Union leaders and elected officials on both sides of the aisle spoke out at a Riverhead rally Saturday morning demanding state government action to force Verizon to build its fiber optic cable network throughout Suffolk County.
County Executive Steve Bellone said the lack of modern infrastructure in Suffolk is holding back economic development in the region, because it limits industrial growth and job creation. Verizon’s fiber optic network is “absolutely essential,” Bellone said.
“We’re losing young people. When you can’t retain or attract young people, you’re a region that’s in decline,” Bellone told the audience of about 75 people in the Riverhead Town Hall meeting room Saturday morning. “We need to reverse that.
“To grow our economy and create good jobs, we need the latest technologies across this region,” Bellone said. With Cold Spring Harbor labs, Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University located here, “our potential is incredible,” the county executive said. “But we’re being held back by the lack of this modern infrastructure.”
“It’s time for the PSC to step in and say that this tech is not a luxury, this tech is a basic necessity,” Bellone said.
Riverhead Supervisor Sean Walter said he’s concerned that the lack of the best-available high speed internet technology will impede development of the Calverton Enterprise Park.
“Having the highest electric rates around and the technology infrastructure that’s not cutting edge will hurt us, no doubt about it,” Walter said.
Cablevision’s “virtual monopoly” makes it difficult for the town to negotiate a fair franchise agreement with the company. Riverhead’s franchise agreement expired a couple of years ago, Walter said.
“When there’s no competition, you are not negotiating from a position of strength,” he said.
Brookhaven Supervisor Ed Romaine, who has been fighting for Verizon to build out its FiOS network in that town, where the service was made available to about 25 percent of customers before Verizon decided to stop construction, spoke of fundamental fairness.
“One hundred years ago, not everyone had electric, not everyone had telephones, and the government stepped in and said, ‘Hey if you’re going to provide this service, youre going to provide it to everyone,’ It’s a public service and it’s essential to our economy,” Romaine said.
The Brookhaven Town Board has written to the PSC about the issue and has never even gotten a response, Romaine said.
“If the Public Service Commission actally decided to do its job and regulate these companies so that they provide adequate service to everybody, they can get Verizon to build FiOS into this area. We need the governor to step up,” said
Peter Sikora, president of Communication Workers of America Local 1108, which represents Verizon line workers.
“Our country’s 30th in the world as far as high speed internet,” CWA Local 1108 past president Don Dunn told the crowd. “Iceland, Romania, Bulgaira, France, Russia and the UK all have high speed internet that’s better than ours. That’s unacceptable,” he said. “We created the internet.”
Dunn said the assertion by Verizon company spokesman that the PSC can’t force the company to build out the FiOS network isn’t true.
“They are the carrier of last resort and by definition,” he said, “that’s a telecommunications carrier that commits or is required by law to provide service to any custmer in a service area that requests it, even if serving that customer would not be economically viable at prevailing rates.”
“We want that definition of basic service changed to include high speed internet and TV,” Dunn said.
“Consumers want it. Residents, local leaders regardless of political affiliation want it and the workers want it because it’s going to create jobs,” Dunn said.
“In Suffolk County, our local in the last 10 years has gone down from 1,700 members to 850, so don’t tell me lack of FiOS isn’t hurting this community and isn’t hurting economic growth.”
Verizon representatives did not speak at the meeting, where many of those in the audience were wearing the CWA’s red shirts.
Company spokesman John Bonomo last week denied the union’s criticism that Verizon is neglecting its copper wire service in Suffolk in favor of a massive investment in its FiOS network in NYC.
But Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam, at a June 2012 Guggenheim Securities Symposium in NYC, spoke of the company’s plans to replace wireline service with FiOS, except in “areas that are more rural and more sparsely populated,” which the company would serve with wireless rather than copper or FiOS.
“The vision that I have is we are going into the copper plant areas and every place we have FiOS, we are going to kill the copper. We are going to just take it out of service and we are going to move those services onto FiOS. We have got parallel networks in way too many places now, so that is a pot of gold in my view,” McAdam told investors, according to a Thompson-Reuters transcript of the event.
Verizon’s Bonomo said today that the money the company saves with fiber installations it is “plowing back into the copper network to improve it.”
Bonomo also said that the “carrier of last resort” designation applies only to phone service — not to internet or TV.
In 2013, Verizon sought to amend its tariff allow it to replace wireline service with its wireless Voice Link service in certain areas, specifically those areas of Fire Island hard-hit by Hurricane Sandy. The move was opposed by N.Y. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who said in written comments to the PSC it “would deprive customers the ability to continue using wireline-dependent services such as fax machines, alarm systems, medical alert devices, and Digital Subscriber Line Internet access.”
Brookhaven Town successfully fought to have FiOS extended to Fire Island to replace the copper wireline service, Romaine said.
The Fire Island tariff amendment proceeding remains pending, though its termination has been recommended by PSC staff, according to online documents.
Saturday’s rally was also attended by Assemblyman Ed Hennessy, Suffolk County Legislature presiding officer DuWayne Gregory, First District Legislator Al Krupski and Riverhead Councilman James Wooten.
