Island residents are smoking hot about Voice Link

The New York Public Service Commission has extended the deadline for public comments about the Voice Link wireless landline replacement until Sept. 13, to give the growing number of customers on Fire Island with the service enough time to fully evaluate it over the summer months.

To date nearly 400 public comments have been filed with the Commission, every one of them negative.

Stop the Cap!’s comments are having an impact on the PSC’s exploration of the deployment of Voice Link in upstate New York. On our recommendation, the PSC has formally asked Verizon for more documentation about how Voice Link is being introduced in the Catskills:

Please provide the following information for all Voice Link devices/services that have been installed at any customer premises locations outside of the Western Fire Island area:

• The address of every Voice Link customer in upstate New York;
• Date Voice Link Installed;
• Reason Voice Link Installed;
• Was customer advised Voice Link service was optional or not;
• Voice Link Service Calls/Repairs identified by location, date, reason for service visit, repair action taken;
• If applicable to any locations, date Voice Link was uninstalled/disconnected and reason for termination;
• Please provide any marketing materials, scripts, and/or training materials in use by Verizon employees or contracted third-party workers to inform customers about Voice Link service;
• Please provide copies of any documentation provided to customers agreeing to accept Voice Link service outside of Western Fire Island, including Terms of Service Agreements. If there are any material differences between documentation and Terms of Service agreements for Western Fire Island customers, and customers in any other areas of New York State, please identify and explain those differences.

The PSC is also demonstrating that it is willing to go deep into the weeds with Verizon on this issue, a marked departure from the near-rubber stamp “light touch” regulation AT&T enjoys in several midwestern and southern states. At one point, the Commission found Verizon documentation indicating enough “spare pairs” — unused lines — were available that could be used to repair and reintroduce landline service on Fire Island, and wants to know why Verizon is not using them to bring back the service customers had before Hurricane Sandy did its damage:

The copper cable table shows that the spare cable pairs in the copper cable facilities serving the 11 identified communities is approximately 16% of the total available pairs in those cables. However, in specific communities such as Fair Harbor, Kismet, Robins Rest and Lonelyville, the percentage of spare pairs ranges from 21% to 66% of the total available pairs. Also, the number of working pairs in many locations is small compared to the total available pairs in the cables, despite the number of defective pairs reported by the company. Please explain why Verizon is not utilizing existing spare cable pairs, and performing routine cable maintenance in any communities, to restore wireline services to customers that do not request or desire Voice Link service.

The fiber cable table shows spare cable pairs in the fiber facilities serving the Ocean Beach, Lonelyville, Fair Harbor and Kismet communities is approximately 73% of the total available pairs in those fiber cables. By individual community, the percentage of spare pairs ranges from 62% to 94% of the total available pairs. Please explain why Verizon is not utilizing existing spare fiber pairs in any of the four named communities to restore wireline services to customers that do not request or desire Voice Link service.

Despite every effort by Verizon, Fire Island residents that lost landline service are increasingly opposed to Voice Link, if the public comments filed with the Commission are any indication.

The Point o’Woods Association on Fire Island, which represents more than 500 people who either seasonally or year round depend on Verizon’s landline network, is also highly critical of Voice Link’s performance and provided the Commission with very specific and detailed criticisms:

1. Verizon’s only cell site on Fire Island on the Ocean Beach water tower lacks reliable power backup contingencies;
2. Fire and medical first responders across Fire Island have declared Voice Link unsatisfactory for public safety;
3. Voice Link’s performance has been called unreliable. The sound is “plagued by echoes, connection delays, no connection at all, and frequent dropped calls;”
4. Voice Link only works with CDMA spectrum for voice calling, reducing the level of service (data) customers used to have with traditional landlines;
5. Customers cannot reach a live operator by dialing “0” and must dial all ten digits for all calls. The service also does not support collect calls, a feature “sometimes critical in emergency situations;”
6. The reception quality of Verizon’s data network varies widely across the island.

“Voice Link at its very best is a temporary solution suitable for deployment only while full communications infrastructure is in the process of restoration,” concludes D.R. Brown, vice president of the association.

The changes Verizon seeks for Fire Island are affecting even those who still have landline service. Customers regularly report that Verizon customer service is refusing repair requests in areas like Ocean Beach, pushing customers to the wireless replacement it wants them to accept.

Jean Ufer, a Fire Island resident, says Verizon is threatening the health of her husband by refusing to fix her service.

