PUC Complaints - Santa Monica Service Problems

We are currently having problems serving customers in Santa Monica. Verizon is bouncing all of our orders for telephone line access ("dry loops").

Here is the problem as I understand it:

Our area of Santa Monica is served by a "Central Office" which has a "DSLAM" that provides ports for DSL service. There is one port for each DSL line, whether it's from Verizon Online or Brand X or whoever. We aloo use the same telephone lines and DSL ports.

This device is full.

What this means is that nobody in the west half of Santa Monica can get DSL from us or from anyone else.

Verizon bounces all the orders, from us, or from anyone else.

Verizon has made no plans to update or replace the unit, even though doing so would cost only a few thousand dollars.

They seem to feel that dragging their feet on this will result in more people signing up for FIOS even though FIOS is not available in most areas in Santa Monica affected by this problem. In any case availability of FIOS is of no help if the customer does not want FIOS.

This is really hurting us since about half our customers are in Santa Monica.

We are taking this up with the Public Utilities Commission.

It would help if you could take a few minutes and fill in their online complaint form, which is located at:

http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/puc/forms/complaints/filecomplaint.htm

It costs nothing, it only takes a few minutes, and a bunch of complaints s often what it takes to motivate Verizon to take action to solve a problem like this.

Jim Pickrell

Brand X Internet