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.”

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.”

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Asbury Press Following-Sandy-destruction-Verizon-switches-all-wireless-service 5-2-13.flv[/flv]

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

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.

A very frustrated employee of Frontier Communications working in one of their Ohio offices sent Stop the Cap! a detailed report on some of Frontier’s problems with customer service, unfair fees, and other horror stories. In this final part, a look at Frontier’s broadband service and how the company is still struggling to integrate ex-Verizon customers now a part of the Frontier family. “It is as if Dollar Tree bought out Wal-Mart.” 

Frontier recently began marketing faster Internet speeds to many of their customers who can finally sign up for something roughly equivalent to today’s standard speeds from cable operators. But even in its more advanced forms of bonded DSL, ADSL2+, and VDSL, all remain distance-sensitive. Customers may simply never get the speeds they were promised if they live too far from the phone company’s central office.

Frontier wants to see the end of speed test results like this.

We recently started pushing our premium speed broadband to customers who qualify for our new speeds, which run up to 25Mbps for residential customers. Customers who truly qualify for this service will actually get to receive decent speeds comparable to what Time Warner Cable and Comcast offers.

We were originally planning to market this as competitive with FiOS fiber optic speed, but I’m honestly not surprised they dropped that angle once they thought of how stupid it would sound to veteran DSL customers that a standard telephone line could reach those speeds. Even the majority of our Frontier FiOS customers are sometimes lucky to receive the speeds that cable offers, but for different reasons.

If a representative says you do qualify for faster Internet service, it is still an absolute crap-shoot whether or not you will actually get through a two-hour streamed Netflix movie in two hours instead of four thanks to buffering issues.

We are still in the early stages of rolling out these new speeds and there are still many issues in our internal systems to work out. For example, if our internal Salesforce/DPI system has not been updated, you are not going to get the faster speed service even if you can see the central office from your house. When it does show a customer is qualified, both the customer and I rejoice because I get a commission and the customer can now successfully access Facebook in less than three hours. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world and three of my orders for premium broadband Internet failed to complete despite the fact our system said they were qualified.

The cryptic reason? “Technology restraints do not allow this customer to reach any higher speeds.” That comes courtesy of our techs, who use it as a catch-all to cancel orders. Nobody can tell me why. I’ve asked dispatch, assignment, and tech managers and they have given me different explanations — none that seemed valid.

That leaves me calling back the customer, now excited they can finally use our broadband service to play online video games or Skype their son in college without being disconnected and let them know I was a big fat liar when I promised them something better, only to leave them stuck with what they had.

Next we need to update the information in those customers’ profiles so future reps do not lead them on. I have rechecked those accounts and to this day none of that information was updated. I just see my cancelled orders. So, there is even misinformation taking place within the company, preventing us from providing a risk free service.

Modem fees are a nuisance to a number of Frontier customers. The company is eliminating them for some customers.

Modem fees no longer apply to many Frontier broadband plans

Modem fees used to be an issue, however they are now increasingly included in the price of your broadband service. This can be especially good news in a competitive market where your broadband bill drops by nearly $7 a month, but those already using their own equipment will no longer see any savings from service credits applied to their monthly bills.

Are you really getting Frontier FiOS broadband speeds? Maybe not.

Speaking about misinformation, we have several Frontier FiOS customers that are actually only getting basic cable or DSL Internet speeds because their house was never actually wired with fiber. A street may have fiber optic cables all around, but if a customer is still using copper cable from the pole and inside their home, they are paying for services they are not getting. These customers are often noted in customer records we can access, but we are discouraged from sharing that information. This is not entirely our fault. This was a problem left over from the previous owner, Verizon Communications, which left us the mess to clean up. If you are only receiving half of the FiOS speed you are paying for, this may be why. If you complain, we will issue credit or create what we call a “SIFT Ticket” to send a tech to investigate a possible service upgrade.

Playing the Telephone Game with the telephone company

There have been countless times when I’ve been told five different things by five different people about how to handle a customer calling in for assistance. I understand that with millions of customers it is hard to predict what will happen on that next call, but simple things such as a consistent way to handle customer requests should be standard stuff. So, what can I do? Pick one of the five options and hope it is the right one for the customer.

