Verizon Kickstarts Landline Transition from Copper to ‘Voice Link’ Wireless

"There’s no other device like this out there,” Maguire said of Verizon’s Voice Link product, which will have “the features and functionality of copper,” and affordability. “New York is the first place where we've filed this tariff,” he said. “I'm super jazzed about this because I think it'll be good for everybody. I think it'll change a lot.”

To install Voice Link, Verizon technicians set up a router-sized device in customers’ houses, that allows the telco to map 911 calls, Maguire said. Initially, Verizon opted for a 36-hour rechargeable battery, but now also includes a section for AA batteries, which if the customer buys a 12-pack would permit six or seven days of backup power, he said. Some Sandy victims required that much. Unless a tree falls on a house directly, service won’t be disrupted in a storm due to the device’s location, said Maguire. “It mounts on the same bracket as a smoke detector.” That is a device for which people are used to changing batteries, he noted. “You've got to make it customer friendly.”

The telco recently asked the New York State Public Service Commission for permission to not restore landline service in parts of the Sandy-damaged state, such as on Fire Island (CD May 7 p13). Instead, Verizon pledged to boost wireless service and offer Voice Link. FiOS wouldn’t “make sense from a business perspective,” he said. Fire Island has only about 500 residents year-round, a number rising to 10,000 to 20,000 during vacation season, Maguire said. It’s a “unique community” that, in the wake of Sandy and the copper damage, Verizon realized already preferred wireless, he said. “We looked at what was going on with the voice traffic. ... It probably would make much better sense to beef up the wireless network than turn around and replace the copper.” The Fire Island traffic was 80 percent wireless based on Verizon data, a number potentially higher if other companies’ information was factored in, he said. No one wants the telco digging up beaches and streets to replace the copper anyway, Maguire added. Verizon will repair Fire Island copper on a limited basis to serve “firehouses, police stations, and other municipal buildings,” its filing noted (http://bit.ly/13d2hd6).

But the plan won’t end with Fire Island, Maguire said -- Verizon wants Voice Link “to be generally available in the whole country,” potentially by the June timeframe. The telco first began looking at the technology that became Voice Link after it, at the end of 2011, started moving its hundreds of thousands of customers over to fiber, a move done at no charge to customers, he said. The Verizon fiber migration was initially “reactive,” all voluntary and due to customers encountering bad service on the telco’s copper, he said. The fiber move is “a good thing for them and a good thing for us,” since Verizon wouldn’t have to maintain both a copper and fiber network in migrated regions anymore, Maguire said: “This should be the way we think all the time.” He emphasized the huge drop in Verizon access lines over the last decade in a “miraculous” set of technology changes: “People have been fleeing copper for other stuff.” The migration was “humming along” but Verizon knew it didn’t have fiber everywhere, which led Maguire to examine alternatives for those copper customers encountering problems: “It dawned on me that our wireless” networks are “everywhere,” he said. “I started looking at ways we could use the wireless technology.” Voice Link was then born. Then Sandy hit, he said, accelerating the process in New York.

Critics already question the Voice Link plan. CWA sees Voice Link as “an unproven technology,” Research Economist Pete Sikora of New York told us. “They're wrong.” Sikora praised the reliability of the copper network and described a “really serious economic impact” to moving landline customers to Voice Link. He pointed to customers’ inability to receive DSL over Voice Link and no wireline competition on Fire Island. Many small businesses rely on credit card processing through DSL, he added. He also worries about the “extremely scary” prospect of wireless congestion during natural disasters and the effect the transition will have on CWA jobs. Verizon is “trying to raise their profits” as part of its “corporate purpose,” said Sikora. Union members maintain the copper network Verizon wants to abandon, he said. “We think the PSC should call a timeout.”

Feld blasted Verizon’s Fire Island proposal. He expressed sympathy for replacing damaged copper with fiber, in a blog post Thursday (http://bit.ly/10tsEY1). “But Voice Link remains a great unknown,” Feld said. “No one knows what problems might come up, or how to solve them if they do. If deaf subscribers have to buy new equipment to have access to TDD, will Verizon cover the cost? What happens to businesses that can no longer process credit card payments? Verizon should not use Sandy victims as guinea pigs for its new technology.” He recommended Verizon give customers a choice of upgrading to FiOS along with the voluntary option of Voice Link. Consumer advocate Phillip Dampier questioned, in a Tuesday post on the blog Stop the Cap! (http://bit.ly/11pW8MY), whether the new service would be worse during natural disasters and emergencies.

"It’s easy to make a comment when you're sitting in a house hundreds of miles away,” Maguire replied, disputing phrases like “guinea pigs” and the broader characterizations. “These people are our customers.” Maguire acknowledged Voice Link customers won’t be able to fax or do certain activities, but he said the telco never pretended they would. Verizon won’t be offering data services with Voice Link, but if Fire Island customers want more options, they can potentially choose satellite, he said. He defended the nature of the new service, which maintains affordability for customers he compared to his mom, those who aren’t big adopters of new technology. “Some people slight wireless as if it’s an unproven technology,” Maguire added. “These customers moved themselves over."

Verizon wants to work with regulators, Maguire said, describing conversations with New York PSC commissioners. New York PSC Telecom Director Chad Hume recounted Voice Link negotiations during an April 18 PSC meeting, according to the transcript: “[Voice Link] cannot accommodate DSL, fax, or alarm services. However, Verizon indicates that it does support relay for TTY or tele typewriter services which are designed for persons with hearing or speech disabilities. We expect the voice telephone service on Fire Island, including Voice Link, will continue to be provided under the oversight of the PSC and will be subject to requirements for 911, service quality, rates, outage reporting, and other aspects of our regulations.” The PSC declined comment on Voice Link. Hume described over 3,000 notes Verizon has sent Fire Island customers to notify them of Voice Link and begin installations, as well as an information booth Verizon set up. None of the regulators “want the rules to stifle the innovation,” Maguire said. The regulatory status of Voice Link, on a state-by-state level, remains to be seen, he said. He emphasized that Verizon would still need to take care of customers regardless of regulation level. He pointed to Verizon Wireless, “unregulated, for the most part,” yet still taking care of customers and attracting new ones.

Voice Link has received plenty of testing and “stakeholdering,” Maguire said. He has talked to regulators and unions and been on the ground after Sandy hit, he said. Verizon arranged for a “blind taste test type” trial of Voice Link with 40,000 customers in another company’s territory with unbranded devices, he said. That trial allowed people to rate traditional copper landline service as well as Voice Link. Consumers “gave copper a little better score on Day 1,” Maguire said. But on the second day, it rained, and “the copper sounded like hell -- it was noisy and static-y.” The ratings strongly favored Voice Link then, he said.