With total ownership of Verizon Wireless now assured, Verizon Communications plans to begin “tree trimming” assets in its portfolio that cannot match the profitability of its wireless business.

Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam told CNBC he has already communicated with Verizon’s executive team about the direction Verizon will take after it buys out Vodafone’s ownership interest in Verizon Wireless. One potential target for sale: millions of Verizon’s rural landlines that cannot hope to match the revenue an average cell phone customer delivers the company.

Verizon’s wireless assets now represent the company’s biggest generator of sales and profit, accounting for two-thirds of 2012 revenue and almost all of its operating income.

Where Verizon chooses to invest is largely dependent on what kind of return the company can expect. So far, the best returns have come from Verizon Wireless.

“I think there is no better way to deploy our capital then to invest in a [wireless] asset that today generates more than $80 billion in annual revenue, provides a 50% margin, generates significant cash flows and is uniquely positioned for future growth and profitability,” McAdam told investors Tuesday on a conference call announcing the purchase of Vodafone’s stake in Verizon Wireless. “Beyond the financial benefits, there is simply no better asset that fit seamlessly into our portfolio and our strategic beliefs. Our growth strategy has three basic elements: connectivity, platforms and solutions. We are very bullish on the growth outlook for the U.S. wireless marketplace.”

McAdam made it clear to CNBC’s Jim Cramer the company is not so bullish on its declining wireline business, which includes landlines, DSL, and even FiOS — the company’s fiber optic network:

Jim Cramer, CNBC: “[Under former Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, Verizon] took areas that really weren’t growth areas and sold them to Frontier and other players. Would you be able to get rid of some of your underperforming landline businesses to be able to increase [Verizon’s] growth even further?”

Lowell McAdam, Verizon: “That is a possibility. […] If you talk about opportunities here, now that we have One Verizon, […] we are going to trim some limbs around the tree here. Things that aren’t performing will not be a part of our portfolio so we can invest in things that will drive the kind of growth we are excited to be able to tap here.”

The trimming has already started in New York and New Jersey, where Verizon is moving forward with the introduction of a less expensive wireless landline replacement called Voice Link, now optional for some customers but could eventually be Verizon’s sole landline service offering in certain areas if state regulators approve.

Verizon calls the service an improvement for customers dealing with repeated service calls to fix troublesome landlines. Upkeep of Verizon’s copper networks has proved costly to the company, especially as it continues to count landline customer losses. The company argues providing wireless phone service is pro-consumer, providing a bundle of calling features and unlimited local and long distance calling at the same price Verizon charges for basic, no frills landline service. Local officials and residents using the service complain it is inadequate and unreliable.

“Voice Link is an innovative solution for a specific segment of Verizon’s voice-only customers that delivers reliable voice service using our trusted and reliable wireless network,” said Verizon spokesman John Bonomo. “Unlike copper-based service, it is less likely to fail during an adverse weather event because of our wireless networks’ resiliency.”

Analyzing the market value of Verizon’s buyout of Vodafone’s part ownership in Verizon Wireless and accounting for net debt reveals Verizon’s wireless operations are worth $289 billion, with  Verizon’s current 55 percent share worth about $159 billion. In contrast, Verizon’s wireline operations including landlines, business broadband, and FiOS are worth just a fraction of that — $24 billion, according to Bloomberg News.

Kevin Roe, an analyst at Roe Equity Research LLC in Dorset, Vt. values the wireline business at about $21 billion based on his estimates, while Spencer Kurn of New Street Research LLC puts the implied value of the unit at about $26 billion.

Verizon’s top rated fiber service FiOS has brought the company higher earnings and is deemed a success, but its total revenue remains insufficient to offset Verizon’s continued landline losses as customers drop home phone service and DSL. From a business perspective, that explains why Verizon is eager to invest billions in its high return wireless business while leaving further expansion of its fiber optic network on hold.

Revenue from the wireline unit totaled $39.8 billion last year, down from $50.3 billion in 2007, data compiled by Bloomberg show. During the same period, Verizon’s wireless revenue surged 73 percent to $75.9 billion.