Working for Frontier means dealing with short term goals that vary wildly day to day with no focus on any sort of objective. These loose operations and inconsistencies come straight from the top. This affects our long term goals as a company (whatever the hell those might be). These endlessly varying short term goals leave us with no foundation for long term goals because… again, there is no focus. That needed to be said twice.

Customers notice the rampant inconsistencies. A lot of customers candidly tell me, “you guys are spread too thin, and there is a severe lack of communication between all of your call centers.”

This is true, and much of it has to do with our purchase of former Verizon landline customers. It is as if Dollar Tree bought out Wal-Mart. I feel like we have bit off more than we can chew, despite the fact management dismissed these concerns as “speed bumps from the conversion.”

It is now 2012 and 2013 is coming closer every day and I am still dealing with the same issues that should no longer be happening as often as they should.

So, in closing, this has been my rant about the company I work for. I do enjoy my job (honestly, I do) and the people I work with are great. Even the customers who scream and yell at me, or the ones who commend me for my work, they’re all great in their own way. Nothing is as satisfying as actually calming someone down who has an issue with their bill, only to have them apologize and be grateful they got me on the phone. You have to truly be a people person to do this job, and not just do it for the money or it won’t work out for you. I’m not the most perfect representative, but I hope to strive to truly make every day I’m there in my cube less and less miserable and tedious.

Hopefully this crap can eventually be flushed and one day soon Frontier’s wheels will run smoothly.

FiOS=Fiber Optic Service

Verizon Communications is quietly moving a growing number of their copper-based landline customers to the company’s fiber optic network FiOS, whether customers want the service or not.

Fran Shammo, Verizon’s chief financial officer, told investors at last week’s Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference Verizon was done repairing chronic copper landline problems in areas also served by FiOS.

Shammo noted Verizon was accelerating the pace of its shift to FiOS in areas where the network already exists, noting it now costs Verizon less money to install fiber than maintain its older infrastructure. As many as 15,000 customers were quietly switched to fiber service during the first quarter of this year, with at least 200,000 planned to be moved by the end of 2012.

Verizon has no immediate plans to switch copper landline customers with no service problems, but once the company gets two service calls during a six month window, Verizon will switch them to FiOS phone service free of charge.

That is precisely what happened when Jan Walkley began experiencing problems with her Verizon landline after Hurricane Irene tore through her Long Island neighborhood in the late summer of 2011.

“We had crackling episodes on the phone every time it rained hard, but by the time the Verizon repairman showed up, the problem was gone,” Walkley told Stop the Cap! “On the third visit, the repair guy joked I had ‘struck out’ with my old phone line and they wanted to upgrade me to FiOS for free.”

Complain too often about your landline and Verizon may show up and install FiOS for free.

“Getting off of that copper onto FiOS significantly reduces our operating costs,” Shammo explained to investors.

Shammo also disclosed Verizon has reduced the cost of installing fiber to the home down to a record low of $700 per household, which in some cases is now cheaper than sending repair crews to repeatedly fix aging copper infrastructure.

Walkley had contemplated FiOS when Cablevision last increased her rates, but she was unhappy with the installation fees Verizon charged for its fiber optic network.

“The promotional offers looked good, but the fine print said while installation was free, installing various outlets and setting up my home computer was not,” Walkley said. “Because of my landline problems, Verizon is giving me free installation for everything, including TV and Internet service if I want it.”

That is part of Verizon’s grand plan, according to Shammo.

“This will really start to benefit us two ways, quite honestly,” Shammo said. “One is what we are seeing is as customers convert to FiOS, […] once we connect them up to the Internet, they see the speed, they are buying up the bundle. So we are seeing accretion from these customers that we are migrating.”

Walkley is not sure what “accretion” means, but she knows a good deal when she sees it.

“It seems to me anyone who wants to avoid Verizon’s FiOS install fees should simply make sure to call them whenever their phone line has a problem and Verizon may consider you enough of a nuisance to cut your FIOS installation fees to zero just to get you off the phone,” Walkley said.