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Day after Verizon announces impending Boston FiOS, workers go on strike
By adamg on Wed, 04/13/2016 - 9:07am
Casey Liston looks down from her office at 100 Cambridge St. at Verizon workers, now on strike.
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Comments
Coming soon to a hidden Congressional act new you
Verizon will use their lobbying power to claim that the strike hurt their business so much as warrant a special dispensation from the US Government and/or the state.
Few companies are as scummy as Verizon. I wish their workers the best of luck. I wish the our elected officials would fight these telecommunication companies as vigorously as the unions bosses.
Yup.
Yeah, my enthusiasm about finally getting FIOS was immediately tempered by my recollection of just how wretched a company Verizon is. I guess I can take some solace in knowing that they aren't quite as dedicated to actively hating their customers as Comcast, but we're firmly into "would you rather be flayed alive or fed to fire ants?" territory here.
I'm in the minority here.
I had no enthusiasm at all upon hearing Verizon was going to install FIOS. I think I might have grumbled out loud without realizing it...
But here's the thing
Verizon is at least a union shop.
Comcast doesn't have unions, so they can do the things Verizon wants to do and no one is there to call them on it.
RCN, I believe, only has "independent contractors", so the staff doesn't even get the bennies regular employees get.
I guess it's all relative. I'm just hoping for an equitable and quick resolution.
Kinda union
From what I understand, these union workers are the ones laying cable and phone lines. The whole wireless sector of Verizon is non-union. This union used to have ~200k members, and now has less than 40k. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
Wireless is non-union
And somehow it is less Verizon than one would think (at one point Vodaphone was a major stakeholder.) The irony is that AT&T is the union shop for wireless while the provider with the legacy name of a union shop is not.
Still, I'd love to know who maintains FIOS.
I wish there was another
I wish there was another route for internet besides shitty Verizon or shitty Comcast Xfinity or whatever their name is now.
RCN?
Is RCN available in your area?
unfortunately i moved and now
unfortunately i moved and now live on the south shore. I only have two options for internet. Verizon or Comcast.
And that's Verizon dsl...
So you really only have comcast. Wanna go in together on a flock of carrier pigeons?
Municipal Internet
the has been talk about the municipality in which I live offering internet service either through the municipal light plant or otherwise. If the quality of the MLP's service is any indicator, everyone will sign up and drop both Comcast and Verizon (we almost never lose power, and we pay significantly less than we would to Eversource or Grid).
Ive heard some towns have
Ive heard some towns have this. People I know in Norwood have it and love it. I wish more areas would do it especially mine i'd sign up in a heartbeat.
Which municipality?
n/t
Braintree has it
n/t
Overall I have been happy
Overall I have been happy with RCN. But they are only in parts of the city.
Guys- there is. In Boston and
Guys- there is. In Boston and some surrounding areas you can get NetBlazr. It's as fast as cable but not through any wires. I've had it for 5 years and love it. I think it would be great to have a story on it to spread the word
Only in a small part of Boston
NetBlazr is available in far less than half the city's footprint, and probably less than half its residential population.
Their service is nearly-line-of-sight, so it's takes more effort for them to deploy where there aren't lots of tall structures. I've spoken to them about the possibility of moving into this part of town (Rosi/WRox) by placing transceivers on top of Bellevue Hill. They're looking into it.
Oh technology gods....
Please send us some magical new technology that will release us from the stranglehold of Verizon and Comcast, and their storm of craptacularity! Google internet balloons, perhaps?? Please?
comcast
Verizon could kill David Ortiz and it would still be better than Comcast treats Boston customers. I don't care what it costs I will pay to just not have to use comcast.
Comcast once cut the cable lines off the pole when we were using RCN. Literally cut them off and the cable was lying in the street. The RCN repair guy said they do it all the time.
Verizon, headlining sponsor
Verizon, headlining sponsor of IndyCar.
LOVED the
CEOs response to Bernie today, absolutely loved it.....
LOVED Bernie's response
to the CEO, absolutely loved it:
"I don’t want the support of McAdam, Immelt and their friends in the billionaire class. I welcome their contempt."
Ahhhh yes
Ahhhh yes, more platitudes from the seemingly always yelling and angry Marxist!
Better than the pandering and lies from the 1%ers
who are supporting (or are), his electoral opponents.
'89 Strike
My only hope is that this strike is not as bad as '89. My girlfriend had been with the phone company (New England Telephone I believe it was at the time) for only a year.
Now, 28 years later, she's walking around in circles again.... This time in Brockton, not at Franklin Street.
And I have to say she is the only person I know of who has never been laid off or fired, but has gone through just about five stationary changes. Only the Phone Company can make this happen!
What about this Boston Verizon deal
Have public interest people vetted that?
We know how big deals work in Boston. And we know Verizon is a sketchy company.
Then there's the technological privacy issues with whatever sensors and network of new boxes Verizon installs. Any engineer can tell you that's not going to be done in a secure and privacy-sensitive way by default, and this is also the kind of situation in which the surveillance state crazies try to find a way to increase their grasp.
Awful lot of people seem to
Awful lot of people seem to want their jobs replaced with robots nowadays...