Verizon going back in-house?

**sprayandpray** · December 14th, 2011, 10:30 PM

New rumor here is that Frontier is taking over Verizon and pulling their locating back in-house. Anybody out there familiar with Frontier?

**fiberlocator99** · December 14th, 2011, 10:45 PM

every where where frontier is or are you talking about a certain area/region?

**daman1** · December 14th, 2011, 10:47 PM

I marked their lines a few years ago but not in-house. I liked working with them. They took good care of their lines and were always easy to work with but that could just be a regional thing.... . They aren't in house as far as I know but I'd certainly look into it if I thought I could mark for them.

**fiberlocator99** · December 14th, 2011, 10:54 PM

i got invited to testing at verizon a couple years back after having 2 years experience locating(phone). i did not past the tests although i was pretty confidant that i did. 4 months later after vz was hiring for locators, the contracted it back out. i had learned from a supervisor at a locating company which is now part of usic that every few years vz took it back in house for a while and promoted the locators to inr jobs and then contracted it right back out. this may be different now that is frontier not actually verizon. who knows well soon see i guess

**sprayandpray** · December 15th, 2011, 07:14 AM

Originally Posted by fiberlocator99

every where where frontier is or are you talking about a certain area/region?

The rumor specifically addressed the North Texas area - I don't know if it includes any other areas.

**The Big-E** · December 15th, 2011, 07:14 AM

When I started locating... i located Frontier in IL... then, VZ was still in-house before Frontier bought them... I never had a problem working along with Frontier folks, prints were good-ish...

I saw a Frontier truck just yesterday down here in FL... (wtf)... didn't know they were down here too!!!

**FiosKing** · December 15th, 2011, 10:40 AM

nevermind

**HPMadness** · December 22nd, 2011, 06:12 AM

Fronteir has taken over all of the Verizon areas in MI.(Minus Verizon Wireless). We still paint and flag as Verizon. Any contractors that do work for Fronteir are coming from Ohio. If any work is being done for Fronteir, it is on them to mark their own cables.

**ProfessionalLocator** · December 31st, 2011, 07:40 AM

In general most of the client firms have lost the capacity to go back in-house.
They have been subcontracting it out so long they have lost the staff that knows how to both do the work and run the office.

In theory they could hire management staff that knows how to run a locate division but this is contrary to how these old firms work.
They need to hire the professional staff and then do what this staff tells them to do. Surrendering this control is contrary to the personalities of the people that currently run things in these client firms. They are going to want to maintain their power and personally direct operations even to the point of overriding the decisions of the professionals they hire to do the job, the same ones they hired becasue they better know how to run things.

On top of that they all have to answer to some form of a state public utilities commission that okays their rate increases. Since restarting their own in-house locating division requires a large capital expenditure that would have to be justified to such a rate control commission they balk at the very prospect.

Don't get me wrong, it can be successfully done just none of them have been smart enough to figure out how to do this.

**FailedSafetyAudit** · January 1st, 2012, 01:19 PM

Agree 100% with ProfessionalLocator's post. Really, really nice insight!!

**Doodle1956** · January 4th, 2012, 08:59 PM

The only thing that i have ever heard about them, is that they are owned by Verizon. Heard that Verizon wants out of the land line and fiber line side of the business, that they only want to pursue the wireless side of things

**ProfessionalLocator** · January 7th, 2012, 02:27 PM

I have also gotten that from Verizon installation contractors, that Verizon was / is looking to sell off it's hard lines and go all wireless.

It created a monster for itself when it started it's fiber optic service. Instead of installing FO to replace aging copper lines it left the copper lines in service and marked it's FO service as a premium service. It should have abandoned all of it's copper lines where FO was installed. The result is they still have to maintain an aging copper system plus the FO system, they doubled their maintenance costs for these areas. Plus they had to pay for installation of FO and only some of their customers opted for the FO service.

Sounds like a series of decisions by college boys, all education and no experience.

**sprayandpray** · January 7th, 2012, 03:38 PM

Originally Posted by ProfessionalLocator

I have also gotten that from Verizon installation contractors, that Verizon was / is looking to sell off it's hard lines and go all wireless.

It created a monster for itself when it started it's fiber optic service. Instead of installing FO to replace aging copper lines it left the copper lines in service and marked it's FO service as a premium service. It should have abandoned all of it's copper lines where FO was installed. The result is they still have to maintain an aging copper system plus the FO system, they doubled their maintenance costs for these areas. Plus they had to pay for installation of FO and only some of their customers opted for the FO service.

Sounds like a series of decisions by college boys, all education and no experience.

They had no choice. Per the FCC they have to maintain the copper lines to allow competitors access to them. They don't have to share the FIOS system with anyone else.

**ProfessionalLocator** · January 7th, 2012, 05:26 PM

Originally Posted by sprayandpray

They had no choice. Per the FCC they have to maintain the copper lines to allow competitors access to them. They don't have to share the FIOS system with anyone else.

Interesting. Would that be on trunk lines / heavy feeder lines or all lines?

I know that around here when new houses go up Verizon only runs FO mains and services into those neighborhoods, no copper.

Perhaps if they switched all their customers to FO when it was installed and left to copper lines but excluded their own use of them. This way the extra cost of maintaining that line would all be passed on to their competitors.

**The Big-E** · January 8th, 2012, 08:31 PM

That is interesting, I too thought it was stupid to NOT abandon those copper lines where FiOS was... In FL we had to locate for VZ and I tried to explain to the supe down here that it might as well be 2-ways, but with the way their contract was structured it is all one utility, one cost to locate with a flat rate, no hrly. billing or footage billing.

Pretty stupid if you ask me... but ProLocator is right, new subs have FiOS only, no copper... seems to me like they should be able to abandon the 25 prs. and 50 prs. that service neighborhoods that have FiOS installed...