“They will not repair my landline, which my husband really needs, as he has a pacemaker which has to be monitored by a landline,” Ufer complained to the Commission. “They also refused to connect my DSL, even though they charged me  the monthly fee right through the winter.”

Schneiderman

The New York Attorney General has some strong words for Verizon Communications:

“Verizon [must] divest those portions of its New York franchise where it is no longer willing to continue providing wireline service and replace Verizon with another carrier that will provide wireline service.”

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is more than a little concerned with Verizon’s plans to abandon offering landline service on the western half of Fire Island and potentially other areas further upstate to satisfy the company’s wireless business strategy.

In a hostile 13-page filing directed to the New York Public Service Commission, Schneiderman’s office accused Verizon of abdicating its responsibility to provide universal access to high quality landline service in favor of moving customers to inferior Verizon Wireless service.

“Verizon is asking the Commission to depart from a century of telephone service regulation, which had as one of its fundamental principles, universal wireline telephone service for all customers,” Schneiderman wrote.

In return for a guaranteed monopoly, profits, and a secure franchise area across portions of New York, telephone companies like Verizon historically agreed to offer phone service to any customer who wanted it. State and federal universal service rules provided subsidies to phone companies to reach their most rural or expensive-to-reach customers.

The goal, Schneiderman argued, was for every resident in New York to have home phone service, enabling them to communicate with their doctors, families, schools, friends and businesses, as well as to send for police, fire and ambulance assistance in an emergency.

Verizon’s intended replacement, Voice Link, represents a downgrade in service even worse than hundred-year old copper wire “plain old telephone service,” according to the attorney general. Schneiderman called Verizon’s Voice Link inferior and its thick 10-page terms, conditions, and disclaimers “legalistic,” leaving consumers without services they previously received or imposing significant new burdens and obligations.

The issues cited by Schneiderman:

Voice Link Service “is not compatible with fax machines, DVR services, credit card machines, medical alert or other monitoring services or some High Speed or DSL Internet services.” Customers in western Fire Island and other rural parts of New York have no FiOS or cable modem Internet providers to switch to, so those who rely on these services have no alternatives if switched to Voice Link.

Because Voice Link “may not be compatible with certain monitored home security systems,” customers’ homes and businesses will be at greater risk from flooding by burst plumbing, fire or burglars. In the case of plumbing emergencies, visit Carlson Plumbing Company website for reliable solutions and prompt support.

Although wireline customers whose service is suspended for nonpayment can still reach a 911 operator in emergencies, suspension of Voice Link “will prevent ALL Service, including any 911 dialing and associated emergency response services. Customers may also lose the ability to receive or place calls, even to 911, if they fail to “promptly notify Verizon” of a change in their address, email, or credit card expiration date.

Customers must “defend, indemnify and hold harmless Verizon from and against all claims … for infringement of any intellectual property rights arising from use of Voice Link or its software.”

Voice Link Service “does not allow the Customer to make 500, 700, 900, 950, 976, 0, 00, 01, 0+, calling card or dial-around calls (e.g., 10-10-XXXX),” so customers will be unable to use such pay-per-call information services. Voice Link Service “does not allow the Customer to accept collect calls or third number billed calls. The Company will not bill any charges on behalf of other carriers. [Customers] must have an International Calling Plan in order to make international calls. Wireline customers are able to subscribe to toll and international calling plans provided by other carriers, and have these and other third-party service charges included on their Verizon bills.

Verizon Voice Link

Voice Link Service “is subject to the availability of adequate wireless coverage throughout your home, and is not available in all locations.”

Unlike wireline service, which supplies its own power over the copper wiring, Voice Link uses customers’ house current to operate. Verizon has not disclosed how much customers’ electric utility bills will increase to power the Voice Link device. Also, if electric power is interrupted, Customers may have to “reset or reconfigure equipment prior to using” Voice Link. This may be difficult for some physically limited or technologically unsophisticated customers to perform.

During power interruptions, the wireless Devices used in Voice Link are battery operated. Although the Devices include a rechargeable battery back-up that provides only 36 hours of standby power and up to 2.5 hours of talk time in the event of a commercial power outage, “[a ]fter the battery is exhausted, the Service (including 911 dialing) will not function until power is restored.”

After the expiration of a one year replacement warranty for the battery back-up included with customers’ wireless Device, customers “are responsible for replacing the back-up battery as needed,” but Verizon has not disclosed the cost of such replacement batteries.

