After a two-year hiatus, Phone Watch will return this month with regular updates on the telecommunications industry.

I’ve worked for various phone companies since 1997 and I’ve always been interested in the telephone network, and lately, in the convergence of various different communications technologies such as wireless phones and VoIP. In my time I’ve worked in a wide variety of local and long distance phone company positions, including customer service, repair, billing, fraud prevention, Internet support, and probably things I have forgotten. This breadth of knowledge allows me to put telephone company news in context.

A lack of time forced me to put this site on the back burner, and it’s remained there for two years. This month I’ll resume updating it with the latest news on landlines, fiber to the home, and other important news which will affect you every time you make a call.

While I will cover just about anything related to telecommunications, my primary focus is on landlines. As far as I know, this was and is the only site to focus on landline telephone service. This focus will continue, since landlines aren’t going anywhere any time soon. Along with landlines I’ll cover fiber to the home services such as Verizon’s FiOS, which are already beginning to replace traditional copper lines in many areas.

To get this party started right, consider the insanity that occurs when someone named Libshitz tries to sign up for Verizon’s DSL service. Dr. Herman I. Libshitz, 69, wanted to install DSL in his summer home in Rehoboth Beach, Del. But signing up for the service through Verizon’s self-installation kit failed. So, of course, he calls Verizon.

This is how the doctor remembers it:

“We called their help line, and got a wonderful young man in the Philippines who told us:

“‘We can’t install it because your name has **** in it.’”

“These people have no trouble putting me in their phone book. They send me mail with that name, they send me a bill routinely, and they cash my checks with Libshitz on it. They just offended me.” — Philadelphia Inquirer

(A Verizon spokeswoman told the Inquirer that the company would grant an exception to Libshitz.)

Well, one bad turn deserves another, I say. Phone Watch will certainly offend Verizon at some point in the very near future. Join (or re-join) us by subscribing to the RSS feed.