“Clearly, wireless is going to be worth a lot more” than Verizon’s other businesses, Chris King, a Baltimore-based analyst at Stifel Financial Corp., told Bloomberg in a phone interview. Wireless is “where the growth is going to be coming from. There’s a bigger market opportunity going forward.”

McAdam has brought his enthusiasm for the wireless business to his role as Verizon CEO and its priority shows as he predicts even larger earnings in the future. McAdam told investors only 64 percent of Verizon Wireless customers use smartphones. Verizon wants to convert the remaining 30 million basic phone customers to higher-priced smartphone service as quickly as possible. Getting customers to switch to 4G-capable devices is also lucrative for Verizon, because its LTE network can more efficiently handle data at a lower cost. Only one-third of Verizon customers now use 4G LTE devices.

Embracing consumption based billing for wireless data is perhaps the biggest potential revenue generator of all as customers consume more data and begin connecting more devices to Verizon’s network.

Platforms including machine to machine and in-car connectivity “create even greater opportunities to drive increased usage,” McAdam said. “We also see many opportunities with Internet and cloud-based services. The digital economy is moving to mobile first on everything, which means there are many growth opportunities to pursue.”

Time Warner Cable’s approval of its request to offer regulated “digital phone” service in New York has been quickly followed by an appeal for deregulation to loosen rules covering disconnection for non-payment and reduced service quality standards.

The cable operator now qualifies — as a designated Eligible Telecommunications Carrier (ETC) — for significant federal and state subsidies in return for providing discounted Lifeline telephone service for the state’s poorest residents.

The cable industry has traditionally escaped regulation and oversight with claims “digital phone” Voice over IP (VoIP) products are “unregulated information services.”

In March, the New York Public Service Commission approved a petition filed by subsidiary Time Warner Cable Information Services (NY) LLP (TWCIS-NY), to begin offering regulated telephone service to the company’s 1,235,710 phone customers in New York.

As a result, Time Warner agreed to a range of oversight and service standard requirements. But on May 1 — less than two months later — Time Warner filed a new petition with the PSC requesting deregulation and exemption from several provisions the company initially agreed to follow.

“Now that it is concededly a regulated telephone service provider, Time Warner is acting like other regulated phone companies, in that it immediately is seeking to relax the rules designed to protect customers,” writes Gerry Norlander from the Public Utility Law Project of New York (PULP), a consumer protection group.

Not so, says the cable company.

“In order to offer the best telecommunications service to its customers and expand this customer base, TWCIS-NY respectfully requests that the Commission grant the waivers discussed in this Petition,” the company writes.

The changes Time Warner requests would make it easier for the cable company to disconnect service for late or non-payment, allow Time Warner to avoid distributing unwanted paper telephone directories, and escape oversight of its phone service for all but the most critical “core” customers with special needs.

Your Partial Payment Will Not Necessarily Prevent Us From Cutting Off Your Phone Line

The Telephone Fair Practices Act (TFPA), prohibits regulated phone companies from shutting off phone service for late/non-payment outside of normal business hours, Fridays after 1pm, weekends, and holidays:

(d) Suspension or termination of service–time. A telephone corporation complying with the conditions set forth in this section may suspend or terminate service to a residential customer for nonpayment of bills only between the hours of 8 a.m. and 7:30 p.m., Monday through Thursday, and between 8:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. on Friday, provided such day or the following day is not:
(1) a public holiday, as defined in the General Construction Law;
(2) a day on which the main business office of the telephone corporation is closed for business; or
(3) during the periods of December 23rd through December 26th and December 30th through January 2nd.

Time Warner Cable claims those limitations are too much, and “for its customers’ convenience, TWCIS-NY respectfully requests […] to extend these hours.”

If approved, Time Warner claims it will make your life easier if they can cut you off at their convenience — between the hours of 8:00am and 9:00pm, Monday through Friday, and between 8:00am and 5:00pm on Saturday.

Those times coincidentally match the hours technicians are now dispatched to collect equipment and shut off service for deadbeat customers.

Time Warner says people are often busy or not at home during the day and it would make more sense to coordinate the surrender of service when people are available to hand over equipment. Unfortunately, Time Warner’s preferred hours often fall outside of the calling hours at the Public Service Commission, which maintains a ‘last resort hotline’ for customers about to have their service disconnected.