Wireline customers purchase their own telephones from competitive manufacturers, but the Voice Link device is only supplied by Verizon, which continues to own it. Thus, customers will have to pay Verizon to repair the device if “such repair or maintenance is made necessary due to misuse, abuse or intentional damage to the Device.” Verizon has not disclosed what [the] repair or replacement might cost customers in such event.

When wireline customers end their service with Verizon, they have no equipment to return to the company. However, Voice Link customers who cancel their service “are responsible for returning their Wireless Device to [Verizon] in an undamaged condition. Failure to return the Device within 30 days … may result in [Verizon] charging [customers] an unreturned equipment fee.” Verizon has not disclosed the amount of this fee.

Schneiderman accused Verizon of dragging its feet on repairs on Fire Island and forcing Voice Link on customers as the only available alternative.

“It is clear that Verizon is leveraging the storm damage from Sandy as part of its long-term strategy to abandon its copper networks by substituting Voice Link for [landline] service on western Fire Island and forcing customers to accept wireless Voice Link wherever it does not build FiOS,” Schneiderman argued. “Verizon’s failure to make prompt repairs to its Fire Island facilities during the seven months following Sandy left the Commission little choice but to provide temporary approval of Voice Link so that customers would have some form of telephone service during the 2013 summer beach season. However, this ‘temporary approval’ should not be expanded to allow Verizon to avoid its obligations permanently, on Fire Island or anywhere else in New York.”

Schneiderman wants the PSC to force the issue with Verizon, and not on the preferred terms of its senior executives.

“Rather than allow Verizon to provide inadequate Voice Link service to Fire Island and other New York customers, the Commission should compel the company to either maintain its wireline network throughout its franchise territory or sell
those parts where it is unwilling to do so to another provider that will provide adequate service,” Schneiderman wrote.

New York State residents have until July 2 to share their views about a proposal by Verizon Communications that would allow the company to drop landline service in rural upstate New York and other locations and replace it with a wireless substitute — Voice Link, as its sole service offering.

Stop the Cap! has covered the issue of rural landline service extensively since 2008. In the past few years, while CenturyLink, Windstream, FairPoint, and Frontier have developed business plans to sell lucrative landline telephone and broadband service in rural areas, AT&T and Verizon have proposed abandoning their landline networks in certain areas in favor of wireless.

Verizon has sought to stop offering rural landline service in areas where it feels no longer economically justified providing it. It ultimately means dismantling communications infrastructure that has provided reliable voice telephone service for more than 100 years.

Voice Link is first being introduced as Verizon’s “sole service” for beleaguered residents living on the western half of Fire Island, which was devastated by last fall’s Hurricane Sandy. Verizon does not want to foot the bill to rebuild and repair the damaged copper wire infrastructure and does not believe installing its fiber optic network FiOS is economically justified either. That leaves residents with one option for basic phone service: Voice Link.

Unfortunately, many of the residents now encountering Voice Link have told the Public Service Commission it has proven unreliable or unsatisfactory and represents a downgrade from the landline service they used to have. (Stop the Cap! has repeatedly offered to test Voice Link’s workability and sound quality ourselves, but Verizon has not taken us up on that offer.)

The company does admit Voice Link is incompatible with basic data services, which means Verizon customers using Voice Link will lose DSL and dial-up Internet access. It also does not work with fax machines, home alarms, and medical monitoring services. Verizon has promised to address these issues in the future, but has offered no timeline or guarantees. Instead, it suggests customers consider purchasing added-cost services from Verizon Wireless, which could cost some residents hundreds of dollars a month for phone and broadband service.

Stop the Cap! believes Voice Link should be offered only as an optional service for customers who wish to use it. In its current form, it is unsuitable, unproven, and insufficient to serve as Verizon’s sole offering, particularly when the company is the carrier of last resort for many rural residents, as well as those on Fire Island.

At the very least, Verizon must be compelled to offer an equal or better level of service, not diminish it. That means better voice quality, rock solid cell coverage, an equivalently priced, unlimited wireless broadband service option for DSL customers, and compatibility with the data services that are now supported over the plain old telephone network.

