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Verizon-Truck

A new battle is breaking out between Verizon and the state of New Jersey, over promises Verizon fabricated nearly a decade ago. In 2006, Verizon signed an agreement with NJ to make loftier-speed FiOS bachelor in the 70 largest cities in New Jersey, including the poorest areas of Newark and Jersey City. Bridging the so-called "digital divide" has been a priority for multiple governments and administrations beyond the country, and this agreement was seen every bit 1 way to ensure that NJ families would have meliorate admission to the Net and its accompanying technologies.

Contempo reports point the agreement has been discharged in some highly peculiar ways, and the mayors of Jersey City and Newark are calling a press conference to discuss whether or not Verizon is fulfilling its obligations to the land. At issue are loopholes in the franchise agreements that allow Verizon to skip wiring a building if the landlord demands payment in exchange for accessing a belongings. These waivers are designed to ensure that companies don't incur ruinous expenses from landlords that might extort huge cash payments. Unfortunately, it looks every bit though the organisation may have been sabotaged by Verizon itself.

While these rules were designed with proficient intentions, they've been abused by companies that want to maintain a monopoly over a specific block or building. In the past, landlords take been caught receiving kickbacks in exchange for refusing access to competing telco services, ensuring that residents have access to just ane provider. This is technically illegal, but in that location'south no central oversight or control or piece of cake style to file a complaint. Since Verizon can't force a landlord to allow them access to the property, any landlord that won't let Verizon run fiber optic cable is granted a waiver from doing and so.

And so what does this have to do with Jersey City or Newark? Look at the number of waivers supposedly granted in these locations equally compared to other cities.

FiOSWaivers

Image past The Verge

Of class, this isn't proof in and of itself. Maybe the citizens of Bailiwick of jersey City and Newark are avowed lovers of Comcast or AT&T. According to the Advice Workers of America union, Verizon has been engaging in some extremely shady practices, trying to become landlords to opt out of receiving fiber without fifty-fifty knowing that they're doing information technology. Thus far, no proposed caption fits the data — at that place's no evidence, for case, that population distributions are causing an unusual fasten in waivers, or that landlords are actually, knowingly waiving their correct to Verizon FiOS.

The problem, however, shouldn't be laid solely at Verizon'southward feet. The Verge also reports that the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities has stonewalled the investigation, refused to share data on why various waivers were granted, and stands accused of performing very little oversight on the deployment process. Verizon, meanwhile, has repeatedly said that it volition non build out FiOS once its legal obligations to the state are met. This is scarcely the first allegation of bad behavior to hit the company; Verizon has reportedly sabotaged its own copper infrastructure in a bid to forcefulness residents to use fiber optic connections that aren't subject field to guarantees of service.