Verizon

Letter to the Editor: Arlington Needs New Options for High-Speed Internet Service

By ARLnow.com

The owner of a small technology business wrote to the Arlington County Board this week to argue that the existing choices for high-speed internet service in Arlington are inadequate and new options should be considered.

Josh Blanchard, a Ballston resident, shared his letter with ARLnow.com.

Dear County Board of Arlington,

Imagine that new residents in Arlington routinely went for days or weeks without power, or water service in their new homes. Imagine that the power company routinely shut off service to new and old residents for arbitrary reasons, and that restoring service required dozens of hours spent on the phone battling a Kafkaesque bureaucracy.

This is the situation we have in Arlington county right now with internet service, and it is untenable. I’m writing to ask what plan the county has to improve competition in Arlington for reliable, high speed Internet service.

My wife and I have been Arlington residents for 10 years, and recently moved to a new home in Avon Park just west of Ballston. Our experience with Verizon FIOS has been so aggravating that I find myself regretting our decision to remain in Arlington. The prior resident at our new home had Verizon FIOS working, we are FIOS subscribers. The switch should have been flawless, as it was for our other utilities. It was not. Our service worked for 24 hours before Verizon arbitrarily shut us down, and now insists that it will be a week before they restore service. We have been on and off the phone with Verizon for days, in a series of increasingly more futile conversations. Our only other option for high speed Internet is Comcast, who offers incredibly unreliable Internet and also has terrible customer service. In our old house (also in Avon Park), we repeatedly suffered similar outages and aggravations at the hands of both Comcast and Verizon. Our experience is far from unique – terrible treatment and unreliable service from Verizon and Comcast is par for the course in Arlington County.

I’m a software engineer and business owner who works from home. Internet is not a luxury for me, it is an essential utility. Our home is replete with IoT devices that require Internet to function. The temperate in our home got to 85 degrees in the middle of the night last night because our thermostat does not function properly without Internet connectivity. Our home security will not work without internet. Not to mention, every minute we are without service costs my business money.

We live just 3 blocks away from the Ballston Business Improvement District, and as you know the county is actively courting startups and technology companies to the area. If a fellow business owner were to ask me about locating a new tech startup here, I would caution them against it, as Internet service is too essential to be left to the dreadful oligopoly we have with Comcast and Verizon. Our options for residential internet service are appalling for an urban area, making Arlington an undesirable location for most tech companies who will rely heavily on telecommuting. Commercial service options in the area are no better. If Arlington wishes to grow a tech friendly community, we must address this problem.

To that end, I have a few questions to ask you:

1) What is the county doing to court competitors to Comcast and Verizon, such as Google Fiber?

2) What steps has the county board in Arlington taken to lower the regulatory burden for laying fiber infrastructure, and court new ISP startups, like Brooklyn Fiber, Chattanooga Fiber, or Rocket Fiber in Detroit?

3) Has Arlington county explored establishing a county run municipal broadband service?

4) What other steps does the county plan to improve competition for high speed Internet service to Arlington residents?

Thank you for your time and consideration, I look forward to hearing your response.

Sincerely,

Josh Blanchard

ARLnow.com occasionally publishes thoughtful letters to the editor about issues of local interest. To submit a letter to the editor for consideration, please email it to [email protected]. Letters may be edited for content and brevity.

TRAFFIC ALERT: Downed Utility Lines Close Section of Columbia Pike

By Chris Teale
1/3

A section of Columbia Pike closed in both directions for downed utility lines lying in the roadway.

The Pike closed to all traffic between S. Randolph Street and S. George Mason Drive, with police diverting cars onto side streets. A reader said the lines came down around 2:30 p.m. Thursday (July 15) at the intersection of Columbia Pike and S. George Mason Drive.

Crews from both Verizon and Comcast were on scene to fix the downed lines. According to scanner traffic, some lanes began to reopen just after 4:15 p.m.

Drivers in the area should expect continued delays as lanes reopen.

FiOS Service Coming to Fairlington As County Continues Comcast Negotiation

By ARLnow.com

Sign about FiOS meeting in FairlingtonFairlington will soon get Verizon FiOS TV and internet service.

Fairlington is the last neighborhood in Arlington to be wired for FiOS, according to Rob Billingsley, Arlington County’s Cable Administrator.

