Verizon, Optical Communications Group Wrangle Over Unpaid Bills for Shared Conduit
The Verizon rival is claiming that the telco unfairly charged it for more space than it occupies on its infrastructure.
WASHINGTON, January 10, 2023 – Fiber service provider Optical Communications Group has filed a petition with the New York Public Service Commission requesting that it stop Verizon from terminating its facilities rental agreement over unpaid bills.
OCG alleges that, for years, Verizon has been charging the telecom inflated prices to attach its fiber wires on Verizon’s infrastructure on Staten Island. OCG says in its complaint in late November that it only rents a small portion of the duct through which its fiber goes, yet it’s allegedly being charged as if it is using the full duct. It claims other service providers are also renting on the same conduit.
Despite “repeatedly” notifying Verizon of the “overbilling,” OCG said Verizon is allegedly refusing to modify the invoices to “reflect the correct billing rates based on the proportional share occupied” and is now threatening to boot the company from its entire network.
“Verizon has threated to terminate OCG’s occupancy license throughout all of Verizon’s network because OCG refuses to pay the improper charges as to certain conduits,” OCG said in its petition, despite claiming that it has made payment on certain of its licenses.
OCG added that Verizon has allegedly “only recently agreed” to conduct inspections, which have yet to be complete, on the conduit to confirm the complaint.
In response to the complaint filed last month, Verizon, which confirmed the inspections are still ongoing, said OCG has an alleged history of failing to pay its bills, and the two parties have been through a carousel of complaints, dispute resolution and more complaints.
“For nearly two decades OCG has engaged in a persistent course of conduct by which it fails to pay Verizon’s standard charges for conduit occupancy and other services, requiring Verizon to expend significant time, expense, and effort in collection attempts, litigation, and regulatory proceedings,” Verizon said.
“Those efforts typically lead, after a protracted period of time, to belated and sometimes partial payments,” the Verizon response adds. “And then the cycle repeats itself as OCG once again goes back to increasing its unpaid indebtedness.”
Verizon says OCG owes it roughly $400,000 in unpaid and “undisputed, past-due conduit occupancy charges,” which it says is equal to 15 months’ worth of undisputed billings. Verizon alleges there’s more unpaid money beyond the $400,000 that has been disputed by OCG and for which the parties are going through a dispute resolution process.
It adds that it estimates the monthly bill to OCG for conduit rental is roughly $27,000 per month, yet OCG allegedly only disputes about $2,000 a month on that. “In recent months only small and sporadic payments have been made against the undisputed monthly charges,” Verizon alleges.
The incumbent said OCG’s petition is ultimately a “red herring” because Verizon’s stipulations in the agreement are “based on a failure to pay undisputed charges. As a result, the issues set forth in the Petition are irrelevant to Verizon’s exercise of its right to terminate OCG’s occupancy.”
OCG filed its petition at the end of a 30-day deadline that Verizon gave it to make full payment of the undisputed amount and to make a commitment to continue making undisputed payments going forward or else it would terminate the agreement, according to Verizon’s submission.
