In the wake of Superstorm Sandy, Verizon wants to replace...
In the wake of Superstorm Sandy, Verizon wants to replace some of its New York City copper with fiber cable, but some property owners don’t want to let Verizon in to do so. “Unfortunately, many building owners in lower Manhattan…
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have refused to allow Verizon to install fiber facilities in their buildings, thereby preventing Verizon from restoring telephone service to the tenants of those buildings,” the telco told the New York State Public Service Commission Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bn8253), asking for permission to enter six buildings to replace the copper. Verizon still has customers without service in some of these buildings, and this refusal, two months after the storm, “has prevented Verizon from restoring their telephone service,” the company said. Its attached documents show multiple owners objecting to the installation of FiOS (http://xrl.us/bn826d). In one letter to an owner (http://xrl.us/bn826q), Verizon defended its fiber-based FiOS system as “less vulnerable to weather-related damage” than copper and insisted on its installation: “If you do not provide Verizon with access to your Property, your residents will continue to remain without telephone service from Verizon.” Verizon won’t charge owners for installation of FiOS, it told them. Efforts to reach property owners to determine their reasoning for blocking Verizon were unsuccessful.