Need to revert back to copper service

[Skeezix1]

Anyone know how to get Verizon to revert back from FIOS to standard copper service? I have tried for 2 months and customer service either processes incorrect info or promises to fulfill request, but nothing has been done.  Last cust. service person I talked with told me "couldn't be done in my area."  Either they are not trained properly or I'm the victim of a scam.  I cannot have a phone that doesn't operate in a power failure, so short of hiring an attorney and getting a doctor's statement, I'm really at a lost where to turn.  Thank you.

[tropicalgal]

Skeesix,  I know your frustration !  As to my personal expierence reporting issues cust. service is greatly missinformed or just not willing to go the extra mile,  along with reportlng your ticket incorrectly.    I feel your pain. 

Hopefully a forum member with more privilages here / Verizon employee monituring here will pick up on your problem and dig deeper for correct answers.

[djb5]

I'm hoping to see an answer to this also. It's just unsettling to know I may not be able to make an emergency 911 call! I have FiOS phone service and we were once without any service for a full day. Main reason to have a land line these days really is in case of emergency situation (especially major disaster where power could be out for a protracted period).

[Poorfellow]

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@djb wrote:

I'm hoping to see an answer to this also. It's just unsettling to know I may not be able to make an emergency 911 call! I have FiOS phone service and we were once without any service for a full day. Main reason to have a land line these days really is in case of emergency situation (especially major disaster where power could be out for a protracted period).

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FiOS with a Freedom or traditional service package is a landline.  The difference is the medium by which it is delivered, and the location of electrical back-up.  The line hits a true TDM switch in a CO (5ESS or DMS), ultimately, just as a line delivered via copper would.

FiOS Digital Voice, on the other hand, is a different animal.  It should continue to work through a power outage, however.

In the end, if you still wish to have copper service, the one way may be to establish a separate account.  If you want to continue using your existing telephone number, a port may be possible.  Switches from FiOS to copper aren't common, so it is no surprise that customer service has limited experience with the procedure.

I hope this helps!

[tropicalgal]

Can anyone here explain what is the the suppose deal if you had a landline ( POTS )and switch to Fios /Digital Voice that you can't convert back again to regular  landline ever again ??????  Why Not ?????

[manhattanNYC1]

No, in my building, when you use the FiOs internet and phone service, you can not switch back to Verizon DSL,and cooper Phone service. I live in NYC.

[hevero]

Congratulations, Verizon. if you are trying to toy with your customers, you have  found the way. We have been without phone service for 8 days now. Daily calls to Verizon, lasting hours, and daily emails, have gotten us nowhere. Our service was taken away as part of a new "bundle." The sweet sales[person never mentioned we were losing our land line and now only the "Elite Department" can restore it.

Thiis is the most surreal customer service experience I have ever had, with each person I talk to full of fictoion and obfuscation. AMong the lies: We are available until 9 p.m. at 1-800-verizon. Not true. You canceled you service last month. Not true. Your new service has the highest speed Internet possible. (Internet suddenly is nonexistent or putters along.

We have small children and need to make sure we have 911 access. Can anyone explain why it's so hard ot restore our service? Especially when we never ordered this "digital voice" package? I keep seeing that everyones comments are edited on this forum and no one from Verizon is responding.

[KH-OrnEsh1]

I'm sorry you are having difficulty. An agent with access to your account will reach out to you directly by email, private message in the Forums and/or the billing telephone number on your Verizon account for more information or to help you resolve your issue.

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@hevero wrote:

Congratulations, Verizon. if you are trying to toy with your customers, you have  found the way. We have been without phone service for 8 days now. Daily calls to Verizon, lasting hours, and daily emails, have gotten us nowhere. Our service was taken away as part of a new "bundle." The sweet sales[person never mentioned we were losing our land line and now only the "Elite Department" can restore it.

Thiis is the most surreal customer service experience I have ever had, with each person I talk to full of fictoion and obfuscation. AMong the lies: We are available until 9 p.m. at 1-800-verizon. Not true. You canceled you service last month. Not true. Your new service has the highest speed Internet possible. (Internet suddenly is nonexistent or putters along.

We have small children and need to make sure we have 911 access. Can anyone explain why it's so hard ot restore our service? Especially when we never ordered this "digital voice" package? I keep seeing that everyones comments are edited on this forum and no one from Verizon is responding.

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[acraftylady]

Dumb question but isin't there a battery back up?  My friend has fios here and she has phone for a few hours if power goes out I thought because of the battery back up or some such?  Mary

[hevero]

Battery backup? Perhaps, but it is not relevant to my issue which is purely bad business practice on Verizon's part, an unwillingness or fear to help on the part of countless employees I have spoken with there.

I did not sign up for digital service. The copper line was deactivated (taken away?) without our permission. We are on day 10 of no phone service, and we have filed a complaint with the state public utilities commission.

Beware when you call Verizon about your channels dsappearing. You just might end up with a new bundle that contains a hidden change in your phone line.

Someone from Verizon has responded to my forum post, but I have yet to see any progress on this matter.