‘Time Warner Cable Punishes Late Payers With Telephone Service Suspensions and Terminations on a “Massive” Scale’

Unlike cable television and broadband, New York designates telephone service as an essential utility, and regulators take every step to maintain service wherever possible.

Under rules originally adopted when consumers chose both a local and long distance phone company that put all of your charges on a single monthly invoice, regulators sought to protect landline service when customers did not pay the full amount due. Under those rules, partial payments are allocated first to past due charges from the local phone company, then past due charges for regional long distance or local calling, then charges billed by your long distance carrier, and then everything else.

Since your local phone company has the power to cut off your dial tone for late payment, making sure they were first in line to get paid usually kept your phone line working.

“It Appears that Time Warner Has Increased its Reliance Upon Telephone Service Suspensions and Terminations as a Tool to Enforce Customer Payment Obligations.”

According to data provided by Time Warner Cable in response to PULP information requests, during the month of March, 2012 Time Warner Cable sent 68,134 shutoff notices to Time Warner phone customers in New York. The threats worked for the majority of those customers. Only 17,218 were eventually disconnected after the shutoff deadline passed.

Since then, shutoffs and suspensions have soared. By July 2013, Time Warner mailed 146,026 shutoff notices and followed through with 42,777 disconnects, increases of 114% and 148%, respectively.

“As a consequence, interruption of phone service for bill collection purposes has reached massive proportion,” says PULP. “It appears that Time Warner has increased its reliance upon telephone service suspensions and terminations as a tool to enforce customer payment obligations. In the 12 months ending July 2013, Time Warner terminated or suspended telephone service on 592,250 occasions for bill collection purposes. Of that number, telephone service was reinstated after an interruption for collection purposes on 461,268 occasions. Thus, 130,982 or 22% of the customers terminated were not promptly reinstated.”

Those figures concern PULP because it suggests many disconnected customers are now without phone service, swelling the “unacceptably large number of New York households lacking telephone service.”

New York now ranks fourth from the bottom of all states in the most recent FCC Universal Services Monitoring Report of telephone subscribers.

Verizon’s Request to “Streamline” the Payment Process Gives Time Warner Cable the Same Idea

In 2010, Verizon New York successfully petitioned the PSC to streamline that payment allocation system. Few people bother with choosing a long distance carrier these days because most phone companies now offer unlimited long distance as part of a bundled service package. Verizon asked to simplify things so that Verizon New York got paid first and everything else came second.

Time Warner is seeking a variation on that same theme, requesting the PSC allow it to allocate partial payments first to telephone service, with the rest distributed to cover charges for broadband and cable television service.

While that is good news for your Time Warner phone line, it is bad news for your broadband and television service which can still be interrupted for non-payment because your partial payment was applied to phone service above all else.

Customers are unlikely to be aware of this, however. Time Warner Cable bills include a regular notice that if a customer is in arrears for any Time Warner Cable service, telephone service may be shut off.

PULP argues the cable company should let customers decide which services are most important to keep up and running during an emergency.

“For example, a customer might want to jettison cable TV and keep the Internet on to hunt for jobs during a spell of unemployment or other household financial crisis,” writes Norlander. “While the bills include separate items for cable TV, broadband, and telephone services, there is no information given in the bills on how customers can, if they are in arrears, keep the service they pay for with a partial payment.”

Indeed, there is no provision on Time Warner’s website or on its paper bill payment coupon to allocate which services a customer wishes their partial payment to be applied to first.

Time Warner Cable argues it gives late paying customers every opportunity to either make up past due payments or negotiate a payment plan before any service is interrupted.

“Customers have the opportunity to walk into the local [cable] office and make a payment during these extended hours,” Time Warner argues. “They also have the opportunity to pay online and over the phone 24 hours a day, as well as paying cable representatives directly when they arrive at the customer’s premises to disconnect service. TWCIS-NY believes that streamlining of the rules for disconnection of phone and cable services will make the Commission’s rules more consistent across the board and less confusing for customers.”

We Shouldn’t Have to Provide Printed Residential Phone Books We Didn’t Offer Anyway

Time Warner Cable wants to opt out from distributing printed copies of residential telephone directories it doesn’t publish.

