While Verizon long-ago froze further FiOS deployments, the company did strike sweetheart deals with numerous east coast cities that gave the city a citywide franchise and numerous tax benefits, in exchange for the promise of full city FiOS coverage. But as we noted at the time, most of those agreements came with fine print that allowed Verizon lawyers to wiggle over, under, and around any uniform fiber deployment obligations.
Shockingly, cities like New York City are now
thinking about suing the telco for missing deployment promises.
You can add Pittsburgh to the list of cities who believe they were swindled by Verizon. Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto has, several years later, started noting huge coverage gaps in the city's FiOS coverage. Peduto was one of 14 Mayors that recently wrote a letter to Verizon begging the company to upgrade its lagging DSL networks.
"We have an agreement with Verizon that, over the course of several years, the entire city would be provided with FiOS, and it was the agreement that allowed them to start putting their lines in the public right of way," Mayor Bill Peduto tells local news outlets. "They have now broken that agreement," Peduto said.
"They do not have the city finished, so now we need to seek the damages that were agreed to through the contract," he added. "At this point, I'd have to talk with our law department."
The problem, like in New York City, is that the cities signed these deals -- Verizon's clever loopholes included. In some contract instances Verizon was able to conflated homes "passed" with homes actually serviced with fiber. In other instances, the contracts include language that allows Verizon to miss coverage deadlines with only modest fees.
Verizon of course has responded stating that they've complied with the city contract, knowing full well they wrote it to be as loophole-ridden and Verizon-friendly as possible. Practice, after all, makes perfect. Verizon has pulled similar state-level stunts with Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
"Verizon sent a letter to the City confirming it is in compliance with the terms of the franchise agreement and that with certain exceptions allowed under the franchise, there are no residential areas of the city where Verizon does not offer cable service, claims Verizon.
Similarly, it sounds like Peduto hasn't done much homework to actually confirm where Verizon has deployed FiOS, noting it's "unclear" where the coverage gaps actually are. Governments (federal and state) all-too-frequently take a mega-ISPs word on which neighborhoods have been upgraded, and often don't bring their a-game when it's time to hold big red accountable.
"I just want to make sure that every neighborhood in the city has it, and we're not red-lining any neighborhood," claims Peduto.