Verizon’s Aging Copper Lines Leave Customers Hung Up With Frustration (price, FIOS)

[BugsyPal]

People need to make up their minds to it; copper is going away sooner or later.

https://www.fiercetelecom.com/teleco...ross-10-states

Feel sure at least here in NYC area ( and possibly elsewhere) Verizon knows demographics of those with POTS and DSL skew to >50 or largely >60, thus they can wait those customers out and let time take care of things.

If people move good luck getting new POTS and DSL in a new location even within city limits.

OTOH some feel copper will be around longer than many telecom companies would lead market to believe.

https://www.fiercetelecom.com/broadb...e-fiber-frenzy

[Mr.Retired]

Originally Posted by Aeran

I didn't know this was a problem. I have T-Mobile and ever since it merged with Sprint, can't complain.

https://www.thecity.nyc/2022/2/3/229...rs-frustration

Dr. Ida Messana, a Queens internist specializing in geriatric medicine, started experiencing internet, fax and landline phone issues in her Forest Hills office last summer and noticed a concerning side effect.

Many of her elderly patients, who depend on phone calls and faxes, as opposed to emails and texts, stopped coming because they could not reach her.

“We lost dial tone on my fax line, so I couldn’t receive or send any faxes. Imagine my patients waiting for their CAT scans, X-rays, their reports of blood, all different kinds of things,“ she explained.

Turned out her fax machine was working, but the line was out. She also relied on the line for DSL internet service to her office.

While her connectivity problems were resolved five months later, Messana fears future service outages. A Verizon technician told Messana that her phone lines are copper, which the company phased out in favor of fiber optic wires.

Most telecommunications companies these days tout their high-speed fiber optic lines, which send light down thin filaments of glass, but copper wires are still in use for some households.

When those metal wires corrode without proper upkeep, New Yorkers who rely on them are left without service.

Out With the Old

Easy fix:
Subscribe to AT&T mobile base. " It's a box with a cell number inside ." Attach a home base unit with messaging to the jack.
Leave it with the secretary in the front office. $ 20 bucks a month.

[BugsyPal]

Originally Posted by Mr.Retired

Easy fix:
Subscribe to AT&T mobile base. " It's a box with a cell number inside ." Attach a home base unit with messaging to the jack.
Leave it with the secretary in the front office. $ 20 bucks a month.

One reason many are loathe to give up copper is that POTS is highly regulated by federal government. DSL, fiber, cable, mobile, etc.. OTOH are either not or very loosely regulated in comparison. This is also reason why Verizon, AT&T and rest of legacy carriers with copper want desperately to get people off that service. They've also beaten back any suggestion of federal government regulating internet as a public utility, same as POTS.

[Mr.Retired]

Originally Posted by BugsyPal

One reason many are loathe to give up copper is that POTS is highly regulated by federal government. DSL, fiber, cable, mobile, etc.. OTOH are either not or very loosely regulated in comparison. This is also reason why Verizon, AT&T and rest of legacy carriers with copper want desperately to get people off that service. They've also beaten back any suggestion of federal government regulating internet as a public utility, same as POTS.

Heck ....you are right
but if a person can't swing $20 bucks he/she should really consider another way to supplement the income.
It is only going to be a matter of time. Many units are renting with " Only Wi-Fi install " in the lease to avoid
unnecessary punching of holes in Sheetrock...........as Wi-Fi is now considered a utility and no longer an amenity.

[martinjsxx]

As I wrote earlier in this thread, Verizon can end copper wire service without your consent if Fios is available.

[BugsyPal]

Originally Posted by Mr.Retired

Heck ....you are right
but if a person can't swing $20 bucks he/she should really consider another way to supplement the income.
It is only going to be a matter of time. Many units are renting with " Only Wi-Fi install " in the lease to avoid
unnecessary punching of holes in Sheetrock...........as Wi-Fi is now considered a utility and no longer an amenity.

Am almost positive FCC has something to say about that; I mean a property owner cannot dictate or rather prevent tenants from obtaining certain communication options. Residents of multifamily cannot be prevented from attaching satellite dishes to balconies, windows or other parts of building IIRC.

FCC is currently working on a rule that would prevent landlords from entering into monopoly service agreements for a building. In other words days of just fiber or cable from certain companies only are going to be over.

[BugsyPal]

Originally Posted by martinjsxx

As I wrote earlier in this thread, Verizon can end copper wire service without your consent if Fios is available.

Verizon is done rolling out FIOS in NYC area. City forced them to do a few hundred more (or thousand) homes as part of settlement that would bring more FIOS to "underserved" and "minority" areas, but once that's done it will be end of things.

Thus anyone who still has POTS via copper and FIOS isn't on their street or in building, has a pretty safe bet it won't be happening anytime soon if ever.

[BugsyPal]

Originally Posted by Mr.Retired

Heck ....you are right
but if a person can't swing $20 bucks he/she should really consider another way to supplement the income.
It is only going to be a matter of time. Many units are renting with " Only Wi-Fi install " in the lease to avoid
unnecessary punching of holes in Sheetrock...........as Wi-Fi is now considered a utility and no longer an amenity.

It isn't just "twenty bucks". Remember internet, cable and phone services are taxed both at federal and state level. Knife is twisted further with a vast and bewildering array of surcharges and fees.

Besides $20 bucks per month $240 per year, and yes that does make a difference to some households.

[martinjsxx]

Originally Posted by BugsyPal

Verizon is done rolling out FIOS in NYC area. City forced them to do a few hundred more (or thousand) homes as part of settlement that would bring more FIOS to "underserved" and "minority" areas, but once that's done it will be end of things.

Thus anyone who still has POTS via copper and FIOS isn't on their street or in building, has a pretty safe bet it won't be happening anytime soon if ever.

Over 90% of the city households should now be able to get Fios but the fact that they didn’t wire 100% is an indication the program wasn’t entirely successful at least from a business perspective. Verizon had a hard sell once it became available in my neighborhood over a decade ago. They hired people to make door to door cold calls who were less than professional. Every time the copper wires had a loss of phone service or DSL, they would try to sell you Fios when you called in the outage. When the technician arrived, he would pitch Fios instead of making the repair. When you declined, he acted like troubleshooting an outage was nearly impossible and came up with every excuse why he couldn’t fix the problem. Eventually they said switch to Fios by a certain date or lose your service entirely. I switched to Spectrum which took about a half hour to install without installing any special equipment as opposed to up to 8 hours and installing an Optical Network Terminal in my basement for Fios.

As of July 2019, Verizon had brought FiOS to 2.7 million households, a number that will rise to 3.2 million households once Verizon complies with the settlement, de Blasio's office told Ars today. The city estimates there are now 3.45 million households, so about 250,000 will be left without FiOS. With the settlement providing coverage of over 90 percent of households, "this is part of our overall strategy to increase competition in the market," a de Blasio spokesperson told Ars.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...ight-with-nyc/

[RICANRICAN]

Doesn't fios use power from you home so you be getting a higher con ed bill??! I pay just $ 89.99 for 1 gig internet got a good isptv for my firestick and have a prepaid cell phone i think some of older seniors can those flip phone from aarp i seen ads on tv commercials!