Adding Insult to Injury for Sandy Victims: 911 Calls May Not Go Through on New Verizon Phone Service
Adding Insult to Injury for Sandy Victims: 911 Calls May Not Go Through on New Verizon Phone Service
Adding Insult to Injury for Sandy Victims: 911 Calls May Not Go Through on New Verizon Phone Service

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    Verizon’s new
    revelations about the limits of its Voice Link service in hurricane-damaged Fire Island show how important a consumer-focused framework will be for the
    phone network transition.



    Months after Hurricane Sandy damaged Verizon’s traditional
    copper phone network in Fire Island, NY, Verizon has made it clear that it does
    not intend to repair its infrastructure in the recovering community
    .
    Instead, Verizon has announced plans to replace its wireline service in Fire
    Island and other hurricane-ravaged communities with an untested fixed wireless
    service called Voice Link.

    Verizon has been eager to tell subscribers that Voice Link
    offers “the same 911 support” and “many of the same voice features and functions” as their old landline phones did. In New Jersey, Verizon even sent around a
    mailer saying “Our technicians connect Voice Link into the telephone lines in
    your home, allowing you to use your home telephones to make and receive calls
    just like you did before.”

    But Verizon’s frequent public pronouncements that its Voice
    Link service is basically the same as its former copper network service is
    belied by a filing the New York Public Service Commission required Verizon to
    submit last week. In that filing,
    Verizon revealed that Voice Link service will be significantly limited compared
    to the wireline service Fire Island residents were used to.

    Here are some of the changes users may be unhappily
    surprised to discover in the new Voice Link service, as specified by Verizon’s
    own Terms of Service:

    • Verizon specifically states that users should expect that 911 calls may be blocked by congestion on the network, or subjected
      to slower routing or processing speeds. Even if the 911 failure is caused by
      Verizon’s negligence, Verizon limits its own liability for the ensuing damage.
    • The customer is responsible for maintaining
      power
      to the Voice Link device, in addition to making sure their actual phone
      is powered. The user is responsible for recharging the back-up batteries, and
      after 1 year is responsible for paying to replace the rechargeable battery if
      it malfunctions. Even if the battery is functioning, it will only last for 2.5
      hours of talk time, and 1.5 days if left unused. As Fire Island residents know
      well from their experience after Sandy, the power can stay out for much longer
      than that after a natural disaster.
    • Voice Link will not work with medical alerts or
      other monitoring services.
    • Customers won’t be able to use Voice Link for
      internet access, unlike the DSL offering that used to be available over the
      copper network.
    • Voice Link is not compatible with fax machines,
      DVR services, or credit card machines
      , and may not be compatible with home
      security services
      .
    • Voice Link customers won’t be able to receive
      collect calls. So if, for example, a customer’s friend or family member is
      arrested or imprisoned and needs to collect call their family,
      they won’t be able to reach anyone who uses Voice Link.  
    • Customers must buy a separate international
      calling plan to make international calls, and Voice Link won’t allow customers
      to use calling cards to make international calls.
    • Voice Link doesn’t allow customers to make 500,
      700, 900, 950, 976, 0, 00, 01, 0+, calling card or dial-around calls.
    • Voice Link requires 10-digit dialing, so users
      will need to dial an area code even when making a local call.

    The common theme among all of these new limits on Verizon’s Fire Island voice service is that Voice Link’s failings all hit the most
    vulnerable the hardest. Users trying to reach 911, customers with no
    electricity, sick or elderly patients using medical alerts, subscribers with
    families living abroad, and the loved ones of prisoners will all feel the
    consequences of Verizon’s experiments the most.

    Verizon’s decision to roll out Voice Link this way has in
    effect turned the hurricane recovery process into Verizon’s own real-life pilot
    program. But an emergency is not a pilot program. This shows just how important
    it is that regulators like the Federal Communications Commission step up and
    make sure that any pilot programs gathering data about the transition of our
    phone network are controlled, transparent, and guarded by strong consumer
    protections. It also show the important role that state and local regulators
    have to play in this debate—after all, we wouldn’t even know about all of the limitations of Voice Link service if the NY
    Public Service Commission hadn’t required Verizon to publicly disclose its
    Terms of Service.

    The phone network transition must be handled responsibly.
    Otherwise, we risk exposing the public to faulty 911 access, unreliable
    networks, or decreased functionality when it comes to using a communications
    network that should be one the best in the world. This is why we at Public
    Knowledge have proposed a framework of Five Fundamental Principles that ensure the phone network will continue to serve the same social needs it
    always has.

    Image by flickr user New York District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.