Public Service Commission Orders Verizon To Cough Up Cost Data On Its New York Copper Lines

from the not-so-much-about-how-expensive-copper-is,-but-how-cheap-wireless-is dept

At the tail end of October, we brought you the story of Verizon's attempt to subvert New York's Freedom of Information Law by releasing hundreds of fully-redacted pages. Information on costs related to the buildout, repair and support of copper lines versus the inferior (and capped) replacement (Voice Link) Verizon was pushing was being sought by consumers who felt (understandably) that the company was overstating its claims in order to abandon copper line customers.

Verizon delivered page after fully-redacted page of "info" on costs, stating that revealing these "trade secrets" would give its competition an unfair advantage. While there is undoubtedly some truth to that claim, the fact is that the company had plenty of other reasons to keep the numbers hidden -- especially if it had been overstating the amount of money it would have to spend to restore copper service to areas knocked out by Hurricane Sandy.

Somewhat surprisingly, the New York Public Service Commission has sided with those seeking the information.

Last Wednesday, the New York Public Service Commission ordered Verizon to provide the public with un-redacted cost information about providing phone service on Fire Island, New York. The directive denied Verizon’s request to be exempt from disclosing cost documents…

Consumer advocates complained Verizon was simply hiding the fact they were looking to get rid of those users anyway in order to focus on more profitable wireless service, and that Sandy itself was a red herring. Verizon ultimately dropped the request amid protests and said FiOS would be run to Fire Island after all.

The commission addressed Verizon's "trade secret" claims with this statement.

“The information claimed by Verizon to be trade secrets or confidential commercial information does not warrant an exception from disclosure and its request for continued protection from disclosure is denied,” it said in Monday’s ruling.

State officials wrote there “is no present or imminent contract award that could be impaired by the disclosure” and that the state Freedom of Information Law is based on a “premise that the public is vested with an inherent right to know and official secrecy is anathematic to our form of government.”

Verizon plans to appeal the decision, which means the cost data will still be locked up while that process is underway. This decision, while a win for those seeking to verify Verizon's "it costs too much" claims, could possibly be exploited by companies who may being seeking competitors' proprietary data via proxy FOI requests. The Commission will need to be wary of the unintended consequences it just set in motion.

As for Verizon's New York customers, they're still not entirely happy with Verizon's earlier capitulation, which saw the provider decide to run FIOS to Fire Island rather than force customers into a shoddy wireless service with voice and data caps. Even with FIOS, Verizon is still failing to provide reliable phone service, something they say the law requires it to provide. Unlike copper lines, FIOS may not work during power outages.

Verizon (along with AT&T) has made little secret of its desire to ditch copper lines and move its customers towards higher margin wireless services. If Verizon is ultimately forced to turn over cost data to the public, it could make for some very interesting reading.

Filed Under: copper, costs, fiber, new york, public services, telephony
Companies: verizon

How Long Until Phone Numbers Are A Historical Relic?

from the bye-bye dept

I recently had a conversation with a friend about the obsolescence of telephone numbers these days. For the most part, I don't remember anyone's phone number anymore, because I just click on their name in my contacts list if I call them. In many ways, phone numbers are like IP addresses. On the internet, we've wisely obscured IP addresses for the most part with URLs, and these days, we've done something pretty similar by default with phone numbers thanks to built-in phone address books. But, the problems with phone numbers goes even further -- starting with the fact that they're tied to a single provider. Via Planet Money, we learn of this fun rant from Nilay Patel, detailing why it's time for phone numbers to die, and how Google, Microsoft and Apple are all working to speed along the death of the phone number:

I hate phone numbers. They’re a relic of an outmoded system that both wireless and wireline carriers use to keep people trapped on their services — a false technological prison built of nothing but laziness and hostility to consumers. In fact, I can’t think of a single telecom service that is as restrictive as the phone number: email can be accessed from any device, Skype makes apps for nearly every platform, IM works across any number of clients, there are web-based messaging solutions that transcend platforms entirely — the list goes on. We expect modern telecom services to be universal, cheap, and easily-accessible, and those that aren’t tend to be immediate failures. Ask Cisco how Umi went for them sometime.

As he notes, you can start to break out of those limits today, thanks to things like Google Voice and Skype, and as that advances, we may finally reach an age when the idea of a telephone number is a historical relic... like the people who used to say letters for the first two digits of their phone number.

Filed Under: phone numbers, telephony