Jun, 2001 : Verizon Charges ISP With Falsified Trouble Reports
📅 - American telecommunications giant Verizon Communications said yesterday that the company has filed suit against DSL provider Covad Communications, alleging Covad orchestrated a "campaign of lies and distortions designed to deceive the public and regulators and to shift its operating costs and blame for its own problems to Verizon."
The suit alleges that Covad instructed employees to shift the blame for faulty DSL service to Verizon, resulting in more than 22,000 submitted reports falsely claiming that Verizon failed to properly provide lines for high-speed DSL service. The lines were used to connect Covad DSL customers to Verizon's network.
"The picture we have is of Covad installers being thrown into the field under-trained and under-equipped, while the company was over-promising customers delivery on a schedule it had no hope of meeting," said William Barr, Verizon's Executive Vice President and General Counsel. "Then, when the inevitable happened and Covad couldn't deliver to customers, there was a policy in place to generate false complaints of Verizon service problems in order to cover up the Covad failures. This had the effect of shifting costs from Covad to Verizon."
Verizon says they can back their claims up with the sworn statements of 26 Covad ex-employees.
"Managers and directors would often give me direct orders to open trouble tickets blaming the ILEC even when it was obvious the problem lay with Covad," said one employee, according to a release from Verizon. "At one point, I prepared a summary [of trouble tickets that showed] only approximately 2 of the 200 tickets involved genuine ILEC problems... I carried out the orders to issue false trouble tickets becauseI feared for my job and have a family to support."
The two companies certainly aren't strangers to each other. Covad filed an antitrust suit against the Verizon, which formed by the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE, in 1999. The company is also a vocal opponent to Verizon during proceedings related to regulatory issues and telecom monopolies.
The suit alleges that Covad instructed employees to shift the blame for faulty DSL service to Verizon, resulting in more than 22,000 submitted reports falsely claiming that Verizon failed to properly provide lines for high-speed DSL service. The lines were used to connect Covad DSL customers to Verizon's network.
"The picture we have is of Covad installers being thrown into the field under-trained and under-equipped, while the company was over-promising customers delivery on a schedule it had no hope of meeting," said William Barr, Verizon's Executive Vice President and General Counsel. "Then, when the inevitable happened and Covad couldn't deliver to customers, there was a policy in place to generate false complaints of Verizon service problems in order to cover up the Covad failures. This had the effect of shifting costs from Covad to Verizon."
Verizon says they can back their claims up with the sworn statements of 26 Covad ex-employees.
"Managers and directors would often give me direct orders to open trouble tickets blaming the ILEC even when it was obvious the problem lay with Covad," said one employee, according to a release from Verizon. "At one point, I prepared a summary [of trouble tickets that showed] only approximately 2 of the 200 tickets involved genuine ILEC problems... I carried out the orders to issue false trouble tickets becauseI feared for my job and have a family to support."
The two companies certainly aren't strangers to each other. Covad filed an antitrust suit against the Verizon, which formed by the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE, in 1999. The company is also a vocal opponent to Verizon during proceedings related to regulatory issues and telecom monopolies.
Reads: 1248 | Category: General | Source: TheWHIR : Web Host Industry Reviews
URL source: http://www.thewhir.com/marketwatch/verizon613.cfm
Want to add a website news or press release ? Just do it, it's free! Use add web hosting news!