[madasheck2]

I understand EVERYONE'S complaints.  I live in Irving, TX and I signed up for FIOS after being harassed so badly by Verizon.  I was PROMISED that I could go back to DSL if I didn't like it and that the price wouldn't go up that much if at all after the 1yr contract.  HA!  I signed up way back in 2002.  I have tried and tried to switch back to DSL as it was better than FIOS - and cheaper.  They say that I can't because they removed all of my copper wiring.  BUT, I watched them do the whole setup and NOTHING was removed.  I am now stuck either dropping them or going cable which I will NEVER do - horror stories there too.  I was NEVER told by anyone and repeatedly told them that I would switch if I didn't like it and go back to DSL and not ONCE did they say I couldn't ever again.  THIS IS A SHAM.  I am stuck paying a very large monthly bill for something I do not want.  I too am looking for an answer.  This should be illegal - if it's not already.  I am forced now to never go back to DSL if I want and with the economy the way it is, I need to. 

[hevero]

We now have a "temporary" phone number and some scratchy, staticky connection, which is an improvement over our 13 days without phone service. But, it seems that when we lost service (or our wires were removed by Verizon?) two of our three phone jacks were rendered inoperative. What a mess. Verizon has been in touch but there are no last names used, no callback numbers and no real explanation of what happened or what is going to happen. I'm glad someone is listening, but this is not my idea of how a public utility should operate.

[hevero]

This might be a plot for Mi-5....

It has been more than a month since our phone service disappeared.

My handler, Natasha, (not her real name) calls me every week or so to tell me she is on the case. Her phone number does not appear. She does not have a last name. I can neither call nor email her. Of course I cannot call her supervisor. She has "escalaed our case twice now after replacing our phone number (not something we wanted) with a temporary number. Today we discovered that even the new line is not working. (and the phone jacks that stopped working have not been restored). Natasha said someone would be over to look at those if they coul dnot be fixed remotelly. So far we haven't seen anyone ....

Natasha is very polite but she says she cannot access our account records. She has no idea why we have had no phone service. She says she does not work in our area. She says she has been relying on another department that does work in our area to help her solve our problem. She said last week she escalated our "case" to management. So far the only difference we have noticed is that the "temporary" number doesn';t work and we can't call in our out.

We seem to be lost in a sea of plausible deniability.

And as for the online support services, we cannot avail ourselves of them because, according to the dialogue box,  there in no information about our phone number on My Verizon.

And of course when you call either of our numbers, there is no message telling you the number has been temporarily changed or is out of service. There is however a recorded voice that comes on after many rings on the old number  that asks if we want to access our Verizon voice mail box, which would be fine if we had not canceled that service three years ago.

OK, Verizon fans and other seekers who ask no more than to get what we are paying for .... until the next exciting episode, don't call us, and we can't call you..

[hevero]

Thanks, Ornahp. I appreciate your reply. So far no actual progress. I keep getting the same email from someone named Victor. I'm collecting all the reference numbers.

[acraftylady]

Oh so you never signed up for fios and they just switched you over? I was curious because you said no phone with power out and here people do have phone when the power is out so was wondering if the battery back up was specific to our area or what. My mom just signed up for time warner phone and they have no battery back up and she is 85 with no cell. Why she decided to do that I don't know, cheaper than the plain. Old verizon line service she had I guess. When we had the bad October storm here in buffalo Ny 6yrs ago that took down trees and power lines we had no landline or power for 6 days so was glad we had the cells to call family out of state. Mary

[Lauriebug]

Let's all file complaints with the FCC!  I just filed one.  It was easy online at fcc.gov/complaints

I want to have a copper back up to my FIOS just for safety during power outages.

[Hubrisnxs]

From my experience, out takes an Act of Congress to go back to copper. Verizon is moving away from copper service entirely, so soon you won't even have the option even if you want to.

[buffalonyguy]

at the time verizon originally started phone-harassing me to switch from copper / dsl  to fios, I was promised the same price, in fact the friendly verizon agent on the phone said it would cost less, since one of the taxes would be eliminated since there was no longer an actual "wire" to tax.  Of course, the package turned out to be $20 more than what the copper/dsl cost. I grinned and beared it.   However, a little over a year into the contract i was on the verizon site and thought I'd try out a faster internet speed, promised that if i could always return to my cheaper/slower speed if i wasn't completely satified.  Well, after a few weeks I determined that the old speed was just fine with me, the higher speed wasn't worth the money.  When I called to restore my original contracted speed, they said that they don't even offer that speed any more! This was just barely a year into my 2 year contract. They said that in order to restore my service to the slower speed, they would have to charge me more or less the same amount as the faster service.  I got really angry and told them to cancel my fios and put me back on copper/dsl.  They of course said that it's not available anymore in my location, which was a total lie. I was about to tell them to cancel all my verizon accounts when the agent told me that although it would cost nearly the same for either the slower or faster net speed, I would now be on a month to month billing rather than the contract which still had 11 months left.  Hooray!  now I'll just wait until next month and can Verizon's thuggish service.  I'm not a complaining sort of person, but Verizon has pushed me to my limits of patience, both with Fios and their Wireless division.  Good bye verizon!

[blegs38552]

Fully agree. We lost our phone service 8 hours after we lost our power, just as Verizon said we would. We did not have power for 4 days folliwng Sandy, nor did I have cellular service (not Verizon). I had to use my neighbor's landline phone - she is smart enought not to has a FIOS phone connection. We will be calling Verizon to try and get our landline back, but I am not optimistic, eespecially after reading this thread.

[acraftylady]

Every storm is different though. 6yrs ago when we had the October storm here in Buffalo we didn't have copper service for a week with verizon but our verizon cells worked the whole time. Now we have no land line and only cells. Mary