The Commission should also explore the true costs of repairing and/or replacing wired infrastructure before allowing the company to dismantle it. Once the wired infrastructure is removed, the costs to provision rural New York with fast, reliable, wired broadband service in the future will become prohibitive. Wireless service is no panacea for rural New York, where coverage issues abound, especially in the mountainous areas upstate and across the rolling hills of the Southern Tier. Verizon’s lawyers admitted as much when they wrote the terms and conditions governing Voice Link and other wireless services, walking away from significant liability if calls to 911 go unconnected:

“In the absence of gross negligence or willful misconduct by Verizon, our liability to you, to anyone dialing 911 using the Service, or to any other person or party, for any loss or damage arising from any acts, errors, interruptions, omissions, delays, defects, or failures of 911 services or emergency personnel, whether caused by our negligence or otherwise, shall not exceed the amount of our charges for such Services during the affected period of time. This limitation of liability is in addition to any other limitations contained in this Agreement.”

In other words, Verizon’s only responsibility is to credit your account for the time you could not reach 911 or your call summoning help was dropped. You will see that credit reflected on a future bill, assuming you are still among the living when the emergency is over.

We strongly urge our fellow New Yorkers to share their personal views about Voice Link as a landline substitute with the PSC. This issue is important not only to Fire Island but to the rest of rural upstate New York as well, particularly pertaining to whether customers will have broadband service or not. Verizon management has clearly stated their agenda is to retire copper landline service and replace it with wireless in non-FiOS areas deemed too costly or unprofitable to keep up or upgrade.

Sharing your views is fast and easy and can be done in several ways. Be sure to reference “Matter/Case: 13-00986/13-C-0197” in your comments and include your contact information. All submissions will become publicly viewable on the Commission’s website under the “Public Comments” tab. You can find submissions from Stop the Cap! there as well.

Write (U.S. Mail):

Hon. Jeffrey C. Cohen, Acting Secretary
New York State Public Service Commission
Three Empire State Plaza
Albany, New York 12223-1350

E-Mail:

[email protected]

Online Comments:

You can post comments directly to the Commission’s Document and Matter Management System (DMM). Choose the “Post Comments” link on the upper-right of your screen. An online submission form will appear asking for your contact information. You can include your comments in the provided text box on that form or attach a .PDF, .DOC, or .TXT file.

Last week, Verizon’s Tom Maguire responded to some of our earlier coverage about Verizon’s decision to abandon landline service on portions of Fire Island devastated by last fall’s Hurricane Sandy. We have received several complaints from readers about our decision to grant space to Verizon to present their views without reciprocation. While we understand those concerns, Stop the Cap! believes readers deserve both sides of a discussion that AT&T and Verizon will soon seek to have with customers across many of their rural service areas. For that reason, we invited Verizon’s participation. This is our response:

Phillip Dampier

Raise your hand if you want Verizon’s Voice Link to replace your traditional telephone service and lose your only wired broadband connection.

Almost no one has. Despite the arguments from Verizon Communications and AT&T that wireless is the answer to troublesome copper wiring and maintaining rural telephone service, dozens of Fire Island, N.Y. customers have been sufficiently provoked to file comments with state regulators, making it clear they want no part of the loss of their landline and its accompanying, affordable broadband service. In more than 135 public comments with the Public Service Commission at press time, Stop the Cap! could only find one comment from a Fire Island resident who had no issues with Verizon’s wireless landline replacement. He was upset Verizon had not wired a nearby yacht club for broadband service.

Both AT&T and Verizon have publicly advocated that rural customers would be better served moving from traditional wired landline service to their respective wireless 4G LTE networks. AT&T characterizes it as “an upgrade” that switches customers to an “all IP” 21st century network. Verizon has been less bold in its public policy statements, framing its position mostly in economic terms  — does it make sense to invest large sums to upgrade or repair damaged infrastructure that serves a relatively small number of customers?

Until recently, customers have been free to make the choice between a landline and wireless service themselves. Now, the residents of Fire Island and some barrier islands off the coast of New Jersey have a very different choice: They can accept Verizon’s Voice Link landline replacement, sign up for cell service that has proved troublesome in both areas, or give up phone service altogether. Verizon has made it clear it is not prepared to replace the destroyed infrastructure on portions of the islands, it will not invest in major upkeep and repairs to network facilities that may have been compromised but are still functioning for now, and will likely never offer its fiber FiOS network in the affected areas.

Stop the Cap! has expressed repeated concern that the decision to abandon wired infrastructure in favor of wireless is based primarily on profit motives, is short-sighted, and represents a downgrade in the quality of an important, regulated utility service, particularly in rural and out-of-the-way places that have few, if any alternatives. Fire Island is shaping up to argue our case, based on the testimony of those actually living and working on the island.

