Verizon’s Superstorm Sandy restoration progress became a source...
Verizon’s Superstorm Sandy restoration progress became a source of contention late last week. “People are telling me, somewhat muting their anger, that some have had no phone service since Sandy, October 28th 2012 -- 185 days ago, almost 6 months,”…
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wrote New Networks Institute Executive Director Bruce Kushnick in a long piece (http://bit.ly/15abJkx) on the institute’s site, referring to an East 9th Street Block Association meeting in New York City. He slammed Verizon for billing consumers for services they don’t receive and lamented that state and local officials are not demanding accountability. He called residents’ stories “an ongoing telecom nightmare” and said they stuck with Verizon because they often were told they'd receive repairs or had no real alternatives. But “Verizon has restored service for the vast majority of our customers,” a telco spokesman told us by email. “It was a major and unprecedented undertaking but we are just about done. Not only did we restore service as quickly as humanly possible but we replaced all of the damaged copper network with more resilient fiber optic network. And we offered our customers free wireless solutions on a temporary basis while their service was being restored.” The spokesman noted that Kushnick didn’t talk to Verizon about the telco’s progress. The New York State Public Service Commission doesn’t see Verizon’s progress as negligent, according to mid-April testimony from PSC Telecom Director Chad Hume at a PSC meeting. Staff has been “actively monitoring Verizon’s restoration,” Hume said, according to a transcript. “In Lower Manhattan, long-term network repairs have progressed steadily and the company is nearing business as usual operations. Service to most all of the nearly 400 buildings identified by Verizon were impacted by severe copper network damage and destruction as well as significant physical damage to the buildings themselves has been restored to repair and nearly complete network reconstruction by fiber facilities including FiOS.” Hume noted remaining buildings scheduled for restoral and Verizon’s efforts to deal with “remaining building outages on an individual basis.” The Queens territory is back to “nearly pre-storm business as usual levels,” he said. “Overall, less than 10,000 access lines remain out of service in the metro New York City region.”