CWA calls for regulators to investigate Verizon?s refusal to invest in landline upkeep

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) today announced it is filing letters with telephone regulators in six states and Washington, DC calling on them to open investigations into the deterioration of Verizon’s copper landline networks. In July, Verizon admitted in a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that it had only spent $200 million over the last seven years to maintain its copper landline network in eleven states and the District of Columbia.  

The $200 million investment is less than one percent of the amount phone and DSL customers pay Verizon for service, which means the average customer is financing wireless and fiber expansion, rather than the upkeep of the network they rely on.

In light of the new evidence presented by CWA to regulators, scores of legislators across the region joined the call for renewed investigation into Verizon's abandonment of the copper network.

“Verizon pulls in more than a billion dollars in profits each month. $200 million represents less than half a percent of the $50 billion Verizon spent on its wireline network from 2008 to 2014 and less than one percent of what they charge the average voice customer,” said Dennis Trainor, Vice President of District 1 of the Communications Workers of America. “We support Verizon’s expansion of FiOS, but the company also has a legal obligation to provide safe, reliable service over its traditional landline network.”

To put the $200 million in perspective:

• $200 million represents 0.39 percent of the $50.7 billion Verizon spent on its wireline network from 2008 to 2014. Nearly 100 percent of Verizon’s wireline investment was spent to build its fiber network. CWA supports Verizon’s FiOS expansion. But where Verizon has refused to deploy its all-fiber FiOS network, Verizon has the statutory obligation to maintain its copper plant to provide safe, reliable service. (Verizon spent $59.9 billion on its wireless network, 2008-2014.)

• The $200 million that Verizon spent over the past seven years on its copper network amounts to an average of $28.6 million a year per year across its entire landline footprint.

• CWA estimates that Verizon currently has upwards of eight million retail customers on its traditional copper landline network. (Verizon no longer publicly reports this number.) Using this figure, Verizon’s annual spending on its copper network amounts to about $3.50 a line per year for poles, cables, wires, pedestals, terminals, batteries, and other plant and equipment needed to build, maintain, repair, and service its copper network. (This is a conservative estimate since Verizon had many more copper customers in earlier years.)

• Across the Verizon landline footprint, residential and single-line business customers pay between $300 and $370 a year for basic voice service and about $400 a year for DSL service.  Even using our conservative calculations, Verizon spends less than one percent of the rate it charges for basic voice service and less than half a percent of the rate it charges for a voice/DSL bundled service on the upkeep of its copper network.

• Verizon spent $200 million over a seven-year period on a copper network that covers the vast majority of the population in eight states -- New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, plus Washington, D.C., and parts of California, Texas, and Florida. (Prior to 2010, the Verizon footprint included an additional 4.8 million lines in 14 additional states.)

CWA’s letters also point to Verizon’s peer-to-peer online forums and recent FCC filings by Verizon customers alleging that the company is neglecting copper facilities and lines. Frontline Verizon employees are also chiming in, saying that they’ve seen firsthand how Verizon’s policies, procedures, and inadequate investments have led to the virtual abandonment of the copper network and is keeping quality services from paying customers.

CWA calls for regulators to investigate Verizon’s refusal to invest in landline upkeep (CWA, Sept. 2, 2015)