Verizon cancels at-home technician visits amid coronavirus pandemic

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Verizon has a consumer base of more than 25 million people, and none of them will be happy with the latest news from the company. That said, they should still understand the reasoning behind the decision. This week, Verizon announced that they have canceled at-home installations and repair visits for customers as a precaution to keep their employees and customers safe.

This was first noticed by customers who had their in-person visits from technicians canceled, taking the problem to Twitter. Others stated that they were told that appointments for installations were not available until November. There was a huge confusion created due to this, as Verizon did not clearly give any information on their website.

On Tuesday, Verizon’s web page for coronavirus-related FAQs released a statement saying that technicians “would not be able to enter your home or business to install new services or to do repair work.” Shortly after that statement was released, the website was updated to say that Verizon was “minimizing” in-home installation work.

Verizon’s director of corporate communications in technology and innovation, Howie Waterman, stated that the installations would be limited to “medical emergencies and critical installations.” Verizon has not yet stated what would qualify as a critical installation.

If you’re looking to install Verizon internet due to being stuck at home, unfortunately, there’s some bad news. When potential customers sign up for new internet service, there is a notice informing customers that “at this time, our technicians will not be able to enter your home or business to install new services.” The notice says customers can still place orders, which “will be held for future installation on a priority basis.”

This isn’t a bad decision considering there are now more than 383,000 reported cases within the country and many health and government officials have urged people to stay home and “non-essential” businesses to close. However, the real question in the current situation is whether or not internet is considered a ‘non-essential’ or ‘essential’ service.

What do you think? Do you consider internet essential? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Murtaza Islam

Murtaza is a Computer Science student who takes immense interest in mobile technology. He believes the future of computing lies in smartphones because ARM architecture will eventually take over. He also loves to tinker with ROMs and kernels keeping up with the latest in smartphones.