Verizon at Home

[#1]

SERVICE RESTORATION UPDATE: CLICK HERE

Widespread power outages and flooding across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic serve as a reminder of the fury of Hurricane Irene.

While many of our customers escaped the full wrath of the Eastern Seaboard monster, many are facing a challenging period as they work to regain access to flooded residences or are surrounded by water that could take days to recede and making access to their residence unsafe.

We’re working safely and diligently to ensure all of our customers, including public safety entities (police, fire, hospitals, 9-1-1 call centers), government offices, large enterprises and consumers are able to enjoy their communication services as quickly as possible.

The safety of our employees is a tremendous concern and they will not be allowed to enter or work in any unsafe areas.  We apologize for any inconvenience our customers are experiencing.

FiOS Internet and TV services will be affected until power resumes.  Voice service, for up to eight hours, will continue to work with the support of a customer’s back-up battery unit.  Needless to say, if you do not have power at your residence or place of work, it’s important to contact your local power company to ensure they know your power is out.

If your power is working, but some or all of your FiOS services are not, you can report an outage, check the status, request a new repair or update an existing repair by going to www.verizon.com/repair or by using our In-Home Agent support tool at www.verizon.com/inhomeagent and downolad it today if you have not already done so.  You can also call 1-800-VERIZON (1-800-837-4966), and the automated system can perform a basic reset while you’re on the phone without needing to speak to an agent.

For customers without power and who use our copper-based phone and digital subscriber line services, we encourage you to use our automated tools to streamline your service restoration.  You can most efficiently report outages, request a new repair or check your repair status by going to www.verizon.com.

Despite the wrath of Irene, our networks performed highly reliably during the brunt of the storm, and many of our preventive measures proved very helpful in minimizing the overall impact.

Our network field operation teams are out in full force from Virginia to Massachusetts, and they are performing a variety of tasks as safely and quickly as possible including refueling back-up generators at our technical sites operating on backup power; repairing network facilities, replacing poles and cable/drops and assessing network infrastructure damage.

We’re continuing to assess damage to our facilities, such as downed communication lines, broken or snapped telephone poles and damaged cables, and we’ve got an army of resources working as safely and quickly as possible to restore service.

As expected with a storm of Irene’s magnitude, back-up generators and batteries are powering many of our facilities where commercial power has been lost.Those back-up generators ensure that customers are still receiving phone service even though the power may be out.Technical sites will transfer back to commercial power when commercial power is available and stable.All of our data centers are operating normally.

While we experienced no major network issues even during the peak of Irene, call volumes in the Northeast in particular have been higher than normal with most outages linked to the loss of power.

Additional resources are also being used to serve our customers and that includes our Major Emergency Response Team (MERIT) that we deployed to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Jersey to help our network operations employees.  In addition, our emergency disaster recovery fleet is ready for deployment where needed.  This includes mobile command centers, emergency mobile calling centers, satellite trucks and MERIT hazmat trucks.

As expected, Irene packed a punch. We’re glad she’s gone, and we’re even more prepared for other hurricanes or other natural disasters.With the dedication of our employees, we look forward to having your communication services up and running at full strength very soon.

[#2]

It's true that we did keep our landline phone during Irene.  2 days after the storm, no phone and you can't even report it.  Verizon is good for a joke but when you live in a rural area, that's all you got.  Fios?  What's that?  Don't have it here. I'm sure this post will get removed as part of their censorship program.

[#3]

Been a Verizon Customer since 1964, with Copper Landline. This is the 1st time I lost Phone Service

during a Power Outage in all these years... Power went out at 950am Sunday, Phone went out also

( possibly on a SLIC, not copper all the way back to the Switch ), Monday 12 noon, the power comes

back on and so does the phone... <-- 1st time in 47 years Verizon let me down..

On a Side Note, I have FIOS TV Service. Power went out,  FIOS TV Still works ( with the help of my Generator )

Power was out 26 hrs and FIOS kept on Ticking <-- Great Job Verizon !!

