Verizon Will Fix Broadband Networks, Landlines To Resolve Investigation (vice.com) 74
Joel Hruska reports via ExtremeTech: Verizon has reached an agreement with the Communications Workers of America and the New York State Public Service Commission to begin repairing infrastructure and restoring service across New York State. The agreement requires Verizon to extend broadband service to tens of thousands of New York State households and to begin repairing facilities it has previously neglected. As in Pennsylvania, Verizon has been neglecting its fixed wired infrastructure in its bid to first sabotage copper service, then force customers to adopt alternative solutions. It's also been mired in an ongoing lawsuit with the state of New York over its breach of a 2008 contract requiring it to provide fiber service within New York City.
This new agreement appears to settle these issues, provided it's followed. Under its terms, Verizon will extend fiber to 10,000 to 12,000 households not currently served by it in Long Island and Verizon's "Upstate Reporting Region" (these are Verizon-specific regions, not geographical areas, so "Long Island" may mean more than just the island). It will begin immediately replacing copper lines in certain specific NYC buildings with high failure rates and transitioning them to fiber optic cable, repairing operations within 50 upstate wireless centers with high failure rates, allow plant technicians to report plant failures and maintenance needs more accurately, and begin inspecting and replacing the batteries that provide critical connectivity in the event of a power outage when said batteries are deployed for specific customers (hospitals, police stations, and other emergency facilities). It will also begin removing so-called "double poles." A double pole is when an old telephone pole is stapled (metaphorically speaking) to a newer one. Some examples of a double pole from PA are shown below; Verizon has been hauled into court to force it to do its job in more than one state.
This new agreement appears to settle these issues, provided it's followed. Under its terms, Verizon will extend fiber to 10,000 to 12,000 households not currently served by it in Long Island and Verizon's "Upstate Reporting Region" (these are Verizon-specific regions, not geographical areas, so "Long Island" may mean more than just the island). It will begin immediately replacing copper lines in certain specific NYC buildings with high failure rates and transitioning them to fiber optic cable, repairing operations within 50 upstate wireless centers with high failure rates, allow plant technicians to report plant failures and maintenance needs more accurately, and begin inspecting and replacing the batteries that provide critical connectivity in the event of a power outage when said batteries are deployed for specific customers (hospitals, police stations, and other emergency facilities). It will also begin removing so-called "double poles." A double pole is when an old telephone pole is stapled (metaphorically speaking) to a newer one. Some examples of a double pole from PA are shown below; Verizon has been hauled into court to force it to do its job in more than one state.
Keep the copper (Score:2, Insightful)
It's the last utility that still works in an emergency.
Re:Keep the copper (Score:5, Informative)
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Backup battery, have it signal Verizon when it gets low
During a major emergency, they don't care.... they're not deploying resources to swap backup batteries on your individual service.
And the only way they're rolling a truck is if you call them.
Who do you think they are? A competitive service provider? HAHA
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"During a major emergency, they don't care.... they're not deploying resources to swap backup batteries on your individual service."
The ice storm in the Northeast US in 1998 proved that wrong.
First, it caused so much damage to the electrical systems that I was without power for 11 days. My sister was without power for 19 days.
It happened that the damage done was primarily borne by the electrical lines, the cable and telephone lines partly spared, though many poles were down taking everything. BUT I had tele
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Shouldn't copper these days require less power/fewer batteries to keep up and running? The US phone network is all-digital these days.
In the 90s, it still had a mixture of digital and electromechanical switching.
i.e.:
- Crossbar and SxS, which actually involved moving selector arms with magnets.
- 1ESS/1AESS, which used mechanical switches (reed switches, maybe?) moved under the control of a big old 1960s or 70s-era computer.
Plus the digital switches (5ESS, DMS-100) that are still in use some places today.
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Not many e/m switches in the 90s. I lived in the city that was one of the last crossbar switches converted to ESS.
1AESS switches are pretty much gone, but SS7 has forced their hand I suspect.
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Wasn't a large portion of the US on 1ESS or 1AESS in the 90s? First-generation ESS is semi-mechanical, and no doubt has higher power draw than current all-digital systems.
As far as crossbar, I think parts of NYC were on crossbar till the mid or early 90s. I remember ... "griiiiing - thunk" "griiiiing - thunk" when you called some (718) numbers.
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Re: Keep the copper (Score:1)
Didja know.
All of those boxes are actively monitored 24/7 and one of those alarms is: Battery Discharge
Basically, once the box switches to battery power only and the battery drops to X%, an alarm is generated and tech dispatched.
At least, thats how the other Telecom does it :)
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And the tech will get right to it. Right after all the other alarms, the COE alarms, etc, during an event.
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I can get that in Gilbert, Arizona, right now. vDSL, 40/4, concurrent video service. And the new modem/gateway actually works.
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Define emergency ... in a storm a tree branch can take out copper for quite a few folks.
Re: Keep the copper (Score:1)
Re: Keep the copper (Score:1)
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It's the last utility that still works in an emergency.
Not true. Copper is no less vulnerable than fiber to a backhoe. It fails just as completely when the circuit has no juice. The days are long gone when all copper lived on a resilient infrastructure with batteries and generators. An awful lot of it leads back to a "hut" with minimal battery power and a fiber backhaul to the CO.
Re:5G will fix this (Score:5, Insightful)
Unions are monopolies (Score:1)
The only fair and true arbiter of fairness of a wage is an open market. Government-backed unions are the opposite of that — they are monopolies. Trusts, which unabashedly seek to maintain and raise the prices on what they are selling.
