The telco giant Verizon is more interested in attracting customers to its wireless link home phone service rather than repairing the copper lines in the Northeast. For this, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) is on the way to charge the telco for the same.
To expose the size of the problem, CWA is filing requests for information in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, the three major operating states for the telco. The union also claims that Verizon is not making all of the information publicly available.
For Verizon’s sustainability and maintenance information of landline systems, the CWA has filed seven Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in Washington, D.C., Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New York.
The CWA vice president Dennis Trainor said, “We have noticed that Verizon’s services on legacy networks for District 1 has dropped sharply and how the company is abandoning users. The public deserves to know about Verizon’s failure to serve its telephone customers”, and same is the reason for filing requests by FOIAs.
A spokesperson from Verizon stated to The Wall Street Journal that the CWA’s move is a tactic to strongarm the telco before it begins contract negotiations. Also, he refuted that they are turning their back on their legacy networks by abandoning their copper networks. He said that the telco is offering Voice Link as a temporary voice service replacement. Approximately 13,000 users have opted for traditional copper landline systems, and the telco is investing to upkeep the copper network.
After Hurricane Sandy, Verizon came under fire for providing Voice Link to their customers to bypass repairing damaged copper lines. The telco announced that they would replace the wireline network destroyed by the Hurricane on New York’s Fire Island with its FTTH-based FiOS service.
The service provider has migrated 47,000 customers onto fiber during the first quarter. This clarifies that Verizon has been working to replace its copper networks with fiber and wireless.
Verizon arrived at a deal of $10.5 billion to sell its wireline properties to Frontier Communications in California, Florida, and Texas. The telco invested $5.8 billion in 2014 on its wireline network.