Verizon customers have been losing landline and Internet service on the Upper West Side, and say that they’re experiencing long delays to get them fixed.
“We have not had Verizon land line service for over a week and projected repairs suggest more than two weeks. This has affected hundreds of locals,” says Jay Potter who lives on West 98th street. “The outage has affected most people in my building.”
“Internet has also been sporadic.”
A Verizon spokesman told us that the issues around 98th street have to do with an equipment problem.
“We are in the midst of replacing a section of cable that has been particularly troublesome,” said spokesman John Bonomo.
“The bulk of them should be cared for by the weekend,” he added. “As is typical in these cases, we offer customers the ability to forward their calls to an alternate number, and we also provide for a wireless alternative. Both measures so people can stay connected.”
Potter says Verizon has not made lasting fixes, however.
“Most people’s temporary “fixes” have been a patchwork of inadequate minimally functioning, as in sporadic, internet and calling ability.”
DNAinfo has also reported that businesses including Picnic Market & Cafe have lost service, and been unable to use their credit card readers. And the Daily News reported that the state has fined Verizon for its problems: “The state agency that monitors New York’s utilities slapped Verizon with a $100,000 fine last week, saying the company had too many weather-related dramas across the city in January.”
Another reader told us this summer that Verizon Wireless had been spotty in the low-90’s and was also taking awhile to be fixed.
“Verizon Wireless service in the low West 90’s (maybe wider local area) fell off a cliff beginning of July (no ring/direct to VM, 90 seconds to connect an outgoing call, no or intermittent 3G connections, imessages not going through etc) Though it was just our two iphones until I started talking with my neighbors. Took three (tortuous) calls to Verizon starting July 20 (and 3 1/2 hours total phone time on my part – the last call today being 90+ minutes) to get to the bottom of it. Seems antenna tower positions they were renting from another carrier were lost in a dispute and service is being hosed in a lot of places (nation-wide was the implication).”
Perhaps even more troubling (but not necessarily Verizon’s fault) are reports that 911 calls from cell phones on the Upper West Side have been getting routed to New Jersey. CBS reports that a woman ended up speaking to a 911 operator in New Jersey after a fire was reported in her building. While the call was eventually patched back to New York, it caused a delay in the emergency response. CBS also found records of a 311 call being routed to Edgewater., NJ.
Bonomo of Verizon said that the company has found no problems.
“The Verizon Wireless Network is operating correctly and there are no ongoing network or routing problems for 911 calls in the New York Metro region. In the rare instance where a 911 call does not reach the correct public-safety answering point (PSAP), that PSAP has a process in place to quickly redirect the call to the proper PSAP. Verizon has reached out to city officials to ensure that if this rare instance were to occur, their PSAP routing process is being followed correctly.”
Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the problem.
See the CBS video below:
Photo of phone by fabulous fafla.
I am in Jay’s building. And have been without landline service/spottyDSL for several weeks. The accommodations Verizon has offered include automatic forwarding of my landline calls to my voice mail, and FedEx-ing me a device that looks like a wireless receiver (router-like) to enable me to make and received calls to my landline. I didn’t install in because I have cell service with another provider which is serving me well now. They want this equipment back when the repairs are through. I’d be happy enough to bring it to ? FedEx outlet, but that’s an inconvenience too…..as I’ll have to find out where there is one.
I just switched to Verizon Wireless because AT&T was so unreliable — that was in November. I had one good month with Verizon, and now I’m dropping/missing calls all the time. (93rd St)
anybody know what the verizon truck at 89th and amsterdam is doing…they’ve been there going on 3 weeks now..they have a tent over the manhole obviously working below….everytime i go by there no one in the truck to ask.
Is that what’s going on with my internet?? (I live on W. 95th.) I was convinced someone was somehow hacking into it. I rebooted my modem, changed my the security code — I thought it was working OK for a day or two, and now it’s spotty again. It used to be so reliable — get it back together, Verizon!
