Verizon's Forrest Fire

(Upstart) With a raft of DSL providers simultaneously capsizing of late, it’s popular to say that ILEC victory in the DSL game was inevitable from the get-go. After all, it’s been said, incumbents own the circuits; they use their monopolistic power to slow competitors’ deployment and create service headaches. So then why is their own service so bad?

Disgruntled DSL customers have filed a class action lawsuit against both Verizon and its Internet Services subsidiary, claiming the company’s service does not live up to the promises made by its advertising, including guarantees that users will have access any time they want it. (Despite a wealth of evidence, not all of these charges will be easy to prove. Among the Verizon advertising claims that are challenged in the complaint: “Whoooooooosh! It’s the best way we know to describe Verizon Online DSL—the ultra-high-speed Internet access service.”)

The complaint describes the experiences of the two main plaintiffs, Bruce and Leslie Forrest, Verizon DSL customers who spent four months feeling like there was no one around to hear them at Verizon and decided to make a sound. (Okay, bad attempt at humor, but who can laugh at a time like this?) However, the suit was filed on behalf of the tens of thousands of “persons and entities” in the United States that have ordered Internet service from Verizon.

The complaint cites a handful of common horror stories, but if the court needs more proof that DSL customers are pissed off, it should be prepared to relive the pivotal scene in "Miracle on 34th Street" in which postal employees dump mountains of evidence into the judge’s lap. The Forrests’ lawyers (not to be confused with Forrest Sawyer) need look no further than VerizonReallySucks.com, VerizonTotallySucks.com or VerizonEatsPoop.com for their own equivalent of letters to Santa. (Not to mention the really hardcore stuff, which even gives scathing reviews to “school,” “work” and “your mom.”)

For more fun courtroom theatrics, the prosecution should even let this guy take the stand so he can tell the story about how a billing dispute with Verizon forced him to report the RBOC to the “Washington state utility spankers.” Then he can recommend to a jury that Verizon employees “all die in a fiery car crash.” And he can formally address all his grievances against the company, such as: “Their name is stupid as hell” and “It pisses me off that they have the commercials where people flash the peace sign, because, damn it, I do that, and everyone is going to think I got that from the commercial.” Sounds like another hundred mil in damages to me.

This isn’t the first time consumers have sued an RBOC for shoddy DSL service. Last August, a class action suit was filed against Southwestern Bell on the grounds that the company sometimes strayed from its guaranteed access speed of 384 kbps. It’s always nice for start-ups when the competition gets sued, but when fluctuations in access speed are at issue, let he among you who is without lag or jitter cast the first stone.

The vast operating resources at an RBOC’s disposal give it more stability and muscle than an independent provider, but those deep RBOC pockets also attract lawyers much more potently than the vanishing cash of a struggling start-up. DSL service has been nightmarish across the board, but the RBOCs are the only ones getting hit with these consumer class action suits (not to mention employee strikes). And though ILECs might have more money to spend on brand-building and marketing, a nation of pissed off customers has greater force than a couple of TV commercials aired 60 times a day.

Where there is smoke, there is fire, and where there are pissed off customers, there is opportunity. Call me naïve, but I don’t think the RBOCs are out the woods yet, so to speak, in the DSL game. I would still rather get my DSL from an upstart. Even if their name were stupid as hell.

Senior writer Ed Gubbins would like to say that he has the highest respect for your Mom--although he can't say the same for school, work or Verizon. E-mail him at ed_gubbins@intertec.com.