Free Republic

Brenda Smith and her husband became curious last winter about the workers who showed up in their neighborhood around Old Providence Road in Virginia Beach. Without any notice to her, the largely Hispanic crew began digging trenches in her front yard and shoving orange tubing into the ground. She tried to ask them questions, but they didn't speak English. Concerned about the growing number of illegal immigrants in Virginia, Smith decided to find out whether the men in her yard were here legally. She learned they were part of a $23 billion Verizon fiber-optic project intended to bring state-of-the-art television...

In an interview with The Financial Times yesterday, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg had this to say when asked about the competition posed by Apple’s iPhone: “It’s very cool. And Steve Jobs eventually will get old… I like our chances.” That’s got to be one of the most indelicate utterances by one CEO regarding another. Mr. Seidenberg is about a decade older than Mr. Jobs, so he can’t possibly be referring to his age with the most unfortunate “Steve Jobs eventually will get old” phrase. He must be referring to Mr. Job’s frail appearance at the Apple WWDC in June. Apple...

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Online forums where thousands of child-porn images have been posted have been stricken from three Internet providers, including two of the nation's five largest, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday. Verizon, Time Warner Cable and Sprint agreed with Cuomo to block access to child pornography disseminated through newsgroups and user groups, a hard-to-regulate sector of the Internet designed to bring together users with like interests. With the agreement announced Tuesday, Cuomo skipped over the untold number of individual users accessing child porn and went to the portals that, unwittingly they all say, provided the...

WASHINGTON - Internet users should be free to surf where they want and download what they please. But shouldn't the owners of the networks that make the Internet possible also have rights? That, in a nutshell, is the topic of debate at a special public meeting of the Federal Communications Commission at Harvard Law School on Monday. Recent events involving Comcast Corp. and Verizon Wireless have raised questions about network owners interfering with customer traffic flow. The meeting also is expected to attract a rally on minority media ownership. The session is the agency's most serious public discussion to date...

U.S. and Massachusetts flags that flew with state National Guard troops over in Afghanistan are now at the center of an ongoing labor dispute between Verizon and a union trying to organize workers. Terry Skiest, a Verizon employee and Massachusetts Air National Guard member, said his Acton supervisor ordered that two flags be removed last fall from the outside of his office cubicle and hung less prominently inside his work station.

A software malfunction some time Tuesday night short circuited voicemail service for about 700,000 Verizon customers in California. Unanswered calls just continue to ring rather than switch over to Verizon’s voicemail system. Jon Davies, media representative for Verizon, said the problem started some time during the night and the cause of the glitch has not been determined, nor is there an estimated time when service will be restored. Residents and businesses in Ridgecrest reported having voice mail problems. “We’re working on the problem and hopefully it will not be long before we get to the root cause,” Davies said. “It...

THE LAST TIME Bill Whiting heard his little brown dog, she was screaming in pain as two miserable bastards tortured her. Whiting heard this over the phone as the two monsters demanded money to return the Beagle mix. Her name was Edna, and she was so gentle that Whiting took her to hospitals, where patients cheered up as they petted her. Edna had pointed bunny ears, warm brown eyes and was Whiting's "constant companion" since he adopted her a decade ago. She had never known anything but kindness from human hands. Whiting made sure that Edna always wore her collar....

Boy Seeks Ransom for Dog Missing Since Halloween Saturday, December 08, 2007 Lassie, come home.After his beloved beagle mix, Edna, disappeared on Halloween night, Bill Whiting did what any dog owner might: He offered a reward in posted fliers around the neighborhood and anxiously waited for a call, MyFoxPhilly.com reports. When the phone rang, however, the news was not what he was expecting. "He said, ‘Mister, I got your dog. You don't believe it? You want me to hurt it so you can hear?’ I pleaded with them not to hurt the dog," Whiting said of the caller, one of...

That ringing in Becky Strawn’s ears came from her cell phone bill. Buried in the minutiae was a $9.99 charge for “Premium Features.” When she called her provider, Verizon, to learn what that meant, she was told it was for ringtones. Because she never ordered ringtones, that was news to Strawn, a Kansas City resident. It’s also news to other cell phone users who are learning to their chagrin that they are being targeted by unscrupulous text message spammers and now cell phone “crammers.” Cramming is when mysterious and unauthorized charges show up on your phone bill, courtesy of aggressive...