Neighbor has Cablevision Optimum iO and when the power went out, it still worked (with the help of my generator power )

but after 18hrs of no power, Cablevision iO went dead... ( I guess they ran out of battery power..

Thats my 2 Cents from Long Island, NY

[#4]

No phone since Sunday.  No way to speak to a live person or get at least an idea when it will be back.  Verizon service sucks.  At least give me a rough idea when I can expect it back.  Met Ed has an outage map and tells you when you can expect your service back.  Come on verizon get with it.  I don't even know if you realize my phone is out.  Verizon.com report is terrible.  Half the response is missing and then it tells me I'm missing information.  Comcast phone looks better every day.

[#5]

Labfish6, Sherri1985,

Thank you for bringing your concerns to our community forums.  We are aware that power outages, flooding, and downed lines are affecting the services we provide and are working to make all repairs as quickly as possible.  We do apologize for the frustration caused during this restoral period.  We have sent you a PM to ask for your information so that we can ensure your services are restored.  Thank you – Mike M

[#6]

Why is it that Verizon's marketing say, go with us to have a phone that works with no power.  Two weeks ago we had a small thunderstorm and lost power for 3 hours.  My landlines phone also went out.  This makes no sense.  Then due to the strike I had to wait over two weeks to have it fixed.  Now my phone rings and there is no one on the other end.  And due to Irene my call forward has turned off and I can not get through to a rep to fix it.  I think we will be considering other services.  At least when the power had restored in my area, the cable phone services was restored.  This issue has occurred three times in the last two months.

[#7]

I called Verizon today to notify that their wires were down in front of my house, took about 40 minutes on the phone to arrange for them to come out on Saturday.  They actually wanted me to see if their battery was re-booted.  If I have to do their work for them, they should at least consult me as to where to install the battery in my house.  As it is, it's installed way up in the rafters in my basement!!!   They must be kidding.   Then called Jersey Central Power and Light to tell them about their wires; the recording said "if you don't want to wait on the phone, just leave your name and phone number and we will call you back in 3-5 minutes; you will not lose your place in line."  And they did, so that problem was solved so much quicker!!!  Verizon ought to take a lesson from this system. 

[#8]

Sorry, not good enough explanation/excuse for the thousands of customers who pay monthly fees for service that is so crucial at times like we just witnessed with hurricane Irene. No service on my corded wall phone that does not require electricity?? Really?? Why am I keeping it? I always thought that when all other services fail, and they have too many times to count, my old school dependable wall phone with the long tangled cord would come through. Well guess what? It was useless and I will be canceling that service as soon as I can get customer service to answer.

[#9]

 this is the first time that FIOS service has let me down! spent countless hours on the phone then not to be told the truth! Ben without TV ot net for a week now, have to use my EVO phone as a hot spot for my lab top. the joke is you guys sent me a bill that doesn't show that I havn't had service for a week now. No net, no phone, no TV.

 get yoru act together in amityville long island!!!!!!!

[#10]

My power went out on Sunday at 10am. Because I signed up for FIOS, I lost my phone service that afternoon when the backup battery died. It's not rechargeable, so I had to replace it when the power came back -- $35 and it is so heavy I had to get someone to come in and do it for me.  This is despite my avoiding using the FIOS phone.  In other words, the battery was doing NOTHING and still was dead after 8 hours.

I used my cell phone for a number of calls before power returned on Monday afternoon; the battery was still fully charged.  It normally lasts about a week and is easily rechargeable.  Why can't FIOS batteries have a longer life and be rechargeable?

In New England,w e know that storms like this can be counted upon to create power outages that last more than 8 hours.  That means that anyone foolish enough to go with a FIOS phone can count on not having phone service.  I think that's dangerous and unacceptable.  Verizon need to improve those battery backups.  The batteries need to last for a week, not 8 hours.  And it would be better if they could be recharged when power returns.  

btw, it was disingenuous of Verizon to claim that we didn't lose phone/internet service.  True, the lines were there, but because of the way they were designed, they didn't work without power. So, it didn't matter if you had a laptop or an iPad or a smartphone that ran off the grid, you still couldn't use your own internet because Verizon's cheesy battery failed so quickly.

