On a New Jersey Islet, Twilight of the Landline [telecom]

Oct 15, 2013 2 Replies

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Joseph Singer 12 years ago

MANTOLOKING, N.J. -- Hurricane Sandy devastated this barrier island community of multimillion-dollar homes, but in Peter Flihan's view, Verizon Communications has delivered a second blow: the telecommuni- cations giant did not rebuild the landlines destroyed in the storm, and traditional telephone service here has now gone the way of the telegraph.

"Verizon decides then and there to step on us", said Mr. Flihan, 75, a retired toy designer and marketer.

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Note: Seems to me I remember a similar article about service on Fire Island, New York, but my guess is that Fire Island has money where Mantoloking perhaps does not.

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John Levine 12 years ago

Uh, no. As of the 2000 census, Mantoloking was the richest municipality in NJ, per capita income of $114,000.

For reasons I don't understand, the NJ regulators are not holding Verizon's feet to the fire as the NY regulators did. It makes no sense not to rewire Mantoloking, which is full of big houses with rich owners who'd likely take high priced bundles to stay in touch with the office on Wall St.

R's, John

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Fred Goldstein 12 years ago

Quite the opposite. Mantoloking is filthy rich, one of the richest towns in New Jersey, which says quite a lot. However, the problem is not quite so severe because Comcast provides telephone service there, and has repaired its network. So residents and businesses can get full-quality PacketCable service form Comcast.

Fire Island, on the other hand, does not have a working cable system. Verizon was the only telephone provider, and there was only limited Wireless ISP coverage, if that is still in business. So they had no alterantive, and VoiceLink was far from a sufficient substitute.

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