Washington, D.C. (November 1, 2007) -- Verizon today said it would increase its FiOS High-Definition lineup by fivefold in 2008 to 150 channels. In addition, the telco said it would expand its HD VOD service and launch a "major expansion" of sports and multicultural programming next year. "Once more, Verizon leads the way," Shawn Strickland, Verizon's vice president of video solutions, said in a statement. We launched FiOS TV in 2005 with more HD than most cable and satellite companies, and we know that our HD customers expect us to continue that lead. We're planning a major initiative in 2008...

Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez solicited $125,000 in charity contributions from Verizon shortly after pushing successful legislation last year that is expected to bring billions to telecommunications firms in coming decades. Less than three months after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Núñez's hotly contested bill, Verizon spread holiday cheer to seven of the Assembly leader's designated charities in amounts ranging from $5,000 to $30,000. The contributions all were recorded in state disclosure documents on the same day, Dec. 7, weeks before the new legislation would allow Verizon, AT&T and other telephone firms to obtain statewide franchises to offer cable television programming. "It...

NORFOLK Federal authorities today arrested a Verizon Communications' father-and-son subcontractor on charges of employing and housing undocumented immigrants.The case stems from a May traffic stop on Interstate 264 in which state troopers discovered a van full of illegal immigrants working on a Verizon subcontract digging ditches for fiber optic lines.U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement agents spent the past five months building a case against B&B Cable and its owners, the Buttery family of Midland in Fauquier County. Robert R. Buttery Sr. and his son, Robert R. Buttery Jr., were brought into U.S. District Court in Norfolk for their first appearance...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two Senators on Friday called for a congressional hearing to investigate reports that phone and cable companies are unfairly stifling communications over the Internet and on cell phones. Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said the incidents involving several companies, including Comcast Corp., Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc., have raised serious concerns over the companies' "power to discriminate against content." They want the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee to investigate whether such incidents were based on legitimate business policies or unfair and anticompetitive practices and if more federal regulation is needed. "The phone and...

full title:Outrage: Verizon Wireless wants to sell your personally identifiable data: here’s how you can stop this Last week, it was revealed that Verizon Wireless is mailing a notice advising wireless subscribers that if they fail to Opt Out within 30 days, Verizon will begin SELLING their Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) to “third parties and affiliates”. CPNI information includes all the calls you place or receive on your cell phone (along with date, time and call duration). Verizon intends to allow “targeted ads” created by their affiliates sent to your phone.

I have lumped these together as they are symptomatic of underlying interesting issues on corporations vs internet issues: The first is Verizon's definition of unlimited: New York State has given Verizon Wireless a million new reasons understand that the word “unlimited” when used in advertising should mean what it means elsewhere in polite society.The second is a Congressman's comments on Comcast's forging of reset commands to stop BitTorrent legal downloads: "Comcast has made a major mistake in attempting to hinder peer-to-peer file sharing as an aspect of its network management," Boucher said. "The inability of customers to (share files) significantly...

Many North Texas Verizon customers had trouble using their wireless devices Friday afternoon. The company's wireless service crashed affecting most of the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

NARAL uses Heavy Pressure Tactics on Internet Provider to Gain Text Service by Hilary White NEW YORK, October 1, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Under heavy pressure from abortion lobbyists, Verizon Wireless, the second largest broadband provider in the US, will allow the abortion activist organization, NARAL Pro-Choice America to use its service to send text message alerts to customers. The announcement is a reversal of its earlier decision to refuse the request and follows a campaign launched by abortion lobbyists and the New York Times. NARAL had asked for a five-digit "short code" that would allow Verizon customers to receive news...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorSeptember 28, 2007Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A leading pro-abortion group is claiming that grassroots activism from its membership resulted in getting a top wireless company to change its policy on allowing its mass text messages to its supporters. However, Verizon Wireless already had the change of policy in the works before NARAL urged its members to contact it.The two had been feuding over the ability of the organization to use its system to send out text messages to its membership with alerts and updates.Verizon initially refused to allow NARAL to use its network but higher officials reversed...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorSeptember 27, 2007Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Cellular phone company Verizon Wireless and top pro-abortion group NARAL have been feuding over the ability of the organization to use its system to send out text messages to its membership with alerts and updates. Verizon initially refused to allow NARAL to use its network but higher officials reversed the decision.A regional unit of Verizon initially denied NARAL's request to send out text messages to its membership.In an email NARAL sent to its members and obtained by LifeNews.com, NARAL president Nancy Keenan said Verizon deemed NARAL too "controversial" and "unsavory" to...

