Dear George:
I assume you’re aware of the outage caused by a contractor’s cutting of an exchange cable at 17th Street and 7th Avenue. This has left much of the West Village which uses a copper-wire landline without Verizon telephone service since January 29th. That includes Greenwich House on Barrow Street, which is home to a senior center and a childcare center—both vulnerable populations. Rather than wait until March 5th for service to be restored, as Verizon told us we must, Greenwich House switched to Spectrum. Businesses, seniors in wheelchairs, etc. have all been affected. AT&T lines were also affected, as they run through Verizon’s wires.
It is worth noting that Verizon offered an attachment for one’s phone to enable usage during the repair, but for several reasons, that was not convenient for all.
Furthermore, Verizon insisted on being paid on time even though service was not available. Otherwise, Verizon said that late charges would be applied. One must call and ask to be credited for missed service because credit is not automatically applied to the bill.
I wonder what the Public Service Commission thinks about all of this.
—Anonymous
