Yesterday, the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) approved Verizon’s plan to deal with safety issues that are related to its FiOS video service installations.
In July, the PSC told Verizon that the installations of its fiber-optic cable violated the National Electric Code. The violations included concern over whether Verizon was grounding its cable properly after safety inspectors examined them earlier in the summer. For more on the violations, click here.
The PSC had threatened to stop the rollout of Verizon’s services in New York City until the violations were resolved.
This summer, Verizon came up with a grounding remediation plan as part of a PSC program to ensure that technicians are properly grounding the fiber-optic terminals. As part of that plan, Verizon said it would ensure that 95 percent of the systems were properly grounded, but in the first month of sampling it found 83 percent were properly grounded.
In Wednesday’s meeting, the PSC approved of Verizon’s plan regarding the safety violations after making a few minor recommendations, but it gave the telco until March 31 to correct new, and older, installation problems.
According to the Albany Times, the PSC will decide how it wants Verizon to ground the FiOS terminals near subscribers’ homes at next month’s meeting.
More Broadband Direct:
• Panasonic serves up tru2way TVs in 2 Comcast markets
• Economy hitting cable stocks
• Comcast follows through on offering 1,000 HD choices
• NCTA/SCTE open call for papers
• Verizon gains approval for safety plan on FiOS installs
• Verizon ups service offerings in Calif., Mass., Pa.
• Qwest expands its Ethernet footprint
