The Great Gadfly

Can you hear us now, Verizon?

Saying one thing, doing another

By Peter Kenney

Verizon advertises that, as a company, they are very active in community affairs. Their actual behavior, though, seems at odds with their claims. The public access television station that serves the five towns of Barnstable, Yarmouth, Dennis, Harwich and Chatham has long been helpful to local charities and social service groups. It provides complete facilities and staff assistance to produce television programming for use in raising both public awareness and funds. The facility, operated by the non-profit Cape Cod Community Television Incorporated, is even equipped to produce live telethons, something it does a few times every year.

Unfortunately, as well equipped and helpful as the community media center is, Verizon has, on various occasions, made successful telethons impossible. Years ago the community media center paid to have the phone company, then AT&T, install a permanent telephone board with connections for up to twenty-two individual phone lines. Since Verizon took over the AT&T contract to provide telephone service to the area this phone system has worked only intermittently.

Earlier this year, a telethon to combat homelessness on Cape Cod was stymied in its use of telephones during the telethon when -- for an as yet undetermined reason -- incoming calls failed to reach the studio. Verizon was slated to provide the telephone service using the telephone bank equipment already in place at the access studios. It is not possible to estimate the lost revenues in this instance.

Lights are on but no one’s home

The media center’s staff member who had given up her Sunday afternoon to supervise the technical aspects of the telethon was unable to determine the problem and would have been unable to remedy it anyway. After many futile telephone calls to numbers that provided only vague instructions, she reached a live person, a real Verizon employee supposedly on duty to provide emergency service. This Verizon employee laughed when she heard the problem and said that the company could send someone to check on the situation on Monday afternoon. This, of course, was of no help for an event running for only four hours on Sunday.

Another individual, a volunteer assisting with the telethon, drove the short distance from the television studio to the Verizon facility in South Yarmouth. He knocked on the front door, rang the doorbell and even threw pebbles at three second-floor windows where he could see a light. There was a car with a Verizon employee tag on it outside the facility's front door. There was no response.

Three years ago, a telethon run by the Jewish Federation of Cape Cod was unable to raise money as they had planned during their telethon because the phone service failed. Organizers of the telethon said they estimated the lost revenues to be over $10,000. Verizon had demanded a payment of $1,500 for one day of service, but their service failed.

If this is good, we would hate to see bad

Now, the Housing Assistance Corporation is planning its annual telethon to be held at the Community Media Center on White’s Path in South Yarmouth. Verizon has notified the telethon organizers that they will charge $1,600 to throw a switch, completing the connection to the in-place telephone equipment. Public records indicate that the total compensation package for the chairman of the Verizon Corporation last year exceeded $20 million. One telethon organizer wondered how much more Verizon would charge for one day’s service connection if they were not being good corporate citizens.