I’ve been having problems using VOIP phone services over my FIOS Internet for the past few weeks. I live in the West 60s. Verizon claims there has been an outage but my general Internet seems to be fine. At night there is a lot of latency connecting to my VOIP phone providers’ servers – the end result is that I cannot hear folks on the other end of the call. I notified Verizon and received notices from them today that all is fixed. I won’t really know until tonight as night is when things usually go bad.
51 days without consistent Verizon Internet service – I kid you not. I’m on West 68th. 4 tech visits, innumerable call to their overseas call centers, and 5 Twitter pleas for assistance have finally resulted in a crew being sent to fix the problem. They’ve been trying to complete the repair for the past 3 days, but can’t get access to a couple of backyards to locate the problem. The crew is actually from Buffalo, but temporarily assigned to help out with Verizon’s massive backlog of issues in NYC.
My business (in fact virtually the entire block)in Chelsea suffered through a two month Verizon outage 18 months ago. At the time I did some investigating as to how this could possibly happen. I learned that Verizon does not put as many resources into maintaining their wire line (the 2 copper wires that go into your phone-jack)infrastructure because eventually it will all be replaced by fiber optic technology. Those two wires (called a ‘pair’) in your apartment phone jack eventually connect into a really big, thick cable under the street. There can be thousands of “pairs” in one of these cables servicing thousands of customers. When there is a failure of one of these big cables – the bad section needs to be removed and an new section spliced or connected in. A typical cable with 4,800 ‘pair’ has 9,600 wires in it. Each end of the wire needs to be connected at both ends – that’s 19,200 individual splices or connections. Each one is done by hand, by a guy sitting in an under-the-street vault the size of a big refrigerator (say hello to the guy sitting in the hole at 89th & Amsterdam for the last three weeks). Also – it’s not just any wire to any wire – it is 19,200 specific connections. Each one found, identified, spliced and tested for continuity. 19,200 times. Many of these existing cables are very old. The one that failed affecting my business in Chelsea was dated 1918. Needless to say – Verizon is investing its resources in fiber optic cable and spending as little as possible maintaining the old copper cable. One fiber optic strand which can basically be glued (OK – not exactly that simple – but that’s the basic idea)to another carries the same traffic as thousands of copper wire cables.
Long story short – when one of these big cables goes – be ready to experience weeks or months without service. Get used to it.
We live on West 99th and our landline phone stopped working on Wednesday. I went on the Verizon website and filled out their online repair service. They tested the line while I was online, determined it was a Verizon equipment problem and then emailed me that the phone service would be restored by 4AM Thursday morning. It was, and I got a follow up call from them asking if my problem was solved. In my case this was excellent service and very easy to accomplish.
just to be clear – Verizon Wireless and Verizon landline are 2 entirely separate businesses… which both apparently suck on the UWS. We’re also on w 98th and have been having trouble with our landline for years. We gave up trying to fix it and i’ve been looking into Vonage. But our Verizon wireless service (expensive as it is) has been great (better than AT&T which I have through work) and I’ve been waiting for FIOS to come so I can ditch soon-to-be Comcast/TW Cable for hi-speed internet/TV. I’m disappointed to hear people are not happy with Verizon DSL.
DSL is an obsolete technology only moderately faster than dial-up. It is amazing that Verizon continues to foist it on customers – but absent their FIOS service which is available only in very limited areas of Manhattan they have no other internet service to offer. Time Warner’s internet service is pretty solid and reliable. I don’t think mine has been non functional more that 20 hours in 10 years and their automated troubleshooting and repair service works very well.
This is the 21st Century. Landlines and their related technologies are obsolete. Get with the program. You got options. Even business does not have to use them anymore. Invest, upgrade and join the parade. No one under 80 years of age should be sitting at home “waiting for a call.” DSL is awful! And, you may have noticed that Verizon sold off it’s pay phones. Do you know anyone who uses them anymore? I rest my case your honor.