When the company provided unregulated telephone service, it never had to offer customers a phone book. But in its new life as a regulated provider, New York requires phone companies to offer, upon request, a printed telephone directory:

Each service provider shall distribute at no charge to its customers within a local exchange area, a copy of the local exchange directory for that area, and one additional copy shall be provided for each working telephone number upon request. A copy shall be filed with the Commission.

Nobody has formally opposed Time Warner Cable’s proposed alternative: distributing residential listings only to customers who specifically request them in print or on CD-ROM.

Most customers don’t realize Time Warner Cable used to outsource most of its telephone service operation to Sprint. In addition to providing VoIP service, Sprint relied on dominant local telephone companies to provide phone books to Time Warner phone customers. In return, Sprint passed along customers’ names, addresses and phone numbers to phone companies like AT&T, Verizon, Frontier, CenturyLink and Windstream to be incorporated into those directories.

In 2010, Time Warner announced a four-year transition project to take its telephone service “in-house.”

Will All of This Competition, Oversight Rules Should Be Relaxed; If Customers Don’t Like Us, They Can Go Somewhere Else

Virtually every telephone company in New York agrees with the assessment Verizon has made for years — if a phone company does not provide excellent service, subscribers will simply switch to a competitor, negating the need for oversight of service quality standards.

The PSC agreed, reducing requirements for service outage reporting and other documented service issues. Today, Verizon only reports incidents involving “core” customers — low-income Lifeline subscribers, “special needs” customers including the elderly, those with serious medical conditions, the disabled and the visually impaired. Core customers also include those with no competitive service providers available to them.

Time Warner Cable wants a modified version of the Verizon “core customer” standard applied to its cable phone service — one that defines core customers as those with Lifeline service or special needs.

Time Warner does not want to include those without competitive alternatives and seeks an exemption from any reporting requirements until it signs up at least 5,000 accounts designated as “core customers.” That could take a while. PULP obtained records from Time Warner Cable showing as of Aug. 7 the company has only signed up 149 telephone customers it defines as “core customers.”

The cable company may be thinking of the future. Verizon Communications has made its intentions clear it wants to abandon rural landline service in favor of questionably regulated wireless Voice Link service. The idea that a cable company provides landline service in an area the local phone company no longer does is unprecedented in New York, but perhaps for not much longer.

If Time Warner Cable successfully argues “core customers” need not include those without competing alternatives, the PSC may unintentionally hand the cable operator a rural telephone monopoly without quality of service oversight in some communities.

AT&T has boosted the maximum available broadband speed for its U-verse Internet offering to 45/6Mbps service in 40 cities across 15 states.

The broadband speed boost is part of AT&T’s Project Velocity IP (VIP), a three-year plan to expand U-verse’s capabilities and coverage into more communities within AT&T’s local landline service areas.

Most of the funding for Project VIP is being directed into expanding AT&T’s profitable wireless 4G network, but about $6 billion will be spent upgrading AT&T’s aging copper wireline facilities.

A big priority for AT&T is to retire copper-based distribution networks and replacing that wiring with fiber optics. U-verse depends on a significant amount of fiber to provide enough bandwidth for its television, phone and broadband service. But unlike Verizon FiOS, which delivers a fiber connection straight to the home, AT&T still relies on traditional copper wiring into the home.

Until AT&T replaces that copper with fiber, top broadband speeds are unlikely to keep up with its biggest competitor — cable broadband.

AT&T’s says the 45Mbps speed boost represents an incremental upgrade and plans further speed increases to 75Mbps.

In more rural areas, U-verse will rely on IPDSLAM technology to increase speeds up to 45Mbps. AT&T eventually hopes to further bump download speeds to 100Mbps.

For the most rural communities within its service area, AT&T hopes to offer service exclusively over its wireless network, eventually scrapping rural landlines altogether.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KTAL Shreveport U-verse Coming to Louisiana 8-23-13.mp4[/flv]

KTAL-TV reports AT&T’s upgraded U-verse could soon be coming to Shreveport, La. as part of Project VIP, which may give Comcast some much-needed competition in the Ark-La-Tex region. (3 minutes)

AT&T is unhappy with a proposal from a wireless competitor it originally tried to buy in 2011 that would offer smaller competitors a more realistic chance of winning favored 600MHz spectrum vacated by UHF television stations at a forthcoming FCC auction.

