Verizon Says Some Sales Reps Erred in Pitch for FiOS Service

• Traditional Copper Telephone Wiring Is Not Slated for Removal as Claimed Door-to-Door

BY HANS LAETZ

Some door-to-door contractors working for the Verizon telephone company were “overzealous” when they incorrectly told Malibuites that their traditional telephone service is being removed, and that customers must sign up for a new digital package using fiber-optic lines, a Verizon spokesperson confirmed.
But customers, consumer activists say, may have fallen for the sales pitch and signed up for a new type of telephone service that is not rate controlled, and can lose dial tones after a power outage.
A Verizon official said last week that errant sales crews selling its FiOS-brand fiber service would be retrained. Spokesperson Jon Davies said persons who purchased bundled cable TV and Internet service under incorrect impressions would be allowed to undo the deal.
In an email to the reporter, Davies wrote, “ All the sales teams are continually educated on how to sell FiOS—they are definitely not authorized to say that the upgrade is in any way mandatory. We’ll be going back to the door-to-door sales teams—and the group that was in Malibu that day particularly—to make sure they are clear on the situation and try to prevent this from recurring.”
A telecommunications expert at The Utility Reform Network said people who count on their phones to work during disasters should know that new fiber-based services rely on a small battery at the customer’s house, unlike old-fashioned copper-wire service.
“If you’re going to replace new technology for old, shouldn’t the new phones be as reliable as the old?” asked TURN analyst Regina Costa. “Anybody in Malibu who wants a phone that will work after a fire comes through and takes out power lines, would be crazy to give up their old copper-wire service.”
Costa said the agents’ sales pitch “sounds like a violation of FCC policies” and a violation of promises made by the company after congressional hearings into the matter revealed abuses last year.
Earlier this month, a journalist was among others who were told at home that “copper-wire” phone service is being removed from all houses and businesses in Malibu, a claim that state regulators and utility watchdogs said was misleading and inaccurate.
Inaccurate, but effective, according to the results in one west Malibu neighborhood, where a majority of the houses on the reporter’s street signed up for FiOS, and signed contracts giving up regulated copper phone service.
College-age marketers, wearing Verizon ID badges but working for a marketing company called NCSC on commision, blanketed the Malibu Park neighborhood early this month. One sales rep told persons that the phone company “is pulling out the copper wires from every house, and replacing them with fiber-optics.”
Residents were offered several bundled packages of cable TV, Internet and phone service, which included low prices guaranteed for two years, and a signing bonus of free long-distance service.
Residents were told that they did not have the option to retain “plain-old telephone service,” or POTS, despite the fact that federal and state laws require universal access to old fashioned, rate-regulated phone service. Governments regulate traditional phone service, but not the FiOS bundles that include TV and Internet services.
A customer sales agent also told one Malibu resident that his family could still elect to receive POTS via Web-based phone services after the copper was removed, but claimed not to know that these alternatives also would require buying high-speed Internet access.
That agent told a Malibu resident that the PUC had approved the changeover and removal of copper wiring, and that choosing the status quo was not an option.
Although the CPUC has lost many regulatory powers, it still sets the basic telephone line charge for Verizon. Since those powers do not extend to FiOS, customers have no guarantee for prices after the two-year contract is over.
The Verizon FiOS system is a $23 billion nationwide initiative to convert as many of its customers as possible from copper wires strung as long as 60 years ago into state-of-the-art fiber lines. Those digital lines already extend onto almost every Malibu street, and now Verizon wants to entice customers away from the older, less-profitable General Telephone Company copper network.
But consumers are not told that switching from old copper phone lines removes competition, in the form of smaller companies that won access on the “last-mile” of monopoly phone line in a 1986 telecom deregulation law. That also means DSL, a low-cost alternative from other companies, is also eliminated as an option.
And the new fiber lines require electrical power at the customer’s house, and phones will go dead in as little as four hours after the power goes out. In addition, the standby batteries must be replaced every year or so by the customer, at the customer’s expense, or the fiber phones will go dead moments after Edison electrical service goes out.
“During the Big Sur fires this summer, the entire upper Carmel Valley had the power turned off by the firefighters, and all of a sudden, a bunch of people didn’t have phone service,” Costa said. “Reverse 911 calls couldn’t come in, and people couldn’t call out.
“Anybody who knows about this should be very scared over the concept of switching away from copper wires.”