Instead of glamorizing them, we ought to apply anti-trust laws to them. And, when they commit crimes to further their goals, RICO-laws should apply.
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That wouldn't help, as each of them would still be a local monopoly. I'd rather see Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T broken up into about eight to twelve national broadband providers that would then compete with each other. That would require some other changes like forced line sharing or publicly owned infrastructure, so is never going to happen.
Unless by utility you mean municipally owned. Interesting idea, but also politically infeasible in the current climate.
Re: Can't they revoke Verizon's license? (Score:2)
THIS!! Throw them to the curb. This BS is why they do stuff like this. Tell them their incompetence is fine and a few competitors will take care of them.
Governments need to stop sucking up to these types of companies and basically encouraging their bad behavior. This was a bad deal for these citizens. They should have taken the short term costlier road for the long term benefit. Take the infrastructure, bid out an upgrade, own it, and sue Verizon to recoup some costs. Don't settle, drag them to court eve
Sad state of affairs (Score:5, Insightful)
You know it's bad when "Company begrudgingly agrees to hold up it's end of the deal" becomes a "good" headline.
And this is why the market solves nothing ... (Score:4, Interesting)
And this is why all of the people telling us the market will find a solution are utterly full of shit.
The free-market is always going to be filled with players who will do anything to get an advantage. They'll outright lie to you or manipulate the game to their advantage.
The only thing the "free market" optimizes for is greedy assholes.
The market is completely incapable of solving or fixing this issue, because a bunch of selfish companies will never arrive at a solution which works.
The reality is, we don't have competing water, sewage, and electricity. We don't have competing roads, fire hydrants, fire services, or police forces. This shit is infrastructure, and built to serve and benefit everyone.
It's about fucking time we recognized that if telcos want to compete for our business (instead of telling us what we can have as a monopoly) that the cabling which comes to our homes must be common and universal.
Then let's see what they fucking do.
These greedy cocksuckers have already collected huge amounts of money which had been required to be earmarked to expand and maintain this infrastructure. The problem is they kept it for profits and failed to invest in their network so they could move on to the next thing they could oversell and under-deliver on.
That they're trying to let it rot and go away to push us to more modern and profitable stuff is unsurprising. That they're starting to get backed into a corner by states and municipalities is a good sign.
Free market my goddamned fucking ass ... let the fuckers compete starting from the curb, and then we'll begin to see if there can be such a thing as a free market.
Of course, Ajit Pai the great puppet of the telcos will probably hand it masters relief from this, because he's such a paid shill it isn't funny.
Welcome to your oligarchy, America. If you think you have, or ever will have, a free market, you're fucking delusional.
Somehow I want to see killer clowns executing corporate executives after reading this article. That would be awesome.
Re:And this is why the market solves nothing ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Go to France...
You have a choice of 4 ISPs in many parts of the country, not just cable/DSL. Fast >100MB service can be as cheap as $30/mo equivalent.
Funny that a more socialist country has more competition than the "free market, Horatio Alger" USA.
Re:And this is why the market solves nothing ... (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but then you have to deal with the French....
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What free market? Verizon has a government-granted monopoly in these areas.
Exactly right. Which is why in a free market, you have competition. You allow multiple players to offer products and services. If one regularly rips off custom
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Yes, it is poor government regulation.
However, the free market wouldn't have touched this kind of project. You have companies that have bought the baby Bells, who in turn inherited the infrastructure of the original Bell monopoly. Those companies have what is often the only existing telecommunications infrastructure in the area. For another company to compete, like Google tried with their fiber service, means trying to set up a competing infrastructure to something that has been in place for decades. Th
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However, the free market wouldn't have touched this kind of project.
Some would say that is the ideal scenario for a government project...
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It's about fucking time we recognized that if telcos want to compete for our business (instead of telling us what we can have as a monopoly) that the cabling which comes to our homes must be common and universal.
Free market my goddamned fucking ass ... let the fuckers compete starting from the curb, and then we'll begin to see if there can be such a thing as a free market.
We tried that in Australia - fibre to the premise (FTTP) for everywhere financially viable (93% was the latest estimate), fixed wireless / satellite elsewhere. All centrally owned by a government backed entity, with eventually private investment. Was in rollout stage (slow, but on budget) and working OK until that government was voted out (for other reasons) and the new incoming government changed strategy to use the cheapest to connect technology (which typically excludes fibre) as the preferred connecti
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Oh, so what you're saying is, this is all your fault.
How 'bout they pay back the billions in subsidies (Score:3)
They do this in Virginia too. (Score:2)
As in Pennsylvania, Verizon has been neglecting its fixed wired infrastructure in its bid to first sabotage copper service, then force customers to adopt alternative solutions.
I had Verizon for a home POTS (copper) landline until a few years ago - ('cause it works through all but an extended city-wide power outage). I started having problems with reliability and the tech said they wouldn't fix it and I'd have to "upgrade" to FiOS. Since I already had TV and Internet service with Cox, I just switched to them for phone too -- addition reason, there was no where to easily/nicely mount the new Verizon gear near the exiting hook-up and the TV/Internet hook-up is on the other side of
Finally fixing (Score:2)
Big deal? (Score:1)
The agreement says there will be about 7000 on Long Island itself. With a population of 7.8 million and assuming 3 per household that means Verizon will get round to at most 1 in 400 households. If that's worth celebrating what has their performance been l