Verizon Backing Off Plans for Wireless Home Phones

After Hurricane Sandy, Verizon asked state regulators in New York for permission to substitute Voice Link, a home phone service that carries calls on a cellular network, for what it refers to as “plain old telephone service.” The first place in the state it tried broad use of Voice Link was on the west end of Fire Island, a resort community on the Atlantic Ocean that incurred heavy damage in the late October storm.

Verizon had hoped to use Fire Island as an example of how Voice Link could be installed in other areas of the state where its network of copper wires was damaged by storms or deemed too costly to repair or maintain. The regulators said they would monitor the results and decide later this year.

But Verizon did not wait for the final results. It conceded defeat this week and said it would start laying fiber-optic cable that would restore home phone service and Internet access.

Edward P. Romaine, the supervisor of the town of Brookhaven, said he was “delighted” that Verizon had been “forced into” offering an alternative to Voice Link. “I dare say there are very few residents of Fire Island that would prefer Voice Link,” he said.

The company also withdrew its request to the state Public Service Commission for permission to use Voice Link as a permanent substitute for traditional home phone service elsewhere in the state.

“What we’re basically telling the commission is we’re not going to pursue the stuff that we were pursuing,” said Tom Maguire, Verizon’s senior vice president for national operations support. “We’re going to go back to the day before Sandy.”

The Voice Link experiment was watched closely by consumer advocates because it was seen as a test of the obligations that traditional phone-service providers have to their customers. The advocates fear that acceptance of Voice Link will give Verizon an incentive to neglect its copper lines, which are expensive to maintain.

Verizon and AT&T have told federal and state regulators that the demise of “plain old” phone service is inevitable, as more Americans rely on cellphones and demand faster Internet connections than copper wires can provide.

Indeed, Verizon is not abandoning Voice Link. The company intends to continue offering it as a substitute for traditional service in Mantoloking, N.J., and other communities that have been hit hard by storms.

Some Mantoloking residents have complained about Verizon’s decision not to restore their old phone lines after Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc there. But the company said that people in Mantoloking, unlike the residents of Fire Island, have an alternative: they can get phone service and Internet access from Comcast, the local cable provider.

That answer did not satisfy Stefanie A. Brand, the director for the Division of Rate Counsel in New Jersey. A representative of utility consumers, Ms. Brand said Mantoloking residents should not have to buy a bundled service from the cable company to get home phone service that is not wireless.

“Verizon is the provider of last resort in New Jersey,” Ms. Brand said, “so they have to offer customers a basic telephone service option, and there is no telephone service option available to the customers in Mantoloking.”

AARP has called on the Federal Communications Commission and New Jersey’s Board of Public Utilities to investigate Verizon’s use of Voice Link in Mantoloking. The organization argued that dependable, regulated phone service is a “lifeline” for residents, especially older ones, when a storm like Hurricane Sandy hits.

Jim Dieterle, the state director for AARP in New Jersey, called Voice Link a “third-rate” alternative. He said state officials should not accept less than what Verizon is doing on Fire Island. “Why would they do one thing in New York and then not in New Jersey? We’re not second-class citizens,” he said. “I don’t think our governor would appreciate being treated in a less admirable way.”

Gadgetwise Blog: Q&A: Backing Up a Windows 8 System

Is the File History software in Windows 8 a full backup program for the whole computer, or do I need to buy additional backup software?

The File History utility included with Windows 8 does not fully back up all the files on the computer. It does automatically back up the files you probably care the most about, though, like photos, documents and other items in your Windows libraries, as well as your contacts, your browser favorites and SkyDrive files. With File History, you can get back previous versions of those files, including those that were accidentally deleted from the computer.

You can find File History in the Windows 8 control panel, or you can quickly search for it. To search the computer for the File History utility, press Windows + C on the keyboard or click the right corner of the screen to bring up the Windows 8 “Charms” menu; on a touch-screen computer, put your finger on the right edge of the screen and slide it toward the middle. Select the Search icon on the Charms bar, type in “File History” and choose Settings. Select “File History” when it appears in the list to open the control panel.

Like most backup programs, you need another drive to store the File History archive. You can use an external USB drive or a network location, and Microsoft has instructions for setting up either method on its site.

Although File History has largely supplanted the older built-in Windows backup program, you can still find it on the computer. In the bottom left corner of the File History control panel, click the link for “Windows 7 File Recovery” to open the old Windows backup utility. The Ars Technica site has a tutorial on creating a complete system image, but if you prefer less poking around inside Windows, you can always get a third-party backup program.