florida v. verizon
Friday, May 16th, 2008Verizon is making a killing on this FiOS gimmick. The demand for FiOs is so overwhelming, that at the beginning of this year, the company moved a bunch of repair technicians away from fixing landline telephone service in order to install service for those new hungry FiOS customers.
Because of that, some landline customers have had to wait up to a week for phone repair. But that’s a problem. The State of Florida wants to make sure that your phone works if you have to call 911, so they require phone companies to repair service within 24 hours at least 95 percent of the time in any given area.
Verizon knew they were not quite meeting that goal, so they went to the Public Service Commission in March to ask for an exemption. Thankfully, the PSC said no, and in fact began a probe to see just how bad Verizon was performing.
Turns out that over the past 6 years, Verizon’s record declined steadily, and failed to meet the standards 262 times in 2007, compared with five times in 2001. What was their excuse?
Verizon officials traveled to Tallahassee in April to tell regulators that the company was simply overwhelmed with demand for the FiOS service…
Attorney General Bill McCollum is not impressed, and asked the PSC to open a formal case, and begin piling on the fines. At $25,000 per violation in 2007, the petition calls for over $6.5 million in fines.
Go Florida!


