The City Wants Your Help Rating Verizon Fios

An ad for Verizon Fios in Suburban Station. (Photo: Dan McQuade)

Philadelphia needs your help.

But don’t worry! You don’t have to do more than fill out a simple web form.

The backstory: It has been more than seven years since Verizon signed a franchise agreement with the city for its Fios television service. The 15-year service agreement required Fios to build out its TV network to the entire city in seven years.

Those seven years have now passed. And now the city is asking its residents to help them rate Verizon’s service since 2009.

“We take the conditions of this franchise agreement very seriously,” Philadelphia Chief Innovation Officer Charles Brennan said in a release. “So we are asking for residents to step forward and tell us if they tried to get Fios but were unable to.”

An audit in New York City last year said the company did not live up to its promises for a full citywide rollout of Fios. (Verizon said the audit was, per Fierce Telecom, “based upon erroneous information and incorrect interpretations of the company’s franchise deal.”)

Philadelphia is asking city residents who have attempted to sign up for Fios to fill out this online form if you’ve been told that the service is not available in your neighborhood. (There are certain exceptions in Verizon’s franchise agreement.)

The city asked for similar citizen input when Comcast was attempting to get its franchise agreement renewed last year. Though negotiations went on for months, that agreement passed in December.

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