T-Mobile’s “Dynamic Market Rule” proposal would establish a cap on the amount of spectrum market leaders AT&T and Verizon Wireless, flush with financial resources for the auction, could win.

“Imposing modest constraints on excessive low-band spectrum aggregation will promote competition, increase consumer choice, encourage innovation, and accelerate broadband deployment,” T-Mobile offered in its proposal to the FCC.

Without some limits, wireless competitors Sprint and T-Mobile, among other smaller carriers, could find themselves outbid for the prime spectrum, well-suited for penetrating buildings and requiring a smaller network of cell towers to deliver blanket coverage.

In a public policy blog post today, AT&T argues T-Mobile is behind the times and its proposal is unfair and unworkable:

First, the purported advantage of low band spectrum – that it allows more coverage and better building penetration with fewer cell sites – has been overtaken by marketplace realities under which capacity not coverage drives network deployment.  Carriers deploying low band and high band spectrum alike must squeeze as many cell sites as they can into their networks to meet exploding demand for data services.  Second, to the extent this is less the case in rural areas, those areas are not spectrum-constrained and the lower cost of building out low band spectrum in such areas is offset by the higher cost of the spectrum itself.

[…] But this is not the only point that should concern policymakers.  Such caps will also suppress auction revenues, potentially to the point of auction failure, ultimately reducing the amount of spectrum freed up for mobile broadband use and undermining the auction’s ability to meet critical statutory goals.

[…] Even if T-Mobile’s proposal did not result in complete auction failure, its proposed caps would suppress auction revenues, reducing the amount of spectrum freed up for mobile broadband use as well as funds generated for FirstNet and to pay down the national debt.  That is because strict limits on participation by otherwise qualified bidders will make the auction less competitive and will yield less revenue.  Indeed, if T-Mobile’s proposed spectrum cap was strictly enforced, Verizon estimates it would be barred from bidding in 7 of the top 10 markets.  AT&T would face similar bidding limitations, as noted in our filing.

AT&T suggests the last major auction in 2008 attracted 214 qualified bidders and 101 bidders won licenses, including carriers of all sizes and new entrants.

But an analysis by Stop the Cap! shows the breakaway winners of the 2008 auction were none other than AT&T and Verizon Wireless, which paid a combined $16.3 billion of the total $19.592 billion raised. For that money, they acquired:

• Block A – Verizon Wireless and U.S. Cellular both bought 25 licenses each. In this block, Verizon targeted urban areas, while U.S. Cellular bought licenses primarily in the northern part of the U.S., where it provides regional cellular service. Cavalier Telephone and CenturyTel also bought 23 and 21 licenses, respectively. Cavalier Telephone is now wholly owned by Windstream, which does not provide cell service and was selling its 700MHz spectrum to none other than AT&T. So is CenturyLink (formerly CenturyTel).

• Block B – AT&T Mobility was the biggest buyer in the B block, with 227 licenses totaling $6.6 billion. U.S. Cellular and Verizon bought 127 and 77 licenses, respectively. AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless bought licenses around the country, while U.S. Cellular continued with its strategy to buy licenses in its home network northern regions.

• Block C – Of the 10 licenses in the C Block, Verizon Wireless bought the 7 that cover the contiguous 48 states (and Hawaii). Those seven licenses cost Verizon roughly $4.7 billion. Of the other three, Triad Communications — a wireless spectrum speculator — bought the two covering Alaska, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands through its Triad 700, LLC investor partnership, while Small Ventures USA, L.P. bought the one covering the Gulf of Mexico. Triad 700, LLC sold its spectrum last fall to AT&T while Small Ventures USA sold theirs to Verizon Wireless.

• Block E – EchoStar spent $711 million to buy 168 of the 176 available Block E licenses. This block, made up of unpaired spectrum, will likely be used to stream television shows. Qualcomm also bought 5 licenses. Neither company has used its spectrum to offer any services five years after the auction ended.