Under an agreement with Verizon enacted in June 2006, the company agreed to complete a county-wide implementation of FiOS service within 10 years. The initial service build-out took place mostly in north Arlington, before Verizon’s fiber optic lines were brought to other parts of the county during a second phase of the project.

The final phase, in Fairlington, is expected to wrap up this summer, Billingsley said.

One unanswered question — which is one of the subjects of a scheduled Feb. 10 Fairlington community meeting — is how Verizon will get service from the fiber optic lines that run along the street to the thousands of condo units that make up the World War II-era neighborhood.

It’s a straightforward process for single family homes, for which the home owner also owns the surrounding lot. In historic Fairlington, however, various condominium associations own the land and control changes to the property.

Verizon will need to strike agreements with each condo association to outline how it will get service from the street to each unit. It’s theoretically possible that FiOS could fulfill its contractual obligations to the county by laying the fiber lines without actually providing any residents with service, Billingsley noted.

While FiOS is widely available to homes in the county, many apartment buildings and condo complexes still lack the infrastructure to support FiOS service.

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Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Yorktown vs. H-B Woodlawn ultimate frisbee (Flickr pool photo by Kevin Wolf)

Arlington Probation Officer Charged — A 40-year-old Arlington County probation officer has been charged with the aggravated sexual battery of a 10-year-old girl in Woodbridge. The officer has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation into the crime. [NBC Washington]

No Democrats to Run Against Van Doren — Nancy Van Doren is the lone Democrat to file to run for the Arlington School Board seat being vacated by Noah Simon. She’s expected to be confirmed as the Democratic endorsee on Aug. 6. [InsideNova]

Verizon Outage Reported — A widespread Verizon FiOS and wireless data outage was reported in the D.C. area Sunday night through Monday morning. [CBS Local]

Public Hearings for Water Plans — Arlington County will hold public hearings in September regarding an updated Water Distribution System Master Plan and an updated Stormwater Master Plan.

Flickr pool photo by Kevin Wolf

UPDATED: FiOS Internet Problems Reported

By ARLnow.com

VerizonLogo1Verizon FiOS customers in Arlington and elsewhere in Northern Virginia are reporting difficulties with their internet connections.

The problems include sporadic difficulty connecting to websites and connections that are crawling at dial-up speeds. The issues have been reported in south and north Arlington, as well as Falls Church and Vienna, said Alexander Chamandy of Arlington Virginia Computer Repair.

Update at 2:00 p.m. — Verizon says the issues have been resolved.

“Verizon FiOS customers in parts of northern Virginia, Maryland and D.C. may have experienced sporadic issues with their Internet or video on demand service earlier today,” said Verizon Media and Public Relations Director Harry J. Mitchell. “We have resolved the issue, and services have restored as of about 1 p.m.”

Lessons Learned from Derecho 911 Problems

By ARLnow.com

Arlington County is using the 911 problems following the June 29 derecho as a learning opportunity.

In the days following the storm, which left 1 million customers without power in Virginia, Arlington and Fairfax counties experienced numerous problems with its 911 service, which made 911 unreachable for many emergency callers; some callers got a busy signal after calling 911, others heard nothing.

The problems were traced back to Verizon’s local communications backbone. In a report released last week, Verizon said the 911 problems started as a result of power outages.

Verizon’s central phone facility in Arlington lost power after the storm. It operated for a few hours on battery power, but a generator at the location failed to start (due to fuel line problems) and the facility lost power at 5:00 a.m. on June 30, after the batteries drained. Although Dominion restored power to the facility at 12:45 p.m., it took time for Verizon to recover its “telemetry” systems, which allow it to see and diagnose problems in its phone network, which had been been damaged by falling trees pulling down phone lines.

In Arlington, 911 service was spotty for days, but was deemed restored and stable by July 4.

In its report, Verizon said it has learned lessons from its 911 failure and will be improving its generator maintenance and redesigning some of its network systems to improve redundancy and reliability. Arlington County says it, too, has learned lessons from the experience.

Jack Brown, Arlington’s director of emergency management, said he’s hopeful that a 911 failure will never happen again. Should it happen, however, he said the county will have a more defined playbook of how to handle the situation.

During the days after the storm, Arlington advised those with emergencies to call the county’s non-emergency line at 703-558-2222. If all else failed, the county also staffed its fire stations so that residents could walk in and report an emergency. A “couple of people” did end up resorting to walking to fire stations, according to Brown.

