Verizon Defends NYC Fios Buildout at NY Supreme Court
Verizon “fully complied with its contractual obligations” in New York City under its cable franchise agreement (CFA), it said Wednesday. New York City sued Verizon for allegedly failing to meet a 2014 deadline in the CFA to roll out Fios…
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video service to all city residents (see 1703140043). In an answer filed Wednesday at the New York Supreme Court, Verizon denied any wrongdoing. “There was no mystery or misunderstanding about how Verizon planned to build its fiber network: Verizon and the City discussed the approach during their CFA negotiations and the CFA itself specifically refers to the fact that Verizon was in the process of upgrading its existing network. All of the obligations, schedules, forecasts, and assumptions regarding residential cable service that were negotiated and ultimately agreed upon were based on the understanding that Verizon would be upgrading its existing network as it was entitled to do -- without the City’s permission -- in its capacity as a common carrier under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934.” After the agreement, Verizon continued the citywide deployment and passed repeated city audits and inspections, the carrier said. “Since 2008, when the Agreement was negotiated, neither the meaning of the Agreement nor Verizon’s performance under the Agreement has changed,” Verizon said. “One factor alone explains the emergence of this dispute beginning in 2014: a change in Administration, which is now trying retroactively to change the Agreement from what was negotiated to what it wishes it meant.”