Delaware's Public Utility Commission (PUC) has a simple message to Verizon: Fiber to the premise may be your ultimate network ambition, but don't turn your back on your DSL customers. Industry reports emerged that Verizon is failing to resolve DSL network issues in a number of states as it continues to ramp up its Fiber to the Premises-based FiOS network. Delaware says the telco's customer service and maintenance times have degraded because it's paying too much attention to building out its FiOS network.
A post in DSL Reports cited an independent consultant's study that found that Verizon was failing to properly maintain customer service and network uptime of its DSL service in Delaware.
And while a lot of the consultant's report had been 'redacted' by Verizon, the Delaware state PUC did not hold any punches back in criticizing the telco's inaction. "What the public gets out of this, more than anything else, is a renewed clarification to Verizon that they needed to be more responsive to their customers, and maintain what is admittedly an old system," PSC spokesman Dave Bonar said. "Realizing that everything is moving toward a more technological system is no excuse for not maintaining the people who live in rural districts who are connected by copper cable."
Delaware is not the only state where Verizon appears to be turning its back on its copper-based DSL network. West Virginia, Florida and New York, have citied similar issues. At the same time, Verizon has been asking a number of state utility commissions to effectively dumb down the standards on how fast it has to respond to DSL issues. Interestingly, the news of poor DSL service in these states comes just as the service provider has been promoting a number of bundle service promotions to stem DSL subscriber defections to cable.
For more:
- DSL Reports has this post
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