PPH and allies call on PSC to reconsider its approval of Verizon franchise

On August 14, People's Production House, Common Cause/New York, Consumers Union and NYPIRG called on the NYS Public Service Commission to reconsider its decision to grant Verizon a cable franchise with the City of New York.

See our official request for reconsideration (pdf). (Kudos to Chris Keeley at Common Cause for his work gathering the documents and drafting the letter.) To be reconsidered, we have to show that he decision was based on new or false information or that the decision was made in an arbitrary and capricious manner.

Well, it turns out that a high proportion of the existing FiOS installations in New York are not in compliance with the National Electric Code, putting customers, workers, and homeowners at risk. The information about this dangerous situation was included in a document Verizon filed with the PSC less than 24 hours before their meeting. That's new information.

While accepting Verizon's late filing, the PSC dismissed the concerns we and our allies had expressed in a filing submitted days earlier because the staff claims to not have had time to review our letter. That's arbitrary.

The document Verizon filed was a proposal for how it proposes to remedy the problem, which basically amounts to: don't worry, we'll take care of it. Whatever the plan says, this problem with Verizon's FiOS should have been part of the deliberations at the city level.

PPH, along with our ally organizations and members of City Council, had earlier called for a delay in the city-level approval to allow for greater public review. The new information about Verizon's unsafe FiOS installations shows how a bad process leads to a bad product.

Considering the aggressive rollout schedule included in the franchise and the railroading of the deal through the approval process, one has to be concerned that Verizon is sacrificing public safety for productivity.

Employees raised that concern last year when a technician was electrocuted on the job and then, less than a week later, Verizon fired five, junior FiOS technicians for not meeting production quotas. It's a good thing CWA's new contract includes unionizing many of the FiOS techs.

Why has Verizon not yet informed customers about the potential problem with their installation? If this was a piece of hardware, there would be a recall.