16 S. Jersey towns to Verizon: Fix our copper phone lines

With most of the Northeastern United States hurtling toward super-fast communications, towns in a swath of rural South Jersey fear being left far behind - even off the grid at times.

Wireless reception can be weak there, officials say, because of a dearth of cell towers and because Verizon Communications Inc.'s decades-old copper lines, hanging from telephone poles or snaking through underground conduit, hum, crackle, or go dead during rainstorms or fog. These lines also deliver DSL Internet.

Comcast Corp.'s Xfinity services may be available in some areas, but not in others.

"In three to five years, there will be no dial tone, and what recourse will residents have?" asked Greg Facemyer, a committeeman in Hopewell Township, Cumberland County. "The scariest thing is that this is New Jersey, which is the most densely populated state in the country, and if we can't get 100 percent wired-out, good luck to other states."

Tim Van Meter, 36, a farmer and schoolteacher who lives in Hopewell, said that his phone can hum on sunny days and that on rainy days he doesn't even bother using it.

Verizon hasn't extended DSL Internet service to his home, and cable doesn't come within about a mile of him.

"This is 2016, and I can't get the Internet," Van Meter said.

Verizon spokesman Ray McConville said this week that the telecom company had reviewed customer-service reports, and that its South Jersey service quality was "consistently better than" state standards. He also said the company had invested "tens of millions of dollars to improve our copper network in South Jersey and maintain the reliability of telephone service for our customers, especially those with critical service needs like hospitals, fire, and police departments."

But McConville added that Verizon intended to meet with the mayors of 16 towns spread over Cumberland, Atlantic, Salem, and Gloucester Counties in the next month to hear more of their concerns.

The South Jersey towns' complaints reflect the evolution of the nation's communications network, in which telecom companies upgrade the technology in some areas - such as wealthier suburbs - but overlook others.

Stefanie Brand, director of the New Jersey Division of the Rate Counsel, a consumer-advocacy agency, said that "it's my understanding that the problem exists in more than 16 towns, but these are the towns that took the initiative."

Brand said the towns were being squeezed by Verizon, which has decided not to wire them for new fiber-optic FiOS services but also doesn't appear to be maintaining the old copper network.

The municipalities, in addition to Hopewell, are Estell Manor, Weymouth, Alloway, Lower Alloways Creek, Mannington, Pilesgrove, Upper Pittsgrove, South Harrison, Commercial, Downe, Lawrence, Maurice River, Millville, Upper Deerfield, and Fairfield. They filed their complaint with the Board of Public Utilities in late November, claiming deteriorating phone service.

Agency spokesman Earl Pierce said the Board of Public Utilities was "reviewing the complaint and awaiting Verizon's answer."

The South Jersey complaints are similar to those aired in late 2015 by the Communications Workers of America, which submitted to the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission more than 100 photos of what appeared to be rundown or broken parts of Verizon's copper-phone network. The union has asked the PUC to investigate.

The CWA and the South Jersey towns say that Verizon, as the local telephone provider, has the legal obligation to invest funds into the copper lines when it doesn't build out fiber-optic lines to extend FiOS services to those areas.

Hopewell Township officials have mapped for regulators the local residents who have reported problems with their phones.

"You have people who will fall into the digital divide who will never, ever, ever get phone service," Facemyer said, "and that will affect the value of homes and it will discourage businesses from locating here or expanding here because they won't have access to 21st-century technology, or 20th-century technology."

bfernandez@phillynews.com

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