Went out to throw some salt down, discovered it is now pouring, at least here in the Roslindale foothills, put the salt away, then looked down the steps to see we'd gotten a Christmas delivery of the Verizon Yellow Pages, now approaching Famous Jewish Sports Legends size.
But now we can throw away the equally small knock-off version we got a couple weeks ago.
Boston firefighters responded to 185 Franklin St. tonight to deal with high CO readings in a Verizon battery room on the lower level of 185 Franklin St., which once was entirely occupied by Verizon.
A heads up to those on Verizon regular telephone or DSL service. Verizon will decommission copper wire service in Massachusetts starting in 2018.
The web address below explains what will happen. PDF documents for Massachusetts are linked. Read more.
Verizon announced today it will soon make its FiOS Internet/cable/phone service available in all of Jamaica Plain, Hyde Park, Mattapan, Roslindale and Roxbury, and in parts of South Boston, including the waterfront. Read more.
Hizzona signed an agreement letting Verizon offer TV channels and the company says it begins cabling up homes in parts of West Roxbury, Roslindale and Dorchester tomorrow - with Dudley Square by the end of the year. The move means parts of Boston now have three main broadband/TV/phone providers: Verizon, Comcast and RCN; Verizon says it will roll out FiOS to the entire city within six years.
The Dorchester Reporter reports that Verizon's FiOS rollout is making life hell for people living near the Enterprise Street garage where all the FiOS trucks are based.
Abutting full-time residents say the clamor at the facility is disturbing them through the evening into the early morning hours before picking up again a few hours later, often before 6 a.m.
Verizon and city officials said tonight that if they reach agreement on a cable contract, the company will roll out its FiOS service to four Boston neighborhoods using its traditional fiber-optic cables right to people's homes or buildings. Read more.
City officials and Verizon reps hold a meeting next week on the $300 million deal that's supposed to usher Boston into the next generation of communications greatness, or at the least provide an alternative to Comcast in the roughly 70% of the city not already served by RCN. Read more.
Initial Verizon FiOS service areas in Boston in pink.
Verizon has filed updated plans with the city for its roll out of FiOS Internet, phone and cable service that show that West Roxbury and parts of neighboring Roslindale, most of Dorchester, the area around Dudley Square, would be the first areas in the city to get the Comcast competitor. Read more.
I normally would not quote two articles from the Huffington Post, but they are Boston specific and make a ton of sense to me.
I've been trying to figure out this whole FiOS rollout in Boston. There has to be a sweet deal in there for Verizon for them to re-neg on years of telling the city, "No, no FiOS for you". Now I have the smoking gun. Read more.
Casey Liston looks down from her office at 100 Cambridge St. at Verizon workers, now on strike.
Mayor Walsh today announced a deal in which Verizon will spend $300 million to bring its FiOS fiber-optic cable/Internet service to Boston.
Under the deal, the company will also attach wireless modems to city street lights and utility poles to provide better 4G and eventually 5G services to its wireless customers. Read more.
City IT workers have begun mapping out existing underground conduits to see if there's enough room for another company - or the city itself - to lay the cables needed to bring competitive high-speed broadband to Boston, City Councilor Matt O'Malley (Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury) said today. Read more.
City Councilor Matt O'Malley (Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury) says Comcast just isn't cutting it for Boston and wants to look into ways to get Verizon to bring its fiber-optic connections into town - or other companies or utilities that might do so.
RCN isn't really competition enough for Comcast and with FiOS stopping at the city line, Boston is in danger of falling on the wrong side of the digital divide for a lack of competition, O'Malley said at a City Council meeting today. Read more.
Verizon dropped the local Fox affiliate from its Boston-area system today in some sort of contract dispute, meaning lots of people outside Boston didn't get to watch football. Except for a tiny sliver of Dorchester, Verizon never cabled up Boston, in part due to a long-running dispute with Tom Menino and now the company has stopped expanding its service anyway.
An annoyed citizen complains about the scene on Mt. Vernon Street on Beacon Hill:
Verizon phone books left on street; who uses them anyway!!!!
An eco-citizen on Beacon Hill complains of the annual December infestation of phone books:
Litter everywhere! Why are the phone companies allowed to dump a dead tree on everyone's doorstep?
Earlier:
The Globe's stupid pink bags.
A persnickety citizen complains about these bundles of phone books on Mt. Vernon Street on Beacon Hill:
Verizon phone books left on street; who uses them anyway!!!!
UPDATE: Service came back on shortly after 4 p.m.
Matt Robbins reports:
Verizon data conduit damaged last night at 800 Boylston. Major outage for downtown Boston
800 Boylston is the Prudential Center. One frustrated network administrator says the outage is going on 15+ hours:
Affecting hundreds of companies in Boston and Cambridge. Worst outage I've seen in 7 years of working in Kendall.
Says another:
Good thing I still have 10,000 hours on AOL!
A Boston lawyer is suing Verizon over a monthly fee it imposed for the privilege of being able to make long-distance phone calls.
In a lawsuit filed yesterday in US District Court, Brian Lenfest says the company should reimburse him and all other businesspeople it charged for the $10 "monthly minimum charge for long distance."
Lenfest says that while his statements say that in months when he makes long-distance phone calls, the
cost of the calls would be deducted from the charge, in fact:
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