If you want to talk to a live person at Verizon, punch the sequence to "cancel my service".

[Rosie1223]

You will be directly connected to a live person that will attempt to talk you out of it. What a hoot.

I just got off the phone with them. The service rep actually said I was "hurting his feelings" by canceling. Does that really work on anyone??

First he tried to lower my bill. I told him the reason I was canceling was because I heard the CEO of Verizon say they weren't going to invest anymore money in landlines which meant we were never going to get DSL. He actually laughed at this and said it wasn't true. Now I wish I'd gotten his email so I could send him the news story with the quote. He offered to send out a service request to see if we could get DSL. I told him it wasn't possible because Verizon still has copper lines to my house. He didn't believe me.

After about 10 minutes of politely repeating "I just want to cancel my service", he finally agreed to do so.

See ya, Verizon.

http://www.globaltelecomsbusiness.com/Article/2299543/Regions/25192/Mobiles-are-the-future-says-converted-Verizon-boss.html

[TxRider]

1. DSL runs over copper, distance from switch office is usualy the issue.

They ran fiber to my house, much better than DSL.

[Rosie1223]

3. Verizon ran fiber optic right in front of my house about 10 years ago

but, for reasons I can't recall at the moment, we couldn't hook up to it.

I live in the country. Our nearby telephone co-ops have high speed internet, cable tv and all sorts of services. We were stuck with Verizon, 5 miles from the switch office, and had only 2400-3600 speed on dialup.

I'm glad you have better service.

[hobbit709]

2. DSL is on hard wiring, but you have to be within 18000 feet of the node.

[dembotoz]

4. verizon is selling your lines to Frontier.

Announced in may
The are pretty much staying with thier original footprint and selling the landlines everywhere else.
I would not anticipate any technological advances for your land line for the next several years.

Google verizon and Frontier and you can get the details.