Add Pittsburgh To The List Of Cities That Say Verizon Ripped Them Off
from the maybe-you-should-read-your-contracts dept
You can add Pittsburgh to the growing list of towns, cities and states that claim Verizon is ripping them off. Verizon, of course, froze its FiOS fiber expansion years ago, instead focusing its attention on more profitable (read: capped) wireless service. The company did continue to expand FiOS in a number of east coast cities (Washington, Philadelphia, New York), agreeing to full city fiber expansion in exchange for sweetheart franchise deals, tax cuts, and/or subsidies. But as cities like New York have found out, Verizon's definition of full city fiber upgrades probably doesn't match yours.Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto has started noticing that huge swaths of Pittsburgh haven't been upgraded, despite the city signing a franchise agreement with Verizon that called for uniform FiOS coverage. Peduto was one of fourteen mayors who recently wrote Verizon's CEO in a futile attempt to get the telco to give a damn about its rotting, taxpayer-subsidized DSL networks. Peduto's now considering legal action after Verizon failed to meet its obligations:
"We have an agreement with Verizon that, over the course of several years, the entire city would be provided with FiOS, and it was the agreement that allowed them to start putting their lines in the public right of way. They have now broken that agreement," Peduto said. "They do not have the city finished, so now we need to seek the damages that were agreed to through the contract. At this point, I'd have to talk with our law department."As with New York's belated realization that they'd been swindled, the problem is that these cities signed these deals without reading them. Most of these contracts include oodles of fine print that let Verizon claim that homes "passed" with fiber (several blocks away) are the same as being "served" by fiber, or let Verizon pay a modest fine for missing deployment goals. As such, Verizon was quick to highlight that it met the terms of the deal, because technically -- it probably had:
"Verizon sent a letter to the City confirming it is in compliance with the terms of the franchise agreement and that with certain exceptions allowed under the franchise, there are no residential areas of the city where Verizon does not offer cable service. In addition, Verizon is scheduling a meeting with the City in the near future to explain its accomplishments."While hindsight certainly helps, cities that don't want to be ripped off should either learn to read their contracts, or avoid doing business with companies with a generation of documented, sleazy behavior. Pittsburgh leaders in particular should have paid close attention to Verizon's multi-billion dollar swindle of Pennsylvania years earlier, in which Verizon promised ultra-fast fiber broadband in exchange for billions in subsidies, then just threw money at the state legislature and regulators to convince them to forget the obligation ever existed (Verizon did the same thing in New Jersey).
Of course that's just it; most politicians are so cash compromised they saw the warning signs but just didn't care, leaving the mess for somebody else to clean up (or ignore). And in Verizon's case, billions in undeserved subsidies across thousands of miles have left a fairly massive mess.
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Filed Under: broadband, fiber, fiox, pittsburgh, promises, subsidies
Companies: verizon
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Let's highlight those 'exceptions' shall we?
If the mayor wants to really return the favor and twist the knife, he should prepare a report, to be made public, showing just how large those 'exceptions' are in practice. Maybe via a pair of maps, what Verizon wants people to think it's coverage is, right next to what it's coverage actually is.
Make it abundantly clear how Verizon acts, and you make it more difficult, if only slightly, for them to pull similar scams in the future.
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Re: Let's highlight those 'exceptions' shall we?
The best fix for the marketplace is the marketplace, but it has to be allowed to function, and it currently isn't being allowed to.
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Re: Let's highlight those 'exceptions' shall we?
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Re: Let's highlight those 'exceptions' shall we?
That implies They give a cr*p about bad publicity. They have a monopoly in most of these cities. What you going to do? go elsewhere? The legal threat is window dressing. You can guarantee Verizon's lawyers have that aspect of it sewn up.
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So, they'd have to get a judge to find the contract terms to have been unconscionable, or patently unfair. Problem is, while companies can't push those who make the laws too far, politicians won't push major contributors too far.
All we'll get, at best, is "They tricked us! There's nothing we can do!" while they wait for things to dies down before the next contract/donation comes around.
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Time to start city-wide high-speed municipal broadband
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"explain its accomplishments"
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Re: "explain its accomplishments"
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What does Verizon get from the agreement?
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Google or city fiber time!
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Re: Google or city fiber time!
I'd love to have Google Fiber here, but it's very low on Google's priority list.
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Find a Judge that resides in one of those offered but not serviced areas and things could get really interesting , Which is probably all Judges in the area.
As i said before this is called building a case , many many complaints many other areas a coalition of angry cities and states may make things turn out badly for veriUNZONED.
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I suspect the contract is 200 pages long and the relevent clauses are buried in page 182 and 187 alongside the legal definition of a telephone pole.
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Switcheroo?
Without the benefit of looking at the contracts, it seems to me that the Agreement is about Fiber FIOS service, yet the Verizon statement seems to refer to Cable:
"there are no residential areas of the city where Verizon does not offer cable service."
Is that just a poor choice of words (cable for fiber) or is Verizon counting some other cable as if it were fiber? Not rhetorical; I'm really asking.
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Enough.
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