Verizon: Let us install fiber -- or we’ll shut off your phone service

A union of Verizon workers recently accused the company of failing to maintain copper landlines. Customers and consumer advocacy groups have been making similar allegations for well over a year. Verizon denies the allegations and argues that phone customers will get more reliable service when they’re switched to fiber. “Verizon’s goal is to serve customers over the best facilities we have available and, for a growing number of our customers, those facilities are all-fiber,” a company spokesperson said.

Despite the power limitations, Verizon and similar companies are allowed to shift customers from copper to fiber as long as they continue providing traditional landline service over the fiber lines. Verizon's fiber network can handle either VoIP, which is lightly regulated, or the more heavily regulated circuit-switched phone traffic. Despite its statement that fiber is superior to copper, Verizon has slowed fiber deployments due to the cost, leaving millions with copper phone lines and DSL Internet as the only options. Switching to fiber lowers Verizon's maintenance costs, but the initial construction is expensive. In Herndon (VA), Verizon isn’t switching all customers to fiber immediately -- just those who complain about service problems. “We’re migrating customers on our copper-based network with repair issues to fiber on a case-by-case basis,” the company said.