Competition in the marketplace

From TechDirt:

Competitor Takes Over Verizon's West Virginia Landlines; Complaints Drop Nearly 70%
Verizon's service record has been less-than-stellar over the years. The increased scrutiny it faced after it decided it wouldn't restore copper line service to New Yorkers whose connections were destroyed by Hurricane Sandy resulted in it partially walking back that decision. It was also recently ordered to turn over cost data on its copper lines (as compared to the wireless service it was trying to push these customers to switch to) by the New York Public Service Commission. This followed its original response to the FOI request, which was nothing but page after page of retracted data.

It's no secret Verizon would prefer its customers to switch to its wireless Voicelink, which contains profitable data and voice caps. This is something it has in common with other major service providers like AT&T. It sometimes appears Verizon is waging a war of attrition against its customers in hopes of shedding those subscribed to services it no longer wishes to support while pushing others towards more profitable, but inferior, services.

Evidence of this approach recently surfaced in West Virginia, where a competing company had taken over Verizon's former service area. The net result? A nearly 70% drop in complaints.

The new company is Frontier and they did the same exact thing here -- Verizon ran poor quality lines and bad service. We have no cell service where we are -- there used to be Nextel but Verizon bought them out and pfffftttt... I was able to get a marginal 3G signal at the house and limped along on that for a year ($80/month with severe packet loss problems). Frontier moved in a year ago and the improvement in line quality was noticeable -- they actually started doing preventative maintenance on their hardware and lines! Six months ago, they rolled DSL services to our little mountain hamlet and I am now getting bonded-pair service (12mb download and around 1mb upload) for $60/month including one voice line. They are extending their service further down the road. This is how you run a company -- actually listening to your customers and acting on their requests. Do this and your profits will soar...