New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is asking Verizon...

customers have experienced service outages of more than 24 hours. The state commission just received the AG’s petition and it will be reviewed, a spokeswoman said. She noted the commission’s ongoing review of Verizon’s service quality issues and that the company recently agreed to pay a $400,000 settlement to the commission for service quality violations. “The goals of Verizon and the attorney general are the same” -- to provide reliable service for New Yorkers, a Verizon spokesman said. Verizon will file comments with the commission after reviewing the AG’s petition, he said. He claimed the AG’s filing focused on the fall of 2011 and the $400,000 penalty. But that was after a two-week labor strike, Hurricane Irene, Tropical Storm Lee and other storms, he said. He claimed on average, 98 percent Verizon landline customers in the state don’t experience service issues in any given month. The AG’s petition cited a reduction in Verizon’s workforce. The state commission also accused the carrier of reducing its repair workforce in 2011 in its investigation. The company has lost over 50 percent of its landline accounts over the past 10 years, the spokesman said. Additionally, the company removed the “state of emergency” classification last fall after the storms because trouble levels were being reduced. The decision was incorrectly interpreted by the AG as a reduction in force, he said.