Verizon Maryland Inc. filed an emergency motion Monday seeking more time to respond to the Public Service Commission?s requests in connection with an investigation of the telephone provider?s service performance.
The PSC on Friday requested from Verizon copies of the company?s policies and procedures related to repair and restoration of service, documents reporting the scheduling and completion of repair and restoration, and documents identifying staff, contractors and resources dedicated to customer service.
Those documents were due to the PSC by 4 p.m. Monday. The PSC also requested that Verizon appear at a hearing before the commission Wednesday to discuss consumer complaints.
“We?ve asked Verizon to come in, and the commission will be asking questions in relation to the complaints,” LaWanda Edwards, a PSC spokeswoman, said Monday.
On Saturday, in a letter to PSC Chairman Steven B. Larsen, Verizon?s legal department wrote the company intended to file the emergency motion for an extension on Monday.
The PSC provided Verizon one business day to fulfill the documents request and less than three business days to prepare for a hearing, Verizon?s counsel wrote.
“Verizon respectfully believes that the time frames specified in the order are unreasonably short for Verizon to provide an adequate response to the commission?s document requests or to prepare for a hearing,” wrote Leigh A. Hyer, general counsel for Verizon Maryland.
In the emergency motion filed Monday, Verizon asked that it have until Aug. 13 to produce the requested documents and that a hearing be scheduled no earlier than Aug. 15.
Hyer was unavailable for comment Monday.
The PSC on Friday announced it would launch an investigation of Verizon?s service performance and service-quality standards, citing consumer complaints related to Verizon?s customer service in the past seven months.
Consumers complained about “unreasonable delays” in restoring and repairing interrupted service provided by Verizon, saying the company had at times taken longer than two weeks to repair interrupted service.
Without telephone service for extended periods, consumers have no way to call 911, to contact medical providers or to connect security devices to monitor services during outages, according to a PSC order.
“Delays in restoring telephone service represents a public safety hazard,” Donald P. Eveleth, deputy executive secretary for the PSC, wrote in the order. “Reliable telephone service is a necessity, not a luxury, and a seven-to-10-day delay (or longer) in restoring lost telephone service can threaten consumers? health and safety.”
VerizonMaryland services more than 2 million customers in Maryland, having invested more than $2 billion over the past four years to bring services to the state.
