NY Public Service Commission voices concern about Verizon?s landline service

In a recent meeting, New York State’s Public Service Commission (NYPSC) Chair Audrey Zibelman raised questions about Verizon’s service record. “As we are all painfully aware,” she said, “there is substantial concern that we’re hearing at our public statement hearings ... [about] the quality of telecom communication service in New York,” Zibelman said.

According to Verizon’s publicly available complaint reports, Verizon missed the NYPSC benchmark for complaints every month since January 2012. The high number of complaints, along with major public outcry across the state, led the NYPSC Chair to question the accuracy of Verizon’s reporting -- and the quality of Verizon’s service.

Zibelman’s concerns come in the wake of public hearings that the NYPSC convened across the state over the past few months. At those meetings – in Albany, Buffalo, and Syracuse, in Binghamton, Brookhaven, and elsewhere – elected officials and community members sent a clear message: Verizon is refusing to build FiOS in their cities while at the same time abandoning its traditional landline network.

“At nearly every public statement hearing that we conducted over the past several months in connection with the telecommunications study, numerous concerns and problems were brought to our attention by customers being served by Verizon’s copper network,” the Commission’s Chief Policy Advisor Peter McGowan said. “Staff is looking at Verizon’s service quality performance and investments in its copper network and associated maintenance activities ... as well as efforts to migrate customers to its wireless network.”

Verizon’s land-line service record worries NY state Public Service Commission (DailyFreeman.com, Sept. 17, 2015)

Elected officials, communities blast Verizon for failing FiOS buildout (Speed Matters, Aug. 17, 2015)