Verizon NYC Settle Lawsuit Over Verizons Empty Fiber Promises
Like ATT, Frontier, and other U.S. telcos, Verizon has a long, rich history of taking tax breaks, regulatory favors, and taxpayer subsidies in exchange for networks it only half deploys. That was the case in the 90s when Verizon took a several billion tax breaks from the state of Pennsylvania in exchange for networks it never deployed. It was also the case in New York City, where Verizon was sued
by the city for promising to deploy fiber universally to all five boroughs, and then, well, not doing that.
In 2017, NYC sued Verizon, stating a 2014 deal to deploy fiber to the entire city fell well short of the full goal. As some local reporters had warned at the time (and were promptly ignored), the city’s deal with Verizon contained all manner of loopholes allowing Verizon to wiggle over, under and around its obligations. And wiggle Verizon did; a 2015 city report found huge gaps in deployment coverage – particularly in many of the less affluent, outer city boroughs.
Last week during the holiday bustle the city quietly announced it had settled its lawsuit with Verizon. Under the confidential settlement, the city claims Verizon will expand fiber deployment to an additional 500,000 low income homes across the city:
“This settlement will make sure that Verizon builds out its fiber footprint more equitably throughout New York City — especially in low-income communities that have historically been underserved by internet service providers,” said DoITT Commissioner and Citywide CIO Jessica Tisch. “This agreement attacks that unfair imbalance, and recognizes that high-quality internet is a necessity, not a luxury.”
The problem, as usual, will be in the follow up. The original lawsuit (pdf) stated that Verizon had deployed fiber to 2.2 million out of the city’s 3.3 million residences with FiOS, despite the original 2008 agreement with the city calling for “100%” FiOS availability. An additional 500,000 deployed homes sounds good, especially during a pandemic, but it’s still a far cry from the company’s original promise to the city. The city likely found the lawsuit to be too costly or unwinnable, and with so much else going on, agreed to settle and at least get something for its efforts.
Granted this isn’t just some one-off problem. Telecom giants are so politically powerful (on both the state and federal level) that genuine accountability for failed promises is extremely hard to come by. One simply needs to look at the long list of cities and states that have accused the company of taking subsidies and tax breaks then failing to evenly deploy fiber, whether it’s Philadelphia or a huge swath of New Jersey. And again, you’ll find much the same story having played out with telco giants like ATT and Frontier Communications from Mississippi to West Virginia.
As we’ve noted for a long time, policymakers act as if U.S. broadband mediocrity is just something that happens or is due to America just being really, really big. In reality, the reason U.S. broadband is patchy, expensive, with atrocious customer service? Plain old state and federal corruption we often refuse to even acknowledge, much less do anything about.
Author: Karl Bode
Date: 2020-12-01
techdirt.com
| People With Silly Patents Would Really Like It If It Was Harder To Cancel Them (2020-11-05) | A large group of patent holders sent a letter to Congress expressing concern that since the US Patent and Trademark Office USPTO Director Iancu might soon be leaving recent policies making it harder to challenge bad patents might be reversed The letter concerns a process created somewhat recently called inter partes review IPR that allows the USPTO to take a second look at the patents they issue b.. |
| Supreme Court Rejects Appeals Court’s Revival Of Anonymous Cop’s Stupid Lawsuit Against BLM Activist (2020-11-03) | Early last year the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals which has more than its fair share of inexplicable decisions released an inexplicable decision The appeal arose from a lower courts dismissal of an injured cops lawsuit against multiple parties over injuries he sustained when a protester threw a chunk of concrete at him The pseudonymous cop sued a number of entities including Black Lives Matter a .. |
| Daily Deal: The 2021 All-In-One AWS, Cisco And CompTIA Super Bundle (2020-11-25) | The 2021 All-In-One AWS Cisco and CompTIA Super Bundle has 22 courses and over 240 hours of content to help you prepare to sit for various IT certification exams from Amazon CompTIA and more The courses cover the latest best practices for working in the cloud and many have practice tests you can take to help prepare yourself for the real deal This bundle is on sale for $99 Use the code SAVE15NOV t.. |
| Seattle PD Detective Took Clearview Facial Recognition Tech For A Spin, Possibly Violating Local Laws (2020-11-24) | It looks like some members of the Seattle Police Department have taken an interest in Clearview Clearview scrapes photos and data from the open web and sells access to its untested facial recognition AI to government agencies private companies and the odd billionaire According to Clearview it has 4 billion scraped records in its database What it doesnt have is a proven law enforcement track record.. |
| FCC Boss Pai Urged To Accept Trump Loss, Pause Dumb Attack On Social Media (2020-11-13) | With the Biden victory FCC boss Ajit Pai is being urged to pause all controversial rulemaking including the agencys absurd and now likely doomed attempt to regulate social media and undermine Section 230 via the FCC With a Biden win Pais guaranteed to lose his spot as top commissioner and is likely to exit the agency altogether Energy and Commerce Committee heads Frank Pallone and Mike Doyle this .. FCC Boss Pai Urged To Accept Trump Loss, Pause Dumb Attack On Social Media |
| Commerce Department Remembers It Was Supposed To Ban TikTok; Says It Won’t Enforce For Now (2020-11-13) | Yesterday we noted that TikTok had made a filing with the government asking what the fuck was going on with the supposed ban on their application that was supposed to go into effect this week While a court had issued an injunction saying the Commerce Department couldnt put the ban into effect the Trump administration basically hadnt said anything since then and the ban was set to go into effect ye.. |
| Ninth Circuit Says Washington Man Can Continue To Sue CBP Agent For First, Fourth Amendment Violations (2020-12-01) | The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals continues to do what other circuits far too often wont: protect citizens from their government The Ninth Circuit is the best place to bring allegations of rights violations It only grants immunity in 42% of cases it handles compared to the Fifth Circuit where cops and their qualified immunity triumph 64% of the time This seems to irritate the Supreme Court which .. |
| Trump Promises To Defund The Entire Military, If Congress Won’t Let Him Punish The Internet For Being Mean To Him (2020-12-02) | President Trump has continued to throw his little temper tantrum in response to #DiaperDon trending on Twitter When that happened he suddenly demanded a full repeal of Section 230 – which would not stop Twitter from showing #DiaperDon trending when the President throws a temper tantrum like a 2 year old Then yesterday we heard that the White House was really pushing for the Senate to include a 23.. |
| Daily Deal: The Unity 2D Game Developer Bundle (2020-11-02) | The Unity 2D Game Developer Bundle has 11 courses to help you learn how to create your own games Youll learn how to create awesome replicas of the games that dominated the early 80s and 90s Youll also learn how these groundbreaking titles function and recreate them with Unity 2D The bundle is on sale for $40 Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce A portion of all sa.. |
| Congress Decides To Ignore Trump’s Ridiculous Veto Threat If Military Authorization Doesn’t Wipe Out Section 230 (2020-12-02) | This always seemed like the the most likely outcome but Trump had complicated things with his temper tantrum demands and his threat to veto the National Defense Authorization Act NDAA if it didnt include a clause wiping out Section 230 However Congress has come to its senses and leaders of both parties have said theyll ignore his impotent veto threat and move forward with the bill as is The final .. |
