Pittsburgh Mayor: Verizon Broke Agreement To Provide FiOS To Entire City
“We have an agreement with Verizon that, over the course of several years, the entire city would be provided with FiOS,” Peduto recently told WTAE-TV, “and it was the agreement that allowed them to start putting their lines in the public right of way. They have now broken that agreement.”
While FiOS service is available in Pittsburgh, Peduto contends that, “They do not have the city finished, so now we need to seek the damages that were agreed to through the contract. At this point, I’d have to talk with our law department.”
Verizon maintains that 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.”
Peduto’s statements are similar to gripes heard in New York City and much of the state of New Jersey — both areas where some community leaders contend that Verizon has failed to live up to its contractual obligations to provide service.
A recent audit in by NYC’s Department of Information Technology and Communications found that a large number of city residents were unable to obtain FiOS service and that the company was not even responding to thousands of requests for service. All this in spite of promising in 2008 that all NYC residents would have the option of switching to FiOS by July 2014.
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