Business & Tech

Verizon Business Strike Temporarily Prevented Maryland 511 Calls, SHA Says

The Verizon Business workers' strike prevented work from starting on the Verizon lines, so Maryland 511 didn't work for some until Friday morning.

More than 1,000 Marylanders each day had successfully dialed 511 to hear about traffic delays on state highways, but until Friday morning that wasn't the case if the call came from a Verizon Business landline.

Work scheduled to be completed by Verizon before the State Highway Administration rolled out Maryland 511 last week did not happen before the system's launch because of the two-week-old work strike, said Glenn McLaughlin, deputy director of the Coordinated Highway Action Response Team (CHART).

McLaughlin was told Maryland 511 was working from all Verizon Business landlines by 11:13 a.m. Friday. Verizon Business could not immediately confirm the landlines were connecting to 511.

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“We had been working with Verizon; we had an agreement signed,” McLaughlin said. “They were planning to do the work last week as we were getting ready for launch, because they didn’t want to get the switches converted too far before [the launch], because then people were going to a system that wasn’t public yet.

“Of course [then] the strike…was announced.”

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The State Highway Administration had to work with more than 160 telecommunications providers in the state to make 511 accessible, McLaughlin said, and Verizon Business landline telephones remain the only service that will not connect a dialer to Maryland 511.

There was a similar problem with Sprint, McLaughlin said, but that issue has been resolved in recent days. Some large office buildings with in-house switches may also have to be individually calibrated for 511 to connect, he said, but those switches are in the control of individual companies.

McLaughlin said it was decided to continue on with launch plans last week despite Verizon Business landlines not being ready because users of the system can still access it by dialing 1-855-GOMD511.

“We did have discussions on [whether we] should hold off on a public announcement of the service, when it was just Verizon landlines that would be affected,” McLaughlin said. “The toll-free number is still there. We figured if we did get any comments, we would send people to the 10-digit number.”

McLaughlin said his office was in daily contact with Verizon, and that the company had been “doing their darnedest” given the labor strife.

Nearly half of Verizon's wireline telecommunications business went on strike on Aug. 7, including about 4,000 workers in Maryland, Reuters reported. The two sides were unable to agree on health care contributions, pension plans and work rules, according to the report.


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