Saying it had the right to block “controversial or unsavory” text messages, Verizon Wireless has rejected a request from Naral Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group, to make Verizon’s mobile network available for a text-message program. The other leading wireless carriers have accepted the program, which allows people to sign up for text messages from Naral by sending a message to a five-digit number known as a short code. Text messaging is a growing political tool in the United States and a dominant one abroad, and such sign-up programs are used by many political candidates and advocacy groups to send...

"Verizon users can upload camera phone videos directly from their mobile device to Youtube, using the text code YTUBE (98823). The videos will appear on the site in a matter of minutes."

PHILADELPHIA - When Henry Powderly II ordered Verizon Communications Inc.'s FiOS fiber-optic service, he knew he was about to be connected to the future of telecommunications. He also got unplugged from its past. Which meant that while Powderly was gaining features, he was losing some telecommunications options. Verizon's installer — without warning, Powderly says — removed the copper wires that used to carry his phone calls. For most of the world, copper still links homes and businesses, as it has for a century. Verizon's new high-bandwidth fiber lines are fully capable of carrying not only calls but also Internet data...

Excerpt - A federal agency on Thursday barred the import of new models of cell phones that contain semiconductors made by Qualcomm Inc., because the chips violate a patent held by a rival, Broadcom Corp. The U.S. International Trade Commission's decision represents a compromise between a ban on all phones with Qualcomm chips, as Broadcom requested, and a ban only on the chips themselves, as recommended by an ITC administrative law judge late last year. ~ snip ~

Verizon is one of the phone companies currently being sued over its alleged disclosure of customer phone records to the NSA. In a response to the court last week, the company asked for the entire consolidated case against it to be thrown out—on free speech grounds. The response also alleges that the case should be thrown out because even looking into the issue could violate state secrets, of course, but a much longer section of the response tries to make the case that Verizon has a First Amendment right to "petition" the government. "Based on plaintiffs' own allegations, defendants' right...

For many years, we've had stories about people getting incredibly pissed off at hidden fees, often from the telco industry. The industry tries to defend those fees, but they're really just ways of lying about the actual price so they can advertise low prices and actually charge you a lot more. The telcos really love these fees. Remember last year when telcos no longer had to charge a certain government mandated fee, and instead simply replaced it with a new fee with a meaningless name that they just got to pocket? The latest is also a fun one. Chronno S....

WASHINGTON--Vonage may continue to sign up new customers while appealing a patent infringement loss to Verizon, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. In another reprieve for the struggling Internet phone company, the decision arrived just hours after a three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit here spent nearly two hours listening to arguments from both parties. The stay, which arrived without comment from the judges, was part of a brief order that also dictated the schedule for the appeals process. Vonage chairman and interim CEO Jeffrey Citron applauded the decision and said the company would...

FairPoint Communications owned one small rural telephone business in Kansas when the company first came to New England in 1994 to buy a cluster of small, rural operations in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. More than a decade later, the same small company is asking utility regulators in those three states to approve a deal with Verizon - the region's largest carrier - that will catapult FairPoint into the big leagues of the telecom industry. But before the company can swallow up Verizon's traditional telephone service in northern New England, FairPoint must prove to regulators that it has the money,...

It appears Verizon is unable to tell the difference between 1 dollar and 1 cent. This is a hilarious clip of a customer service request where a person is repeatedly quoted .002 cents then billed .002 dollars. No one at verizon can figure out that .002 cents is not .002 dollars. audio clip enjoy the laugh.

(CBS4) BOSTON -- Picking a cell phone service can be pretty confusing. They all offer deep discounts and big promises but which one will really work when you need it? Consumer Reports just tested the biggest cell phone service. It's an ongoing battle. Cell companies are going head to head claiming to be the best. Rosalind Tordesillas says a recent survey by the Consumer Reports National Research Center shows one in four people are looking to change their cell service providers. The survey asked almost 43,000 subscribers in 20 major cities about the five major carriers. "Poor phone service, like...

(AgapePress) - As the nation remembers and reflects on the five-year anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, one woman recalls how God prepared her for a pivotal role in the event. On that fateful morning, Lisa Jefferson was the Verizon supervisor on duty who spoke with United Airlines Flight 93 passenger Todd Beamer during the final moments of that flight.The Boeing 757-222 from which Beamer called that that day was one of the four planes hijacked as part of the September 11, 2001 attacks -- the only one of the four aircraft that failed to reach its intended target....

