Close Only Counts In Horseshoes, Hand Grenades... And (Apparently) Verizon's Fiber Optic Installs

from the semantic-ninja dept

We've been covering how Verizon has swindled a long line of states and cities into giving the company all manner of subsidies and tax breaks in exchange for uniform fiber deployment that never happens (or only partially happens). While fourteen Mayors recently wrote Verizon to complain about its dubious behavior, New York City has been the most vocal critic of late, after a June audit showed that Verizon completely failed to live up to a 2008 franchise agreement with the city promising 100% FiOS coverage to all five city boroughs by 2014. Verizon accomplished about half of that.

New York City held a hearing last week intended to hold Verizon accountable, but ran face first into a telco well-versed in semantic dodgeball. You see, by refusing to define the word "passed" in its agreements, Verizon can get away with claiming it serves a house with fiber -- provided fiber gets somewhere, vaguely close to its intended target. As it has done countless times before, Verizon leaned on this ambiguousness when trying to defend the company's behavior to city officials:

Verizon reps Leecia Eve and Kevin Service stated at the hearing that Verizon has unquestionably met its promise to "pass" all households in the five-borough area, which essentially means extending the fiber so that a building could theoretically then be connected to the network. As one councilmember pointed out, that's like installing water pipes but not hooking them up to individual apartments: the water's flowing on by, but no one can actually drink it.

But it was Verizon spokesman Kevin Service who stole the show, with some award winning tap dancing during the hearing:

"We consider it to be passed if we're within the realm of substantial fiber placement," Service said when pressed on how the term is actually defined. "I'm not a lawyer, but here's what I would say: we're passed if, when we get the request for service and have the necessary rights of way, what we have left to do does not create a delay in bringing service to that customer. Under that Kevin Service Definition, we've passed every household."

In other words, Verizon claims that all of these houses it failed to reach actually have fiber if you squint your eyes and look at it just the right way. Understandably, customers somewhere "within the realm of substantial fiber placement" probably aren't impressed by Verizon's explanation, even though the spokesman goes the extra mile and tries to bizarrely name his bullshit definition after himself. In contrast, however, New York City's full audit (pdf) found that there were 42,000 outstanding requests for FiOS installation, 75% of which were outstanding for more than a year. For many of them, the fiber "passes" their homes -- sometimes up to a mile away.

While the city now claims it's exploring its legal options, those options are likely to be limited. The previous city administration signed off on this deal after closed door negotiations, not only ignoring calls for transparency and public input at the time, but thirty years of precedent when it comes to Verizon's failure to hold up its end of the bargain.

Filed Under: broadband, close, fiber, installs, kevin service, new york city, nyc, promises
Companies: verizon