Through the county’s efforts and somef luck, Brown said no one in Arlington was seriously harmed as a result of the 911 failure.

“We are very lucky that we didn’t have any life-threatening emergencies that couldn’t get through during that time,” said Brown. “We were very vulnerable during that period.”

In Virginia, a state panel is currently investigating the 911 failures, Brown said. Northern Virginia congressmen also called for the FCC to investigate the problems.

Flickr pool photo by ddimick

Service Updates from Dominion, Verizon

By Katie Pyzyk

(Updated at 12:40 p.m.) The good news about power outages in Arlington is that all of those stemming from the June 29 storm have been fixed. The bad news is crews had to deal with some new outages this morning, brought on by the storms that passed through Sunday night.

The Dominion outage website showed around 100 customers without power as of 8:00 a.m., but those now appear to have been fixed.

Verizon, meanwhile, reports significant progress on restoring service to its TV, internet and phone customers who were affected by the June 29 storm. A Verizon spokesman said technicians worked extended shifts over the weekend and service levels are nearly back to a normal level today.

Crews are now working to restore service to “several hundred customers in areas technicians could not previously reach due to downed power lines,” according to Verizon.

“I’m extremely proud of our team, which has worked 12 hours-plus daily in temperatures exceeding 100 degrees to bring service back for our customers,” said Chris Childs, Verizon’s Potomac region president of consumer and mass-business markets. “I’m extremely grateful to our customers, who have been overwhelmingly gracious, patient and understanding throughout this process. We will keep going until we’ve fully restored service for all those affected by this harsh weather.”

As of this morning, Verizon field crews were responding to a total of 163 downed utility poles and 602 downed copper or fiber cables throughout the D.C. region. Damage assessments are still underway following Sunday’s storms; there’s no word on exactly how many customers were affected.

Flickr pool photo by ddimick

Utility Companies Still Working to Restore Service

By ARLnow.com

(Updated at 12:55 p.m.) Dominion, Comcast and Verizon are all working to restore service to thousands of Arlington customers still affected by Friday night’s storm.

As of 9:30 a.m. on Monday, 27,586 Dominion customers were still without power, down from 59,000 at noon on Saturday. The company says it has 4,200 employees and contractors working to restore power to customers in all affected areas, but notes that the huge scale of the damage is making restoration a multi-day process.

“Many poles and cross arms need to be replaced, and other infrastructure needs to be rebuilt,” Dominion said in a press release.

Verizon says it’s working “around the clock” to restore phone, internet and TV service. According to spokesman Harry J. Mitchell:

As with most services in the immediate aftermath of the storms — a situation faced by more than a million residences and businesses throughout the Washington metropolitan area — Verizon has been making every effort to assess damages to its facilities and immediately had crews working to get services back online. However, due to extensive commercial power outages across the entire region, our crews have had to deal with a number of technical and mechanical challenges, in addition to storm damage such as downed poles and trees on our wires.

A power issue in one of our Arlington facilities has created several issues that we’re currently working through, including difficulty some callers are having when dialing 911 in Fairfax and Prince William counties. These counties’ 911 centers now are receiving most calls, and we continue to work diligently to restore full calling to them.

We’re working late hours — often around the clock — and bringing in additional technicians from other parts of our service area to assist in bringing service back as quickly as we possibly can. We appreciate customers’ continued patience as we work to restore services in the wake of one of the worst storms in recent memory.

Comcast, meanwhile, is also facing significant service issues in Arlington in the wake of the storm. Last night many Twitter users reported that their Comcast TV and internet service had gone out, despite it working earlier in the day. According to Comcast spokeswoman Aimee N. Metrick:

At this time it appears most issues are directly related to commercial power outages, and for the vast majority of people, service should be restored as power comes back on to their homes. However, given the severity of the winds and rain that arose from this storm, we are also seeing some more extensive damage caused by falling trees, poles and more that will take longer to repair.

We are working closely with state and local emergency personnel and power companies, and have employees working across the footprint to assess and repair damage in impacted areas once provided clearance that it’s safe to do so. We appreciate our customers’ patience and understanding, and will continue to work until service has been restored for all.

