Verizon Hit With Serious Accusation Over 'Poor' Landline Service

Reports of poor landline repair service are piling up in the state of New York, and the attorney general there wants Verizon to provide some answers.

Calling it a “shortchanging” of customers, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said the nation’s largest carrier is spending too much time focusing on the exploding wireless market and leaving landline customers behind, according to a report by the Associated Press.

Schneiderman made the comments to the state’s Public Service Commission. He says more and more landline customers are seeing service outages of more than 24 hours; New York’s top cop went as far to say that Verizon is now providing “poor” service to more than nine in 10 (92 percent) of its customers.

The complaints aren’t new to Verizon, which was hit with a $400,000 fine in March based on similar concerns. The carrier was accused of appearing to intentionally reduce its repair workforce last summer, something Verizon denied.

“The goals of Verizon and the attorney general are the same to provide the best, most reliable telecommunications services for New Yorkers,” a Verizon spokesman told the AP. The company plans to comment on the attorney general’s complaints after reviewing his filing.

Likely to be included in those comments are the $1.5 billion Verizon invested in infrastructure, repaid and maintenance of landline service last year, about five times that spent on wireless, the report said. Verizon has maintained that 2011 was a tough year when you consider it dealt with a union strike and serious damage from a hurricane and a tropical storm, all around the same time.