Hey… There are a number of people who may like their landlines. I have one because I have to have one in my building. Besides, even if you don’t use one you should own one in case of an emergency like the power goes out. It’s the only way of communicating. You can be technolically advanced and still want and like to use more traditional means.
I know about those buildings. It should be the owners responsibility to provide a communications link in the building, not you. What kind of deal did they cut with Verizon? You can get non-mobile phone service with cable. It does not have to be the “phone company.” The point is we are at a crossroad. Landlines will disappear at some point for the simple reason that the infrastructure will become too costly to maintain.
Probably true, but that’s not going to be a good thing, as you seem to think. The landlines are sometimes the only thing that work in a power outage or disaster — which is the main reason I’ve hung on to mine, along with a good old-fashioned curly cord phone (cordless phones require electricity).
FWIW, my Verizon landline service has continued to work just fine lately, as has my cell service. It’s only my DSL that’s gone all whacky recently. Also FWIW, I used to have Time Warner cable and internet, and I felt like I constantly had problems that required service. That’s why I switched.
Folks I have had an ATT service Blackberry for years. I get a signal everywhere, with no dropped calls ever city wide and world wide.
Verizon has a multi year contract with the city to provide its workers, top to bottom, mobile, internet services etc. I have used these phones and they just don’t work in any building made of concrete or brick. There signal just isn’t strong enough to pentitrate to interior rooms.
I would go with ATT wireless and Time Warner for internet access and Cable any day. Blackberries of any service have much better antenna than an other phones, especially apple and Samsung products, which require a stronger signal to allow their graphic packages on their displays to work even in the most basic mode. Products from Verizon may be cheaper, wireless and FIOS, on paper- but if they don’t work???????
A friend visited recently carrying her AT&T iPhone and Verizon Blackberry. Her Verizon phone worked in interior areas of buildings and below ground. The AT&T phone did not.
I just switched to Verizon Wireless from 10 years with T-Mobile because I wanted a service that works inside buildings.
Everyone seems to have different experiences.
Blackberries are so yesterday. But it is true that not all mobile devices are equal. The cheaper free clamshell phones have rotten antennae. Trouble is that technology today moves too fast for the older folks. What used to take a generation now takes 3 years or less. They stick with what they know.
First of all I’m no where near “old” and I’m a tech person. Worldwide most large corporations and governments of all sizes use blackberry products. Unlike Apple and others, Blackberry will customize the software and features for its clients. In ref to ATT, over Verizon, ATT has agreement with more providers around the world. Blackberries work everywhere as they can be hooked up to the RIM satellite network, so even if there is no cell service in an area I can still use my “gadget”. Oh and by the way one other reason to get/use a Blackberry-they work
Building in Chelsea is wired for Verizon phone only and it went out two weeks ago. Everyday I talk to them and they either don’t show or come late which is a problem because they need to get into the basement of the building the they can’t get into the basement after 6 pm and the building does not open until 9. This all started when they, Verizon, ran new line to space on the 6th floor. First everyone on the second floor lost service for one day. Then another space on the second floor lost service and now me! Monopolies. When you call they are nice and the repair person is exhausted when we saw them briefly. He couldn’t get into the basement. Frustrated in Chelsea.
My Verizon landland down three weeks and no repair in sight after countless calls to Verizon prompting visits from techs, all of whom, upon inspecting the wire box in my basement in Chelsea, pass the repair problem to what is called the “construction unit” – essentially the cable repair truck that really should be working to repair on the street. Each tech opens a ‘ticket’ for repair – then warn that if they touch my phone box the internet will go down. I’m then told that FIOS service on 17th Street and 8th Avenue in NYC is no where in sight. Outage occurs on monthly basis after storms or work on the street. My in person visit to Verizon on 17th and 7th prompted an admission from a Verizon employee that his service was also lousy and that I should complain to the Public Service Commission. It’s all about money: no repair will occur because old copper wires are too costly to repair. Anyone know if switching to TWC could improve service? Would TWC have same copper wire problems for digital phone?