The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that it obtained internal company documents that describe the effort to switch problematic copper lines to fiber. Verizon customers with copper-based landline phones who call for repairs twice in 18 months "will be told that their 'only fix' is to replace decades-old copper line with high-speed fiber as Verizon won't fix the copper," the report said.
While Verizon still has a few million copper-line customers, the Fiber Is the Only Fix policy is responsible for 1.1 million changes to fiber in Pennsylvania and other states. The policy is also in place in New York, Massachusetts, Virginia, and Delaware, and it's expected to expand to New Jersey, the report said.
The Verizon documents obtained by the Inquirer apparently confirm what customers have been saying for years about Verizon technicians' reluctance to fix copper lines. "Once at the customer's home, the Verizon technician tells the customer that the only solution is to switch to fiber, which includes the installation of a FiOS box," the Inquirer reported. "If a flagged copper customer needing repairs ultimately declines fiber upgrade, the Verizon document commands: 'Do not fix trouble' with the copper line." (The newspaper quoted from the documents but did not publish them in full.)
http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/04/verizons-fiber-is-the-only-fix-program-upgrades-old-copper-lines/