[#11]

My Verizon landline has not worked since Sunday,August 28, 2011. I got my power back yesterday, Sept.1,2011 at 8:15pm. My Time Warner Cable was working.  I have not had television for almost 4 days. I turned on the television and it felt strange having it. My landline phone went out at 7:00am on that Sunday. I called Verizon about it and have an appointment for 9/8/11. This is unacceptable. Everyone is getting rid of landlines. I will be thinking about getting phone service from Time Warner Cable. The only reason I have not done that is the phone is on without electricity.  That situation has obviously changed since Sunday. I don't remember if the phone was out when Hurricane Floyd happened. I don't think It did. I called on my cell phone to report my sister's phone is out. Her phone is back. I have tired to cancel the appointment online, but I have to contact her to do that. They want last phone bill and account number. I do not have that. I have no telephone to tell them her phone is working. I have to call them by cell phone on Saturday when I have more minutes. Why is it so difficult to cancel this repair appointment online. I have lived in this house for 54 years and until now I thought the telephone never went out. I have an appointment for 9/8/11. This is unacceptable.

[#12]

 I just want to thank you for the excellent service and I don't know how you did it, but it was great that people trying to reach me on my home phone, which was dead, were able to reach me on my cell. I was without power for 60 hours but could stay in touch with my cell, a smart phone, that I grew to love even more during the outage.

Margaret Mahler

[#13]

I am on Long Island and going into Day 6 with no power, no phone, no internet, no TV.  That is 120 hours plus.  I am told that power and other services will likely not be restored until sometime over the weekend.  I understand that this is a force of nature and not something of the company's doing, but I pay quite a bit of money each month to actually use these services.  I am wondering what these service companies, including Verizon, will be doing to make sure these billings even out.  I should not be expected to be responsible for paying a full bill when I am only able to use the service 80% of a month (or less, depending on when the service is restored).  Could one of you Verizon lurkers out there tell me what will be done in these cases?

[#14]

We were one of the lucky *few* in my area that didn't lose electricity. (power just got restored to those around us last night after 5 days). My neighbor didn't lose power either but they lost all of their Comcast services while all of my Fios services remained up and running

I do wish however, to remark on the landline phone situation. When we first received Fios services, I was very concerned about being forced to accept my telephone line being removed from the tried and true copper line. Shortly afterwards, we experienced a power outage and even though we didn't use the phone very much during that time, we lost the ability to do so after a while.

Because of this, I wanted my landline phone put back onto copper but Verizon absolutely refused to do so.

I think that phone service is very important. You just never know when an emergency will occur and all of the years that we have had your phone service on copper, it was a comfort to know that it was there if we needed it.

 Yes, we have a cellphone but what will happen when it becomes unusable because a cell tower gets hit by a storm (happened to one of my friends during Irene) or the services get jammed with so many calls (which is what happened during the earthquake VA + MD experienced recently).

I truly think that something should be done to improve the reliability of the landline service.

[#15]

I had a power outage 6 days ago that lasted less than 24 hours. Still, I have no cable and internet. When I called Verizon 6 days ago, after waiting almost 2 hours on the phone to speak to a person, I was made to climb around in my basement looking for the cable box, which was installed above my ceiling tiles. So, while I was tanding on top of furniture, removing ceiling tiles to find the box, the call got disconnected... After two hours on hold!! Then... I callled back... 50 minutes later, I got to talk to another person. Explained the problem again, he tells me to unplug the box and plug it back in. Well, the plug is not up in the ceiling, it is right down by the floor. Anyway, then he tells me, I will have to have a technician come out on Thursday 9/1. 5 Days later, living with no TV or internet (which I use for my job) thursday 9/1 comes and goes and no VZ tech comes to my house. So, three phone calls to verizon and mistakingly getting transferred to the sales department and the billing department and literally 4 plus hours on the phone, they tell me someone will call me first thing in the morning. Well, noone has called yet and it is 10:15 am now. This has to be the WORST customer service I have ever recieved. I have invested at least 9 plus hours on the phone with them, not to mention the 4 hours that I waited for the tech to come when he was scheduled to be there. I am beyond furious right now. I just want Verizon out of my life.

