Verizon to bring fiber to upstate New York following CWA complaint

Verizon is building fiber to parts of upstate New York as part of a settlement between the NY Public Service Commission and Verizon. The agreement requires a total of 32,000 fiber installations across the state and doubles the size of Verizon’s original upstate expansion.

The settlement between Verizon and the NY PSC is the result of a CWA campaign to pressure the state regulators to require Verizon to upgrade and repair the legacy telephone network and to expand its fiber deployment . In 2015, CWA, 20 allied organizations, and 70 legislators filed a request for an investigation, providing substantial documentation of Verizon’s failure to maintain its copper network. In April 2016, the PSC opened a formal proceeding with extensive discovery and evidence collection. In March of this year, CWA and Verizon agreed to a settlement, which was just recently formally approved by the PSC staff.

Links:

Verizon bringing fiber to nearly 50,000 customers in NY (Times Union, July 16, 2018)

CWA reaches favorable settlement in Verizon copper network case before NY PSC (Speed Matters, Mar. 5, 2018)