Clarification About Verizon Wanting to Discontinue Legacy Communication Services

[dexman]

Recently, there have been reports appearing on the Internet that Verizon is looking to discontinue legacy services in several parts of the country. One named area is New England, which is where I am.

Now, I do have FiOS at the house, so, I know that I'm all set.

But, my question concerns those pesky "dark zones". In my town, there are lots of areas where Verizon has decided not to make FiOS available to residents & businesses. In those areas, Verizon still sells copper based POTS and DSL over existing cables. In many of those areas, the electrical and phone utilities are underground, and, it is thought that Verizon simply doesn't want to be bothered trenching yards &/or driveways to run fibers into buildings.

What is going to happen in those situations? Will Verizon allocate resources to do proper fiber installs...or will the company try to deploy various alternatives including the 5G wireless delivery or possibly simply cutting off landline services and giving those affected by it some sort of running discount to simply switch over 100% to Verizon Wireless?

My reason for asking is that the Church I attend is in one of those "dark zones". The two cable companies that service the town have no conduits under our side of the street along our block. Verizon has no fiber (FiOS or wholesale) either. All that is there is the old high pair count copper that dates back to New England Telephone and a 50-pair feed running into the Church's phone closet. The last time Verizon had workers go into their manhole in front of the building, one of the workers pointed out an empty Verizon couduit and said that it could be used for fiber if Verizon so chose to pull it.

So, what should I expect Verizon to be offering as an alternative the drop dead date approaches?

[tns2]

They will not drop service without an alternative.  Yes that means they will continue to support legacy serices in some areas. 

Of course in some areas they may push for alternatives that people will be unwilling to accept.  E.g wifi based services.

[dexman]

With reports claiming that at&t wants to, flat out, abandon some of its rural customers, I get the feeling that Verizon might take the same approach...in those affected areas. Our town is not on the short list attached to the request, but, with all of the "dark zones" Verizon has created, the company could not up and cut all copper services at this time without leaving some business customers with absolutely no alternatives to consider.

[tns2]

In order to drop service, without alternative, they need to get the local/state authorities to approve it.  Something I have hard time believing they will get.

[dexman]

Knowing that towns/cities/municipalities haven't forced communication companies to provide 100% coverage as a condition for offering upgraded services....has me thinking that the governing bodies are not thinking things through. Otherwise every physical address in my town would have access to both cable TV providers as well as FiOS.

[tns2]

Added service is a different thing then Legacy Communication Services.

Existing Basic Phone service is protected in most areas under various rules and regulations.