Category Archives: landline

landline, Landlines, Telecom, Verzion, Verzion

Verizon Reaches an Agreement with Unions to End Strike

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As per the U.S. Labor Department, Verizon and its two unions extended an agreement on a new labor contract, flagging about 39,000 landline employees to resume work after a long strike of 44 days.
As per a statement passed by Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, the four-year deal is going to be put into writing and the union members will start working next week. It will be the first time that the agreement will be expanded to 165 Verizon wireless employees.
Union leaders are thankful to Perez who brought Verizon Chief Executive Officer Lowell McAdam and two union executives to Washington for discussion of alternatives to resolve the issue.
“This proves that when we stand together we can raise up working families, improve our communities and protect the American middle class,” said CWA President Chris Shelton.
IBEW President Lonnie Stephenson shared that the provisional contract is a significant advancement in bringing the six-week strike to an end and keep “good Verizon jobs in America.”
Chief Administrative Officer Marc Reed said in a statement “Verizon is very pleased with this ‘agreement in principle.” “We look forward to having all of our employees soon back at work in their regular positions and doing what they do best — serving our customers.”
The shares of Verizon grew less than 1 percent to $50.62 at the close Friday in New York.
Roger Entner, an analyst with Recon Analytics LLC said “In the end, it looks like everyone wins.”
“The employees will get an increase over four years, which is a year longer than originally proposed. And Verizon can get all its employees back to work, including those that had been filling in on the landline side.”
To fulfil business requirements during the strike, Verizon had dispatched non-union workers and managers to call centers and field-service assignments. As per Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo, the strike has affected the company’s landline business. After-effects of the strike might result in non-inclusion of FiOS TV or broadband customers in the quarter.
In addition to FiOS business, the company has been casting off union-heavy operations in three states since last month.
“This might be the last big strike for Verizon because wireline will have less and less leverage in an increasingly wireless business,” said Entner.

AT&T, Home Phone, landline, landline phone services

AT&T Pushing Bill to Discontinue Traditional Landline Service

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No doubt the present age is the era of cellphones, but lovers of traditional landline phones are not yet extinct. A number of people are using traditional landlines for homes and businesses in California. But state lawmakers are going to pull plug on these old telephone services.

AT&T

“It is my connection to the world,” said Ruthanne Shpinner for whom her landline is her lifeline. But, in the near future, she might lose it.
A bill is being pushed by Shpinner’s phone company, AT&T, to let phone companies in California put an end to traditional landline service.
Customers could keep landlines if they want, but they may use alternate technologies such as voice over internet protocol, or VOIP, says AT&T.
Bill sponsor and San Jose Assemblyman Evan Low put forward that the old copper wires and switching stations used to route land line calls are quite exorbitant in terms of maintenance for a diminishing number of customers. He is of the view that money would rather be spent investing in new telecommunications technology.
“The plain old telephone system known as pots is rapidly approaching irrelevance,” said Low. “We’re modernizing with the times. We liken this from going to analog to digital.”
Mark Toney of the Utility Reform Network is of the view that the change would cause many to lose a trustworthy service in times of emergencies.
“We think it would be an absolute catastrophe. Our first concern is public safety,” said Toney. “The old landline telephone service will operate two weeks without electricity.” He is of the opinion that the substitutes such as cell services or VOIP are not so reliable in times of emergency.
But Ken McNeeley of AT&T holds a different opinion. As per him “The best phone in case of emergency is the phone you have in your hand”
There are state regulators who are against the bill, citing public safety and reliability. Some opponents believe that the real purpose is money.
As per records, AT&T has invested above $750,000 in lobbying at the capitol on a series of recent bills, including Lows AB 2395.
Among all this, the real challenge still remains in convincing people to stop using the traditional landline.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” said Shpinner.

landline, Verzion

Frontier All Set to Take over Verizon’s Landline Assets

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Frontier Telecom is all set to acquire all of Verizon’s landline related assets in California, Florida and Texas in the coming month. Clearly this acquisition doesn’t include Verizon’s wireless cell phone services but includes Internet, video and phone services. The transfer is scheduled for April 1.

frontier

Verizon officials have already announced that it will solely focus its business efforts on the wireless service although it continues to hold the landline operations in the northeast industry, said Les Kumagai, Verizon spokesperson. With this move, the home phone services will be exceptionally be affected.

Landlines are expected to be obsolete in the coming years, and other telecommunication networks are aiming at wireless assets, said Jay Prag, professor of economics and finance at the Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University.

Frontier Communications officials state that they plan to maintain the existing products and services including internet, voice, video, and online security. The company also announced that it will honour Verizon’s previous promotional pricing via their advertised deadlines. “We’re excited to be in this business and to be the new service provider for these customers, welcoming them into the family, and we are 100 percent focused on creating a great experience for the new customers,” said Cameron Christian, Frontier Communications vice president of marketing for the West region.

Stamford officials said they were unable to break down the number of employees or customers it will acquire regionally but as per state they are welcoming approx. 5000 Verizon employees to Frontier. Plus, the company is absorbing 3.7 million new customers throughout the states. Other cheap home phone services will have to pull up their socks so as to be competitive enough to defeat the clever move made by Frontier and Verizon telecommunications. New Frontier customers can expect that their bills will be sent out in April with the instruction on some payment options available to them.

landline

Due to Landline Disappearance, Funding for 911 Suffers

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Landline Disapperanace              

As landlines are disappearing rapidly across the US, the funding for 911 communication has drastically dropped. This has left various cities as well as countries struggling in order to maintain the old system and is forcing them to pay for different upgrades or purchases of new systems.

The director of governmental affairs for National Emergency Number Association, Trey Forgety stated “This is sort of a consequence of the structural changes the telecommunication market has gone through over the past 20 years.” The problem faced by Kentucky is worst where the government may charge some fee on landlines for the usage of 911 services, but they can’t tax cell phones. The fee collected by them from cellphone users had 20% of the total cost that was used to operate the 911 services.

The local government has now increased the landline fee in order to make up some of the difference. But this year a law has been passed for deregulating the services of landline so that the telecom companies can stop maintaining them. The local officials said that this law has paced up the loss of landline customers and has made it impossible for the rest of the customers to cope up with the cost. An AT&T spokesperson has claimed landlines have started disappearing at the speed of 8,000 per month in Kentucky even before the government had passed the law.

The Kentucky League of Cities announced that it is important for the state to raise around $32 million to cover the revenue that has been lost from landlines. They have planned to increase the cell phone fee between $1 and $1.50 per phone. Daniel Hayes, AT&T spokesperson said the company “recognizes the need for laws to keep the pace with rapidly changing technology, and we are participating in the ongoing dialogue.”

                 

Home Phone, landline

Landline, Wireless, and Data Services Down for Many in Southeastern US

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Landline, Wireless, and Data Services Down for Many in Southeastern US

An issue at a local provider impacted landline and data services in a handful of southeastern U.S. states with customers reporting outages across all the four major carriers. In accordance to Re/code, a problem that was first identified on AT&T’s network is now affecting Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint, affecting an unknown number of subscribers which were temporarily without any service.

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