The federal government filed a lawsuit against state officials and Verizon Communications Monday to prevent the release of information about the company's alleged role in the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program. The lawsuit comes after 22 residents asked the state's Public Utilities Commission to investigate whether Verizon provided federal agents with information that could have resulted in the warrantless surveillance of telephone calls.

AUGUSTA - State utility regulators are giving Verizon Communications two weeks to provide adequate guarantees the company has not violated privacy laws by cooperating with a domestic surveillance program. During a brief meeting Monday, Kurt Adams, chairman of the Public Utilities Commission, said a press release from Verizon stating it had not cooperated with the federal government by facilitating eavesdropping on private conversations or maintained an informational database for the National Security Agency was insufficient for the commission to render a finding in a request for an investigation lodged by 22 Maine residents

The creators of controversial cartoon series South Park have blasted bosses of Comedy Central for blanking an image of Mohammed during an episode, following threats of violence from Muslim fundamentalists. Just weeks after the TV executives enraged Matt Stone and Trey Parker by refusing to air a repeat of their controversial 2005 Scientology episode, the pair were further annoyed when an Islam-related episode was censored. Comedy Central president Doug Herzog has since admitted that TV executives may have "overreacted," but Stone and Parker are still upset by the decision to doctor their show. Parker says, "If you're saying that this...

Three chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union sued AT&T Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc. in state court Friday to block the telecommunications companies from providing phone records to the federal government. Two complaints filed in San Francisco Superior Court claim the companies violated state law by helping the National Security Agency assemble the largest database in the world. The complaints name 17 individuals as plaintiffs, including a former congressman, a nationally syndicated journalist and a psychiatrist. The allegations, which a spokesman from Verizon denied, are based on a May 11 article from USA Today, which said AT&T, Verizon and...

Leslie Cauley, the USA Today reporter who last week “broke” the news that three major U.S. telecommunications companies were assisting the National Security Agency in building a database to more easily track any communications by potential terrorists, is listed as a donor to former House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt... A search found a listing for "writer and journalist" Leslie Cauley, indicating she gave $2,000 to Gephardt on June 30, 2003, when Gephardt was running for the Democratic presidential nomination. And that seems not to be her only tie to Democratic politics ... Cauley's link to a Democratic campaign seems likely...

Verizon, the country's second-largest phone company, said yesterday that it had not provided local phone records to the National Security Agency as part of efforts to compile a database of calling records to track terrorist activities. The announcement, a day after BellSouth issued a similar statement, came in response to a report in USA Today last Thursday that the three biggest Bell companies had handed over their customer calling records to the security agency, including data on local calls, without warrants. But the statement by Verizon left open the possibility that MCI, the long-distance carrier it bought in January, did...

NEW YORK, May 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Verizon Communications Inc. today issued the following statement regarding news coverage about the NSA program which the President has acknowledged authorizing against al-Qaeda: As the President has made clear, the NSA program he acknowledged authorizing against al-Qaeda is highly-classified. Verizon cannot and will not comment on the program. Verizon cannot and will not confirm or deny whether it has any relationship to it. That said, media reports made claims about Verizon that are simply false. One of the most glaring and repeated falsehoods in the media reporting is the assertion that, in the...

Verizon: No unfettered access for govt By Sinead Carew 7 minutes ago Verizon Communications said on Friday it does not and will not provide any government agency unfettered access to customer records, responding to a report that it was one of three U.S. telephone companies that had given access to data on millions of consumers. USA Today reported on Thursday that the National Security Agency (NSA) was secretly amassing phone records from the country's three biggest phone companies to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist plots. The report prompted both Democrats and Republicans to demand explanations amid...

Telecoms facing multi-billion dollar lawsuits Verizon sued for $50 billion over wiretap program By Leslie Wines, MarketWatch Last Update: 11:31 AM ET May 13, 2006 NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - AT&T Corp., BellSouth Corp and Verizon Telecommunications are facing lawsuits seeking billions of dollars in damages for the decision to turn over calling records to the government, the New York Times reported Saturday. A federal lawsuit was filed in Manhattan yesterday seeking as much as $50 billion in civil damages against Verizon on behalf of its subscribers. Under telecommunications law, the phone companies are at risk for at least $1,000 per...

AP NewsBreak: NJ lawyers sue Verizon for giving records to NSA By BETH DeFALCO, Associated Press Writer Published: Friday, May 12, 2006 Updated: Friday, May 12, 2006 TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - Two New Jersey public interest lawyers sued Verizon Communications Inc. for $5 billion Friday, claiming the phone carrier violated privacy laws by turning over phone records to the National Security Agency for a secret government surveillance program. Attorneys Bruce Afran and Carl Mayer filed the lawsuit Friday afternoon in federal district court in Manhattan, where Verizon is headquartered. The lawsuit asks the court to stop Verizon from turning over...