So much for improving the competitive landscape of wireless. Other than U.S. Cellular, which is rumored to be on AT&T and Verizon Wireless’ acquisitions wish list, every auction winner has either sold its spectrum to the wireless giants or has done nothing with it.

If “highest bidder wins”-rules apply at the forthcoming auction, expect more of the same.

AT&T and Verizon Wireless have significant financial resources to outbid Sprint, T-Mobile and smaller carriers and will likely win the bulk of the available spectrum whether they actually need it or not. Smaller victories may be won by smaller competitors, but only in rural areas and sections of the country disfavored by the largest two.

The New York State Public Service Commission has announced it will hold public hearings in Ocean Beach in Suffolk County, N.Y. to hear from angry Fire Island residents and others about their evaluation of Verizon’s controversial wireless landline replacement Voice Link, which Verizon hopes to eventually install in rural areas across its operating territories.

“Verizon needs to stop lying,” said Fire Island resident Debi May who lost phone service last fall after Hurricane Sandy damaged the local network. “Don’t tell me you can’t fix my landline service. Tell me you won’t.”

She is one of hundreds of Fire Island residents spending the summer without landline service, relying on spotty cellular service, or using Verizon’s wireless landline alternative Voice Link, which many say simply does not work as advertised. In July, the CWA asserted Verizon is trying to introduce Voice Link in upstate New York, including in the Catskills and in and around Watertown and Buffalo.

“I’ve been on the phone with Verizon all day,” Jason Little, owner of the popular Fire Island haunt Bocce Beach tells The Village Voice. The restaurant’s phone line and DSL service is down again. Just like last week. And three weeks before that. Like always, Verizon’s customer service representatives engage in the futility of scheduling a service call that will never actually happen. Verizon doesn’t bother to show up in this section of Fire Island anymore, reports Little.

“They never come,” he says. So he sits and waits for the service to work its way back on its own — the result of damaged infrastructure Verizon refuses to repair any longer. Until it does, accepting credit cards is a big problem for Little.

It’s the same story down the street at the beachwear boutique A Summer Place. Instead of showing customers the latest summer fashions, owner Roberta Smith struggles her away around Verizon’s abandonment of landline service. She even purchased the recommended wireless credit card machine to process transactions, but that only works as well as Verizon Wireless’ service on the island, which can vary depending on location and traffic demands.

Smith tells the newspaper at least half the time, Verizon’s wireless network is so slow the machine stops working. If she can’t reach the credit card authorization center over a crackly, zero bar Verizon Wireless cell phone, the customer might walk, abandoning the sale.

National Public Radio reports Verizon’s efforts to abandon landline service on Fire Island and in certain New Jersey communities is just the first step towards retiring rural landline service in high cost areas. But does Verizon Voice Link actually work? Local residents say it doesn’t work well enough. NPR allows listeners to hear the sound quality of Voice Link for themselves. (5 minutes)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

The Village Voice notes Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam didn’t make the decision to scrap rural copper wire landline service to improve things for customers. He did it for the company.

“The decision wasn’t motivated by customer demand so much as McAdam’s interest in increasing Verizon’s profit margins,” the Voice writes.

Tom Maguire, Verizon’s point man for Voice Link, has not endeared himself with local residents by suggesting Fire Island shoppers should get around the credit card problem by bringing cash.

“Remember what happened to Marie Antoinette when she said ‘let them eat cake’,” suggested one.

For some customers who appreciate the phone company’s cost arguments, Verizon’s wireless alternative wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t work so bad.

“It has all the problems of a cellphone system, but none of the advantages,” Pat Briody, a homeowner on Fire Island for 40 years told NPR News.

“I don’t think there’s anyone who will tell you Voice Link is better than the copper wire,” says Steve Kunreuther, treasurer of the Saltaire Yacht Club.

“Voice Link doesn’t work here,” reports resident Jean Ufer, whose husband depends on a pacemaker that must “check in” with medical staff over a landline the Ufer family no longer has. “It constantly breaks down. Everybody who has it hates it. You can’t do faxes. You can’t do the medical stuff you need. We need what we had back.”

Residents who depended on unlimited broadband access from Verizon’s DSL service are being bill-shocked by Verizon’s only broadband replacement option – expensive 4G wireless hotspot service from Verizon Wireless.