Customers Don’t Want the ‘Solution’ Verizon is Offering

Voice Link is not proving a welcome permanent resident on Fire Island for many customers.

The reasons are clear: inadequate wireless service is common on the island, Voice Link does not perform or sound as good as the landline it replaces, and Verizon’s wireless broadband alternative will cost many residents their unlimited-use DSL service in favor of a wireless capped option that could cost more than $100 a month.

Letter to affected Verizon customers on Fire Island.

Verizon’s strongest argument is that landline service has fallen out of favor in the United States, with customers increasingly disconnecting home phones in favor of cell phones. If Verizon’s statistics are correct, 80 percent of the voice traffic on the island is already handled by Verizon Wireless. (Verizon does not specify if that traffic comes from permanent residents or temporary visitors, a point of contention with residents.)

Maguire was very careful to limit Verizon’s advocacy of Voice Link in terms of its capacity to handle voice calls. That is because Voice Link is currently incompatible with a whole range of important services that have worked fine with traditional landlines for years.

Maguire’s words are important: “Verizon’s commitment is to provide our customers with voice service,” — the kind you had in the late 70s. Voice Link fails faxing, home medical monitoring, home alarm systems, dial-up service, credit card transactions, and home satellite equipment that connects to the telephone network.

Voice Link is no upgrade for Fire Island. It represents turning back the clock, especially for broadband customers.

Maguire claimed in his editorial the company was only considering Voice Link for the universe of customers where the copper network was not supporting their requirements, with the exception of Sandy-impacted Fire Island and some New Jersey barrier islands. But that does not tell the whole story. In a filing with the New York State Public Service Commission, Verizon makes it clear it intends to introduce the same solution in other parts of New York:

It also seeks to deploy Voice Link in other parts of the State, both as an optional service in areas where the company also offers tariffed wireline local exchange service, and (subject to the Commission’s approval) as a sole service offering in particular locations and circumstances.

While Verizon has sought to appease regulators by volunteering to offer an equal level of service for the same or less money, there are questions about whether a regulator has any oversight authority over Voice Link.

“It is a remarkable concept in utility regulation that a regulated utility may determine that costs are unreasonable and as a result choose to provide alternative, and potentially unregulated service to affected customers,” said Louis Barash of Ocean Beach. “Verizon proposes to permit the PSC to regulate that activity, but it is not clear that the Commission has such authority. And it certainly isn’t clear that the Commission would have any authority to reverse its decision, or otherwise to sanction the company, if Verizon failed to comply with its undertakings.”

Broadband & Competition Matters: Forcing Customers Off Unlimited DSL in Favor of Near-Exclusive, Usage-Capped, Verizon Wireless Broadband

Offering broadband is a vital part of any telephone company’s strategy to add and keep customers. Yet Verizon’s DSL customers on the western half of Fire Island will have their broadband service canceled unless wired service (copper or fiber) is available. Verizon’s only alternative is a usage-capped, prohibitively expensive Verizon Wireless mobile data plan that may or may not perform well on the signal-challenged island. There is literally nowhere else for customers to go.

Verizon’s own statistics confirm none of its wireless competitors handle significant traffic on and off the island.

Maguire: “A multimillion dollar investment with no guarantee that residents of the island will even subscribe to our services makes no economic sense. In fact, that’s probably why Verizon is the sole provider on the island. None of the companies we compete with in other parts of New York offer services on the island.”

Maguire’s evidence:

“The company discovered that 80 percent of the voice traffic was already wireless.  If other wireless providers were factored in, it is likely that the percentage is closer to 90 percent.”

That means Verizon’s wireless competitors collectively have a traffic share of less than 10%.

Verizon’s Plan & Public Safety

Residents advise visitors they better have Verizon Wireless and a robust phone that works well in challenging reception areas if they expect to use it while on the island. AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile customers are often out of luck. That poses an immediate and direct threat to public safety, according to public safety officials.

“The cellphone service on Fire Island progressively gets worse every year as more and more people are bringing smartphones out there,” explained Dominic Bertucci, chief of the Kismet Fire Department. “There are some days where you can barely get a signal.”

The Brookhaven Town Fire Chiefs Council, which represents the leadership of 39 fire departments and fire companies in the region is vehemently opposed to Voice Link and considers it a safety menace, especially during frequent summer power outages when the island’s population is at its peak.

