The Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable should take action...

Monday. The company disputes the need for the efforts Coakley requested. Her request resulted from a 2009 department investigation into service quality in the 413 area code. Coakley wants several steps taken to ensure reliable local phone service, she said. Coakley said: “While Verizon has begun to address the service quality problems in Western Massachusetts, we urge the department to require a concrete plan for addressing infrastructure deficiencies and stronger measurements and penalties to ensure continued improvement.” At hearings in 2009-2010, complaints were registered about non-functioning dial tone, excessive static, phones being chronically out-of-service, problems that affected service, and laggard restoration of dial tone, Coakley said. Her office found a higher-than-average number of trouble reports in wire centers in western Massachusetts and instances of infrastructure being exposed to the elements, she said. “Evidence presented in the case also showed that Verizon is slow to respond to `trouble reports,'” Coakley’s office said. During 2009-2010, Verizon took longer to install lines than it had four years before, the office said, citing evidence presented by IBEW Local 2324 showing the increased challenge of maintaining thousands of miles of wirelines with fewer resources. “While the evidence in the case also demonstrated that Verizon has taken several steps to improve service quality in Western Massachusetts over the past year, the AG’s Office recommended several specific proposals to ensure that this progress continues and consumers throughout Western Massachusetts have reliable local telephone service,” Coakley said. Those include requiring Verizon to improve its network’s condition, particularly related to 31 wire centers that have the most problems, by Oct. 31; requiring Verizon to report annually to ensure continued focus on network maintenance and improvement; requiring an independent audit of the condition of the network and resources that Verizon MA allocates; and a mandate that Verizon provide more detailed service quality reporting, including specific reporting on the western Massachusetts region. “Verizon strongly disagrees with the attorney general’s characterization of service quality in western Massachusetts and the need for remediation,” a spokesman told us by e-mail. “The evidence that we have presented in the DTC’s proceeding clearly demonstrates that Verizon provides excellent service quality throughout the region, exceeding the DTC’s requirements. And neither the Attorney General nor any other party to this case has presented any evidence that proves otherwise.”