Small business owner Alessandro Anderes-Bologna used to have DSL service from Verizon until Hurricane Sandy obliterated Verizon’s infrastructure across parts of the western half of Fire Island. Today he relies on what he calls poor service from Verizon Wireless’ 4G LTE network, which he claims is hopelessly overloaded because of tourist traffic and insufficient capacity. But more impressive are Anderes-Bologna’s estimates of what Verizon Wireless wants to charge him for substandard wireless broadband.

“My bill with Verizon Wireless would probably be in the range of $700-800 a month,” Anderes-Bologna said. That is considerably higher than the $29.99 a month Verizon typically charges for its fastest unlimited DSL option on Fire Island.

Despite the enormous difference in price, Verizon’s Maguire has no problems with Verizon Wireless’ prices for its virtual broadband monopoly on the landline-less sections of the island.

“It’s a closed community,” he says. “It’s the quintessential marketplace where you get to charge what the market will bear, so all the shops get to charge whatever they want.” And that’s exactly what Verizon is doing.

WCBS Radio reports Verizon is introducing Voice Link in certain barrier island communities in New Jersey. But the service lacks important features landline users have been long accustomed to having. (1 minute)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

In nearby New Jersey, Verizon’s efforts to introduce Voice Link has met with resistance from consumer groups, the state’s utility regulator, and the Rate Counsel. Over 1,400 customers on barrier island communities like Bay Head, Brick, and Mantoloking cannot get Verizon DSL or landline service any longer because Verizon refuses to repair damaged landlines.

“The New Jersey coast has been battered enough,” said Douglas Johnston, AARP New Jersey’s manager of advocacy. “The last thing we need is second-class phone service at the Shore. We are concerned that approval of Verizon’s plans could further the gap between the telecommunications ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ and could create an incentive for Verizon to neglect the maintenance and repair of its landline phone network in New Jersey.”

In some cases, Verizon has told customers they can get landline phone service from Comcast, a competitor, instead.

State consumer advocates note that other utilities including cable operators have undertaken repair, replacement, and restoration of facilities in both New York and New Jersey without the challenges Verizon claims it has.

“Only Verizon, without evidentiary support, is seeking to jettison its obligations to provide safe, proper and adequate service to the public,” wrote the New Jersey Rate Counsel in a filing with the Federal Communications Commission.

New York Senator Phil Boyle, who represents Fire Island residents, is hosting a town hall meeting tonight to discuss the move by Verizon to replace copper-wire phone lines on Fire Island with Voice Link. The meeting will be held at the Ocean Beach Community House in Ocean Beach from 5-7pm.

The New York State Public Service Commission will be at the same location Saturday, Aug. 24 starting at noon for a public statement hearing to hear from customers about how Verizon Voice Link is working for them.

It is not necessary to make an appointment in advance or to present written material to speak at the public statement hearing. Anyone with a view about Voice Link, whether they live on the island or not are welcome to attend. Speakers will be called after completing a card requesting time to speak. Disabled persons requiring special accommodations may place a collect call to the Department of Public Service’s Human Resources Management Office at (518) 474-2520 as soon as possible. TDD users may request a sign language interpreter by placing a call through the New York Relay Service at 711 to reach the Department of Public Service’s Human Resource Office at the previously mentioned number.

Those who cannot attend in person at the Community House, 157-164 Bay Walk, Ocean Beach can send comments about Voice Link to the PSC online, by phone, or through the mail.

• E:Mail: [email protected]
• U.S. Mail: Secretary, Public Service Commission, Three Empire State Plaza, Albany, New York 12223-1350
• 24 Hour Toll-Free Opinion Line (N.Y. residents only): 1-800-335-2120

Your comments should refer to “Case 13-C-0197 – Voice Link on Fire Island.” All comments are requested by Sept. 13, 2013. Comments will become part of the record considered by the Commission and will be published online and accessible by clicking on the “Public Comments” tab.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Al Jazeera US islanders battle telecom giant 8-13-13.flv[/flv]

Al Jazeera reports Fire Island residents are fighting to keep their landlines, especially after having bad experiences with Verizon Voice Link. (3 minutes)