Verizon will fix your landline in a month -- or give you wireless right now

Verizon's aging copper landline telephone network has been offline for numerous customers in Manhattan (NY) over the past few weeks, giving Verizon another chance to convince customers to ditch their landlines for wireless service. This has been a recurring theme for Verizon, which often tells customers their phone lines can't be fixed right away but that they can switch to "Voice Link," a wireless replacement for landlines. Voice Link isn't regulated as a utility like the copper landlines are, and it can't last through power outages the way copper lines can. In other cases, Verizon has pushed Voice Link as a permanent replacement for landlines.

Customers who decline Voice Link as a permanent replacement generally do so because of concerns about wireless quality and reliability, plus its reliance on battery backup. Copper lines can keep working during power outages by drawing power from the central office, but of course the copper lines themselves are vulnerable to weather. Verizon argues that Voice Link is reliable, saying, "Voice Link connects to the home’s power, but the units can work on standard, easily replaceable AA batteries in the event of a power outage...We feel that offering our customers a Voice Link unit is better than having no alternative for them."