Best of the ISP-Lists

Verizon's Anti-Business Bureaucracy

ISPs find that even when you want to do business with Verizon, you are faced with a thick tangle of bureaucracy.

[April 22, 2005]

On the ISP-Tech list in April , CA asked list members:

We provide Qwest and Verizon DSL. Oddly enough, I have no complaints with Qwest, other than the frequent cluelessness of their techs. Verizon, on the other hand, provides us with a lot of challenges. Verizon will not accept calls from our customers, instead requiring us to call into Verizon's MCO to submit trouble tickets on our customer's behalf, even scheduling Verizon techs to go to the customer's location to fix issues on the premises.

We have about 3000 Verizon DSL customers, and a small support staff with no more than three techs available to take incoming calls (and make outgoing Verizon calls... grrr..) at any one time. Recently, the Verizon hold time has been growing. As I write this, the Verizon hold time is four hours...

We've heard rumors of an online trouble-ticketing system, but none of the Verizon techs will give any of my techs the location of this system, so we're stuck sitting on hold.

So, is anybody out their providing DSL to Verizon customers? If so, where the heck is their online trouble ticketing?

LM had the tortuous, bureaucracy-laden answer:

::In his best James Earl Jones voice::
Ticket status MUST be obtained using NetWay

From Verizon's NetWay user's manual:

"NetWay is an integrated customer service management tool that provides Data services Network Operation's customers (ISPs) with secure, authenticated, web-based access to customer-specific data network. NetWay gives the ISP customer the ability to offer a higher level of service through real time trouble ticket creation, status checks, and a limited ability to close trouble tickets. ISP technicians will access NetWay remotely via the Internet."

Now, typical Verizon ... How do you get NetWay access?

"The process for requesting Netway access has changed. ISPs requesting Netway access must complete and submit the Access Request Form to their Service Managers. The form and instructions can be downloaded from the "Download" section in Netway."

Yup, that's how you get access to Netway—Log in to NetWay and download the form.

Actually, to be fair, that's how you request access for an employee of the ISP, not for the ISP itself, regardless of what the instructions say. You need to get a SPID (service provider ID) and complete an ISP Activation Form with your Verizon Service Manager.

All that being said, we find that we usually have to call in to get anything done on a ticket opened via NetWay. They do have a line test that we use, even though the techs generally tell us to ignore the results (well, they tell us to ignore it if it says there is a Verizon network problem, anyway). If it says everything is OK and to perform further troubleshooting with our customer, they tend to believe it (even if it passes the test with no sync, no MAC address in the router, and no ping).

YMMV

BD warned fellow ISPs that it doesn't always work that way:

Verizon never set us up on Netway, never listed us as a reseller, never sent referrals to us, only just now set us up on electronic billing.

We dropped all our DSL due to the new cheaper retail rates they are charging (vs our "ahem wholesale" rates we got charged).

Verizon is eating their resellers to look good to their stockholders.

LS urged everyone to report RBOC lawbreaking to the FCC:

Your statements are true. I am working with WBIA and have filed a number of comments to the FCC—one more pending. We are looking for every story we can find. Several people have been told by the FCC that if ISPs in mass will file, they can do something—they are an agency that reacts to what is filed. At least two of the commissioners support our position.

It is against law and regulation for Verizon to sell below cost through an unregulated subsidiary. To get an investigation started, we need as much written support as we can find. Are you willing to support what we are trying to do with written comment?

Eventually, CA obtained the access he needed, and thanked all the list members who had helped:

"We should have NetWay access within the week. Thanks for the help, all."

— End