What They're Saying

Verizon misses local channel connection deadline Town Counsel taking action
By Peter Rossi, Wakefield Item | June 18, 2007

Verizon failed to meet its Friday deadline to hook up to Wakefield's local cable channels, WCAT and the high school channel, and the town is now taking action against the cable giant that could result in the revocation of its license if it continues on the same path.

"We are taking a plan of action that we hope will result in immediate compliance," Selectman Betsy Sheeran said this morning after meeting with Town Counsel Thomas Mullen.

Sheeran, who handles cable TV issues for the Board of Selectmen, had put Verizon on notice to provide Wakefield with local access channels on its system by the end of the business day last Friday, June 15.

"I was on the phone with them four times Friday. They said they were putting people on overtime over the weekend. They could have done that two months ago. As far as I was concerned, it was a day late and a dollar short," she said.

Mullen said that if Verizon persists in its failure to hook into the local channel network, "... the ultimate sanction would be revocation of its license."

Both Sheeran and Mullen are hopeful that it doesn't come to that.

"I would like to think by the time they hear from this town, that within 48 hours they would be in compliance," Selectman Sheeran said.

On May 22, 2006, the selectmen granted a cable license to Verizon to provide its fiber optic subscription television service (FiOS TV) in Wakefield.

Language in the original contract gave Verizon up to one year to begin providing the Wakefield cable channels on its system.

When selectmen at that meeting expressed dissatisfaction with the one-year wait, Verizon representative Jim McGrail responded that Verizon would agree to a shorter time frame only if the board granted the license that night.

The selectmen agreed to Verizon's request and awarded the license at that same May 22 meeting.

However, last Dec. 11, Sheeran reported to the board that the six-month period by which Verizon had promised to provide its customers with the local access channels ran out on Nov. 22.

To comply Verizon's needs to tap into competitor RCN's system, a newer system than the Comcast lines.

Sheeran told the Item that over the ensuing months, she had been told that Verizon had reached an arrangement with RCN but that the agreement was being reviewed by both companies' legal departments.

Today's plan of action is designed to get Verizon moving, said Mullen.

"Rather than setting another deadline that could be missed, we are proceeding on a pace with enforcement that, if in the near future the company manages to comply, we could ultimately drop the enforcement order," Mullen noted.