With temperatures again expected to climb into the 90s, Arlington County’s libraries and community centers are open today as cooling centers for those without power. Among the centers that will be open are:

  • Aurora Hills Community and Senior Center (10am-3pm)
  • Barcroft Sports and Fitness Center (8 am-10:30pm)
  • Carver Community Center (9am-9pm)
  • Charles Drew Community Center (3pm-9pm)
  • Fairlington Community Center (8am-9pm)
  • Gunston Community Center (2pm-9pm)
  • Langston-Brown Community Center (9am-10pm)
  • Lee Community Center (9:30am-6pm)
  • Madison Community Center (9am-9pm)
  • Thomas Jefferson Community Center (6am-10pm)
  • Walter Reed Community Center (8am-10pm)

Arlington’s libraries — including Central, Aurora Hills, Glencarlyn, Shirlington, Westover — are scheduled to be open from 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. today. Yesterday Central Library and Shirlington Branch Library stayed open until 11:00 p.m. to accommodate those who lost power. According to the library blog, some 600 people were crammed into Central Library yesterday afternoon. The fire department also set up a temporary spray park at Central Library to help kids cool off.

The Cherrydale and Columbia Pike libraries are closed today due to lack of power. Also closed is the Lubber Run Community Center, the Long Branch Nature Center, some schools and some summer camps. See a full list of county closures here.

Dogma Bakery in Shirlington (2772 S. Arlington Mill Drive) is remaining open until 9:00 tonight and welcoming pets and owners who need a cool place at which to hang out. Owner Sheila Raebel — whose own house is without power — says she has set up chairs and tables after finding out that other cooling centers weren’t necessarily welcoming pets.

“We had people who were asking about it,” she said. “We found out the county… doesn’t have a place for people with their pets to come when it’s really hot. There are a lot of dogs who are older and a lot of cats who can’t live in a place where it’s 85 degrees”

The store’s Lee Highway location is currently closed due to lack of power.

Flickr pool photo by ddimick

Utility Work Continues at Busy Clarendon Intersection

By ARLnow.com

(Updated at 4:15 p.m.) Verizon utility work is still blocking part of the busy intersection of Wilson Boulevard and Washington Boulevard in Clarendon.

The work has been on-going since late last night, after an underground cable was damaged by a contractor. Verizon says work in the intersection could continue through tomorrow morning.

“A contractor performing work to install traffic light control cables bored through one of our underground cables, affecting service for several hundred customers in the area,” said Verizon spokesman Harry J. Mitchell. “We will have to replace the damaged section of cable, and we’re preparing to do that. We hope to have all work done, and service restored to all customers, by 8:00 a.m. tomorrow (Oct. 7).”

Verizon crews are working in two manholes in the middle of the intersection. Water is being pumped out of one of the manholes and onto the street. Traffic is still getting by on each street in the six-point intersection, though some lanes are blocked.

Less than three weeks ago, Verizon phone and internet service was knocked offline for hundreds of customers in the Courthouse/Clarendon area when a contractor accidentally cut through several underground cables.

Verizon Service Restored in Clarendon/Courthouse

By ARLnow.com

The week-and-a-half long saga of the damaged Verizon cables has finally come to a close.

Verizon technicians had to painstakingly splice back together thousands of copper lines in three large cables that were damaged by a contractor taking a soil sample in Rocky Run Park (1109 N. Barton St.). Hundreds of Verizon customers in the Clarendon and Courthouse area lost their phone and DSL internet service as a result of the cut cables.

As of 6:30 last night, service was restored to all customers, according to Verizon spokesman Harry Mitchell.

Clarendon/Courthouse Verizon Outage Continues

By ARLnow.com

Hundreds of Verizon landline phone and DSL internet customers in the Clarendon and Courthouse area are still without service today, a week after a contractor taking a soil sample struck several cables buried under Rocky Run Park.

“Our restoral efforts continue,” Verizon spokesman Harry J. Mitchell told ARLnow.com this morning. “We’ve replaced and completed work on one of the damaged cables, and we’re at work on the second cable. We also found that a third cable was damaged, and we’ll be replacing a section of that one as well.”

The cables contain thousands of individual copper lines, which carry phone conversations and internet service to hundreds of Verizon customers in the area. Each copper line must be painstakingly spliced together to restore service. On Wednesday, Mitchell said employees were working around the clock to perform the repairs.

“We will keep at it until we’ve restored all services,” he said today.

One tipster, whose phone service was knocked offline last week, says he has been told to expect a prolonged outage.

“I was told that customers could easily be out of service through Friday,” the tipster said.

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