“Without a copper wire phone service, a service that still functions even during a power failure, how can we insure that the residents can call for help?” asks president John Cronin. “How will they call for the lifesaving services that are provided by the fire and EMS units of Fire Island? The corporate desire for greater profit cannot be made at the expense of the safety of the residents of Fire Island.”

“Wireless service is not reliable,” adds Fair Harbor resident Meredith Davis. “Imagine being in an emergency and having ‘spotty’ reception which happens out there all the time on cell phones. That is not safe and not okay.”

Verizon disclaims legal responsibility for failed wireless 911 calls in its terms and conditions. The most Verizon owes you is a refund of a portion of your monthly service charges.

“If you are unfamiliar with Fire Island, there is very little medical service and the only way off the island is a scheduled ferry service or, for some people who have permits and trucks, a very long drive,” explains lifelong Fire Island resident Nora Olsen. “When someone needs to be rushed to the hospital, they are evacuated by helicopter, which makes timely emergency calls of the essence to save lives. So you can imagine how important it is to have reliable phone service. It should be up to the individual to decide if they want to switch to a wireless service. They should not be forced into it by Verizon. The people who are most likely to want to stick with the phone service they have been used to all their life — senior citizens — are the most likely to need to use the phone to call for help.”

A number of residents also claim Verizon has overblown the real extent of damage on the island and is not operating in good faith.

“In the larger communities of Ocean Beach and Seaview, I have met no one yet that has their connectivity lost,” said resident Karen Warren. “So for Verizon to assert that the infrastructure is largely destroyed and to repair it would be an enormous expense is simply not true. To add insult to injury, before coming out and finding out that our lines were in fact intact, Verizon offered to ‘replace’ our existing DSL data service with LTE Jetpak wireless broadband. The performance and reliability with only a single device connected was horrendous.”

“[Verizon is] pushing us toward a higher-cost and lower-value solution,” Warren concluded.

Getting specific information about the current state of Verizon’s network on Fire Island and repair/replacement costs are hard to come by. Verizon filed an application with the PSC declaring much of the information confidential or a trade secret, refusing to share it with the public. The company was concerned some might access the Public Service Commission website, find the case number about Fire Island, navigate to the specific Verizon filing containing information about their infrastructure… and then vandalize it.

The worst affected communities on Fire Island.

Barash suspects Verizon might be hiding something, especially considering the company requested to bypass usual waiting periods and public notification requirements:

Verizon asserts that it would cost “$4.8 million for a voice-only digital loop carrier system comparable to the networking serving the eastern part of the island.” It is by no means clear, however, that such a system is the minimum required to restore/repair the western part of the system to the service it had pre-storm. Certainly Verizon’s application makes no representation to that effect. This estimate apparently contemplates an entire new system for the western portion of Fire Island, notwithstanding that a meaningful percentage of the copper wire system is still operational.

Moreover, Verizon’s position on the required scope of repairs has been a constantly shifting target. Verizon apparently advised Commission Staff, and Staff repeated at the April 18 Commission Hearing, that the western Fire Island telephone system was “damaged beyond repair by the storm.” Verizon apparently has abandoned that claim; this application indeed is premised on the assumption that the system can be repaired. Furthermore, in its first (May 3) submission to the Commission, Verizon stated that “five of the six cables that run between Fire Island and the mainland – the five that serve the western portion of the Island – were also badly damaged by the storm.” Just a week later, it has abandoned that claim as well, and instead in its amended Certification asserts “Five of the six cables that run throughout Fire Island were badly damaged by the storm.” It is hard to accept at face value Verizon’s estimated repair costs when even at this late date it does not seem to have a handle on exactly the damage that needs repair.

A full Hearing, with notice to affected customers, is necessary to develop facts sufficient to make such determinations and to be reasonably certain the Commission is acting based on reasonably verifiable facts.

Residents deserve a full voice and full disclosure in discussions that will directly impact their vital telecommunications services for years to come. Verizon’s corporate officials will not have to live with the results. Neither will the staff at the PSC.

Stop the Cap! has chosen to directly participate in the New York State Public Service Commission regulatory process and has filed two formal comments thus far. The first outlines Verizon’s greater strategy to abandon landline service in rural areas outlined by Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam in 2012. We also provided the Commission the prices Verizon Wireless intends to charge Verizon DSL customers switching to wireless broadband service. The second objects to Verizon’s excessive request for secrecy and exposes cell coverage issues on Fire Island.

