers have been enrolled in the new plans to date. Verizon expects to shepherd an increasing number of existing customers to the Share Everything plans in future quarters.

Verizon chief financial officer Fran Shammo said he does not expect much pushback from Verizon Wireless customers upset about the promotional cutbacks.

“We don’t anticipate a lot of dissatisfaction,” Shammo told investors. “We’re not seeing a lot of resistance here.”

Other stories of interest:

1. Verizon Wireless Eliminating “New Every Two” Program; Other Upgrade Discounts Being Phased Out
2. Happy Days Are Here for Verizon Wireless Stockholders Over End to Unlimited Data
3. Verizon Wireless Extends “Smartphones Talk Free” Offer: $9.99 Off New Smartphone Lines
4. Verizon Wireless Earns More from Wireless Data Traffic That Costs Them Less
5. Working Around Verizon’s New Gouging Wireless Plans If You Still Have ‘Unlimited Data’

Verizon Communications has filed separate requests with the New York State Public Service Commission that would report customers’ payment histories to credit reporting agencies, share your payment history with competing providers, and increase phone bills statewide to recoup expenses related to construction costs.

Verizon Wants to Influence Your Credit Score

One of the most substantial changes proposed by Verizon is the deregulation of privacy requirements that limit the amount of information the phone company can share with credit reporting agencies about your past payment history and whether you could represent a credit risk to the next telecommunications company you choose to do business with.

New York regulators originally enforced limits on how much information Verizon could share and with whom. Generally, the rules now state the phone company can only share your payment history with other telephone companies, such as in the case of moving to an area served by a different provider or if you choose to sign up with a competitor. Providers use this information to decide if they will require a deposit before connecting service.

Verizon claims the current rules do not go far enough to protect the company from deadbeats who bounce between unregulated telecom providers (wireless, Voice over IP, and cable telephone service) and Verizon. The company is asking the PSC to:

• to report final unpaid undisputed accounts of its local exchange customers to credit reporting agencies,
• to engage in full file reporting with the NCTUE, a special credit reporting service created by and for cable, telephone, and other utility companies to track customer payment histories (i.e., reporting monthly on all payment history for all customers), and
• to engage in full file reporting with Equifax, Experian and TransUnion should Verizon choose to do so in the future.

Late phone company payments appearing on a consumer’s credit report can be devastating to a consumer’s general credit score, which can affect credit lending decisions, home purchases, apartment leases, insurance rates, and employment prospects. Disconnected, unpaid accounts turned over to an independent collection agency may already appear on credit reports, but Verizon late-payers who still have service with the company might be affected much sooner.

Verizon hopes the change will convince customers to pay Verizon first instead of last or not at all:

“Consumer reporting agencies serve an important function by enabling businesses to avoid bad-debt costs and by preventing consumers, in a competitive market, from hopping with impunity from one company to another, accumulating unpaid debts at each step of the way,” Verizon argues in its regulatory filing. “In that way, information obtained from consumer reporting agencies reduces bad-debt costs that would otherwise have to be passed on to consumers who do pay their bills. Further, consumers who know that their credit scores will be reported will be less likely to default on payments; conversely, consumers who feel secure that such data will not be reported will be more likely to believe that moving to another provider is an acceptable alternative to paying bills.”

Verizon Seeks New Fees, Rate Increases

Verizon customers in New York will soon see higher phone bills if Verizon’s appeal to raise certain rates and tack on a new monthly service fee is approved:

Municipal Construction Surcharge: To cope with a declining number of landline customers, Verizon is seeking the imposition of a new $0.99 surcharge on all residential and business customers (except Lifeline) to help recoup the costs of relocating Verizon lines in public rights-of-way to prevent interference with street maintenance, repairs, or public construction projects. Verizon is also mandated to remove lines or other equipment that present a potential danger to public safety or health. Because Verizon has lost half of their landline customers in New York since 2006, the costs incurred by Verizon per remaining customer have increased dramatically, Verizon argues. In 2006, the company claims the average cost for line relocation was $10.79 per customer. Today, the company says the cost has risen to $31.01 annually.

Verizon seemed unconcerned about the impact the new fee might have on customers who could use it as an excuse to abandon landline service.

“Verizon needs to recoup its losses where it can,” said Verizon’s general counsel Keefe B. Clemons. “Moreover, customers have competitive alternatives and can choose other providers if they are dissatisfied.”

Other Service Charges and Rate Hikes:

• Verizon is seeking increases in the non-recurring Service Charge and the Central Office Line or Port Charge for business customers;
• Verizon seeks a $3 rate increase for its legacy ISDN service, which still serves a declining number of business customers;
• Verizon also seeks a 50 cent a month increase for maintaining a non-published number. The current rate ($2.50) has remained unchanged since 2005 and Verizon claims the increase is required to “keep up with inflation.” The company said its new rate would still be lower than AT&T in Connecticut ($4.99/month) or Time Warner Cable ($3.75/month);
• Verizon is discontinuing its Busy Verification and Interruption Service, primarily because it does not work with most of its competitors.

Verizon says these rate changes are necessitated by a marked decrease in the number of customers keeping their Verizon landlines. Since New York still requires Verizon to serve every part of its designated service area, the current financial situation for the company’s landline service division is untenable. The company argues its investment in FiOS and other network upgrades more than outweigh the amount of revenue the company is earning from the declining number of landline customers. Verizon did not mention the far brighter financial performance of its wireless division Verizon Wireless, not subject to the PSC’s regulatory requirements.

Other stories of interest:

1. Verizon Wireless Will Charge Customers $2/Month to Pay Their Bill; Admin Fees Also Increasing
2. New York Accuses Verizon of Abandoning Quality Landline Service; “It’s a Duopoly”
3. Thousands Getting Fake Verizon Wireless e-Bills; One of the Best Phishing Scams Yet
4. AT&T Gouges Californians With 25% Telephone Rate Increase
5. FairPoint: The Little Company That Couldn’t, Wants To Be Deregulated