I understand your frustrations, but you probably would not prevail (remember that I am not a lawyer). As I am sure you realize, Verizon must work closely with the DOT and a myriad of other City agencies for permits, scheduling, environmental, right-of-way easements, and all the other documentation and paperwork that goes into any project that touches on public works. Any one of those agencies could be the bottleneck. Higher priority projects like recovering existing service after a storm like Sandy would also hamper build-out. Finally, I am sure Verizon has market and business justification data up the wazoo as to how they prioritize and execute their build-outs.

Verizon knows it cannot derive income from locations where it has no presence. I'd bet they want to lay fiber in your area as much as you want them to, and there are just mitigating circumstances.

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You would have to check your Verizon contract, but I would wager that there is no timeline as to when the install would be completed. Verizon is still working in lower Manhattan where the entire copper wired network was wiped out from Sandy. We had signed up 18 months ago, they just came in 3 weeks ago to begin pulling fiber in from the street and running the piping for the main risers in the building.

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Thank you both for your comments. I am not sure what I am planning. I am tired of the "wow is Verizon" stories. I work in lower Manhattan and I see firsthand the damage Sandy wrought. However, when planning for risk, don’t utilities take storm damage into consideration? I know that banks and financial institutions do.

The question comes down to why should my shareholders suffer for the delays? Shouldn’t Verizon’s shareholders suffer for them?

Verizon’s agreement with the City of New York is that they are to be fully installed by 6/30/2014 (found here http://www.nyc.gov/html/doitt/downloads/pdf/verizon_nyc_franchise_agreement_approved_by_fcrc.pdf).

There is no way that they are going to meet that deadline leaving “two cities” syndrome: with Verizon Broadband and without.

CNYC and HabitatMag – where are you? ;)

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Steve - In the sense of trying to convince a judge and jury, what suffering are your shareholders enduring? I assume they have basic POTS telephone service (an essential service), high speed internet either via DSL over the phone lines or TWC's Roadrunner (an almost-essential service), and digital TV via TimeWarner Cable (a discretionary service). How are your shareholders "not whole", especially since they've never had FiOS to begin with?

There is a necessary trade-off between levels and speed of service restoration after a disaster, and the cost of meeting those commitments. Verizon probably operates under Public Service Commission and other requirements to be able to return to a certain level of service after different levels of outage severity. The destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy by all accounts exceeded even the most extreme predictions. Sure Verizon could have reinforced and waterproofed every switch and cable in every equipment vault to withstand the levels of water which covered lower Manhattan, but I doubt you or your company would want to pay the monthly phone bill tariff that covered the cost of providing this level of immediate recoverability.

I hope you get your FiOS sooner than later, but sometimes unforeseen or unavoidable situations come up which cause plans and schedules to change.

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