Tom Maguire

Recently, Stop the Cap! published stories about Verizon’s decision to discontinue traditional wired landline service for approximately 500 customers on Fire Island and offer them a wireless alternative called Voice Link. This is an important change for Verizon and our customers, and we wanted to clarify several points about the service and how Verizon is deploying it.

In places like Fire Island, New York and some communities along the Jersey Shore, such as Mantoloking and Seaside Heights, Verizon evaluated the extent of the damage to its facilities – which in many cases were literally washed away by Super Storm Sandy – and conducted extensive research before deciding the best course of action to take in terms of restoration.

Fire Island is a popular beach community with only a few hundred year-round residents, but the population swells each summer. Verizon’s equipment on the eastern side of the island was not too heavily impacted, so repairs were made and services restored.

On the western side of the Island, however, a large percentage of Verizon’s copper facilities were damaged beyond repair.

We studied the voice traffic on and off the island and where it was originating from on both Verizon’s wireline and wireless networks.  The company discovered that 80 percent of the voice traffic was already wireless.  If other wireless providers were factored in, it is likely that the percentage is closer to 90 percent.  This made it clear that people had already made the decision as to what technology works best. They had abandoned copper long before Sandy.

Where Sandy did the most damage on Fire Island.

Another part of Verizon’s analysis looked at the number of permanent residents on Fire Island, which number about 500, and the costs that Verizon would incur to install and connect new landline facilities there.  It would range from $4.8 million to more than $6 million. A multimillion dollar investment with no guarantee that residents of the island will even subscribe to our services makes no economic sense. In fact, that’s probably why Verizon is the sole provider on the island. None of the companies we compete with in other parts of New York offer services on the island.

Verizon’s commitment is to provide our customers with voice service, and Voice Link is another way that Verizon is using technology to reliably deliver on that commitment for customers. And Voice Link does so by using wireless technology that has been proven effective over the last 20 plus years.

Verizon will maintain the copper network where it makes customer service and business sense to do so.  Please keep in mind that the vast majority of our copper customers have no issues at all with their service; we are only considering the universe of customers where the copper network is not supporting their requirements.  Again, the exception is the storm-impacted areas in the western portion of Fire Island and a few New Jersey Barrier communities where copper facilities were damaged beyond repair.  In these locations Voice Link will be the single voice option available to customers. Verizon will offer these customers the opportunity to use our state-of-the-art, tried and tested wireless network at the same rate (or better) that they pay today.

Here is how Verizon Voice Link works with existing home phones.

Some additional points for clarification:

• The service does offer a variety of popular calling features including Call Waiting and Caller ID with Name.  Some articles mistakenly reported to the contrary;
• Another article cited a Communications Daily piece that incorrectly reported 40,000 people participated in a blind test of Voice Link. Actually, that test group consisted of 20 people;
• Current Voice Link models include a rechargeable battery that offers 36 hours of standby and two hours of voice service. Future devices will work with standard AA batteries, giving customers an easy alternative for replacing batteries and maintaining communications in an extended power outage;
• Although the device is not presently data capable, the team is working to change that. Nevertheless we have always said that it was not Verizon’s original intent to use Voice Link for customers with DSL. If a customer had an issue with their copper and they had DSL, we would repair the copper.  Unfortunately Sandy changed these plans for a handful of customers on Fire Island and the New Jersey Barrier where the copper is beyond repair.

What’s the Deal With Copper?

In areas where Verizon’s fiber and copper network ran side-by-side, Verizon began to ask certain copper customers with a history of trouble to move their service to fiber. In some cases the equipment supporting the copper service was so outdated that we could not even find replacement parts because the equipment had been discontinued. The objective was to improve service quality and customer satisfaction using the best communications network, and the result was clear: the program has been very successful. More than 300,000 customers migrated to Verizon’s fiber-optic network.  These customers enjoy super-reliable, faster fiber at the same rates they were paying all along.

In non-fiber areas, Verizon developed Voice Link to take advantage of wireless technology to address voice customers served on the copper network who have had chronic repairs issues.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Verizon Voice Link Keeps Customers Connected After Hurricane Sandy 5-31-13.flv[/flv]

After Sandy hit, Verizon realized that wireless technology also would be an ideal solution for customers in areas the storm destroyed or severely damaged. It has helped us reconnect hundreds of people and businesses. Don’t take our word for it. See what these customers have to say. (3 minutes)

Tom Maguire is Verizon’s senior vice president of network operations support.