Sullivan County residents should not be pressured into signing on with Verizon’s Voice Link wireless home telephone service, county officials said Tuesday.
Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther (D-Forestburgh) and top law enforcement and emergency services officials said the service does not support medical alert systems as well as fax machines and home alarm systems.
“Too much of this county has no service at all and no hope on the horizon until the time comes when companies like Verizon are willing to make the investment to ensure reliable and thorough coverage, products like Voice Link are an insult and a danger to our community,” Gunther said.
County Emergency Services Commissioner Richard Martinkovic said wired phone service is important to public safety as was evidenced with the hurricanes and major storms of recent years.
“We depend a lot on the wire; there is a lot of it out there,” Martinkovic said. “It needs to be maintained and from the perspective of public safety, we are very, very interested to maintain the service that we have. We don’t want to have less.”
Undersheriff Eric Chaboty said it is an issue of public safety. He recounted a story of his neighbor’s house catching fire and when 911 was called from a cell phone, it was routed to Ulster County, not Sullivan and in the time it took to transfer it to Sullivan, the family’s house burned down.
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