Mayor calls out Verizon on broadband agreement

Matthew Flamm

The city's tallest-ever mayor is taking on its biggest public company.

The 6-foot-5 Bill de Blasio last week suddenly escalated his long-running battle with $121 billion Verizon Communications over the telecom giant's FiOS TV rollout, a fight that Mr. de Blasio waged with little success when he was the relatively powerless public advocate.

Mr. de Blasio, who called out Verizon repeatedly during his mayoral campaign, signaled last week that he will seek to compel the company—and apparently other providers—to offer broadband service at a discount to New Yorkers who can't afford current rates. The mayor assigned the task to veteran civil-rights lawyer Maya Wiley after naming her his counsel. At a City Hall press conference, the mayor cast broadband access as an economic-justice issue and said Ms. Wiley would work with city agencies to deliver "truly universal access to high-speed Internet."

Broadband service in New York is generally considered to be inferior to that offered in other major cities around the world in terms of cost and speed, and is a frequent subject of complaint among the city's tech community.

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