Verizon wants out of the copper based phone business period, and will try any way they can to get out of it. When copper breaks, techs are told to repair, not replace the bad copper. I was without phone service back in January of this year for over a month due to an ice storm, and Verizon took a long time to repair things.
As I've heard a number of times, Verizon wants to be a "broadband" company and get out of the land-line phone business.
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