[#16]

I was without phone and FIOS service since Sunday evening 8/28 at about 6:23 pm, with the service restored mid-afternoon on Thursday 9/1. I could not get through to request a repair early Monday morning, and was told on a recording that phone and internet could not be restored until the power was restored. The power was restored on Wednesday evening, at which point I finally got through using a public internet room through the Verizon chat line to request a repair. A Verizon repair person was out the next day, which I truly appreciated. But now, when I requested a bill credit for the outage period, I was told that they cannot issue a credit because I could not provide documentation of when the service went down on Sunday evening, even though Verizon obviously is aware of the extent of outages.  I could not get through to Verizon in the first place on Sunday evening or Monday because (1) the phone line and internet lines were down, and (2) when I tried calling on my Verizon cell phone, I couldn't get through because of the tremendous number of requests.  I am a long-time Verizon customer, but this type of mindless response in these circumstances is simply awful customer relations.

[#17]

I was without phone and FIOS service since Sunday evening 8/28 at about 6:23 pm, with the service restored mid-afternoon on Thursday 9/1. I could not get through to request a repair early Monday morning, and was told on a recording that phone and internet could not be restored until the power was restored. The power was restored on Wednesday evening, at which point I finally got through using a public internet room through the Verizon chat line to request a repair. A Verizon repair person was out the next day, which I truly appreciated. But now, when I requested a bill credit for the outage period, I was told that they cannot issue a credit because I could not provide documentation of when the service went down on Sunday evening, even though Verizon obviously is aware of the extent of outages.  I could not get through to Verizon in the first place on Sunday evening or Monday because (1) the phone line and internet lines were down, and (2) when I tried calling on my Verizon cell phone, I couldn't get through because of the tremendous number of requests.  I am a long-time Verizon customer, but this type of mindless response in these circumstances is simply awful customer relations.

[#18]

Everyting game back as soon as power was restored. Except for my Caller ID on all of my STB's. I'm trying to find  time to call for assistace.

[#19]

Thanks to all of you who took the time to post comments Thursday and today.  You’ve raised a number of issues and questions about reaching customer service, scheduled repairs, restoration of electrical power and billing credits.

Those of you who requested help or need answers to specific questions will be contacted directly in order for us to address your individual need.

While service has been restored for the vast majority of our customers who were without service due to Hurricane Irene, our job is not finished until we restore service for you personally, and for others.

In the past two days, commercial power has been significantly restored and that is good news.  With more commercial power, we are quickly reducing the amount of outages our customers are experiencing.

We apologize for the inconvenience you have experienced and will work our tails off to get you back up and running and to take care of your unique issues.

Thanks all, Bill Kula

[#20]

Thank you for your feedback relating to your Verizon services. I have sent a private message to each of you to address your repair related concerns. If you have any other questions or concerns you can certainly send me a PM and I will address. Please feel free to PM me if you have any additional concerns

[#21]

I got my electricity back after 4 1/2 days. My TV from Time Warner Cable was working. My telephone started working 5 days after the storm. I called Time Warner Cable because my neighbor has them for their telephone and they had a working telephone before me. I am considering my options on dropping Verizon for my telephone service. Time Warner Cable is 39.99 and my Verizon service is a little under 50.00. I will consider all things before I make a change. I do not want to make a hasty decision. I was able to use my cell phone during this outage.

[#22]

Our apartment bulding was without landline telephone service beginning 10/29/11.  The snowstorm caused downed wires which set fire to cables.  Verizon dug up the sidewalk on 11/1/11 to fix the underground cable.  Service was finally restored to the building on 12/31/11.  For 2 months, the building was without service!

Verizon is now refusing to issue credit to the residents for the period 10/29/11 to 12/31/11 due to lack of proof by specific apartments of their outage.  Verizon, the proof is that YOU dug up the sidewalk on 1/1/11 to repair the cable! 

Come on, Verizon, do the right thing and issue the credit to the residents!