I've been carrying the same cell phone from the same service provider (Sprint) for over 6 years. People are starting to give me funny looks because my phone looks like a small black brick. I've had the money to replace it ... it just hasn't been that important. Now I'm ready to get a new phone and contacted Sprint. The best they can do is give me a lousy $150 rebate on a new phone! I've been with them for 6 years and the best they can offer is $150?! Since I can own my number now I'm planning on...

Excerpt - AT&T Inc. is nearing the acquisition of BellSouth Corp. for roughly $65 billion, people familiar with the situation said Saturday evening. A deal could be announced as early as Monday, these people said. ~snip~

I’ll begin by stating for the record that I am not an expert on counter-terrorism, intelligence operations or national security, which makes me just like 99.9% of those speaking out on these topics today, including too many purely partisan politicians eager to politicize all of it in search of recently elusive political power. Let me also establish the fact that few in America are more concerned with the rate at which we are certainly losing our freedoms and liberties than I am. I write about it all the time. But the American people are now being told that the current...

Washington DC, Dec. 09, 2005 (CNA) - Intervening in the heated debate about the mention of Christmas on the public square, Concerned Women for America (CWA) presented a first Christmas list showing which businesses are honouring the Reason for the Season (the birth of Jesus), which ones are not, and which have mixed records. It first lists the corporation ‘Nice’ or friendly to the Original Christmas tradition.  This year Macy's joins the NICE list because it has returned the explicit mention of Christmas and Merry Christmas to its stores and its ads. L.L. Bean, on the other hand, just barely...

Verizon Wireless says it will offer live broadcast TV and other video services via a new wireless network that Qualcomm (QCOM) plans to build. Verizon and Qualcomm look to make it easier for cell phone users to watch TV on the go — bringing the companies a new revenue source in the process.

NEW YORK, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Verizon Wireless said on Wednesday it has filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction against a Florida firm that it charges with sending thousands of unsolicited text messages to Verizon customers' mobile phones. The wireless venture of Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Vodafone Group Plc (VOD.L: Quote, Profile, Research) said it filed the suit in U.S. District Court in New Jersey after 98,000 spam messages were sent on behalf of Ormond Beach, Florida, firm Passport Holidays telling Verizon customers they had won cruises to the Bahamas. While there have been relatively few...

SBC and Verizon both win merger clearance By Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington Published: October 31 2005 23:16 | Last updated: October 31 2005 23:16 SBC and Verizon on Monday successfully concluded their campaigns to win regulatory clearance for their two multi-billion dollar telecommunications deals. The Federal Communications Commission approved both companies’ merger plans without onerous conditions. The FCC, which has for months been evenly split between two Democratic and two Republican commissioners because of a Republican vacancy at the agency, voted unanimously to approve SBC’s $16bn takeover or AT&T and Verizon’s $8.5bn takeover of MCI following a weekend of internal...

Mrs. DFU, who works for Verizon, gave me the news today that Verizon will double the relief donation of any employee who gives to the Katrina victim relief effort. That is great news. The company is large enough to make a big impact in the effort. If you are a Verizon employee, make sure to give through work. ( Am I allowed to suggest this? If you know a Verizon employee, give them your money to contribute. :)

Tired of constantly rising cable-TV costs but convinced you can’t do anything about them? I know the tug of defeatism. When my bill climbs, I do little more than grumble that I’m a prisoner of Comcast and its chokehold on local sports. Using a loophole in federal law, it refuses to provide Comcast SportsNet to satellite TV, my only alternative. Maybe it’s time for all of us to vent. Last week, close to 12,000 people did so. Prompted by Free Press, a media watchdog group, they complained to the Federal Communications Commission about cable’s rising prices and anti-competitive practices. They...

ATLANTA (AP) - Turning to a businessman to lead one of the nation's seminal civil rights groups, the NAACP's board of directors said Saturday that Bruce S. Gordon, a retired Verizon executive, will be its next president. "Civil rights leaders throughout this country did what they did and died, so my generation has full responsibility to walk in the doors those brave people opened," Gordon said after his selection. Gordon was selected by unanimous vote to succeed Kweisi Mfume, former U.S. representative and a candidate for Senate in Maryland who resigned abruptly in December. Several months later, a report surfaced...