Verizon announced that it will waive all late fees, and won’t terminate any customer’s service, due to the Coronavirus hardships.
This is part of the FCC’s “Keep Americans Connected” Pledge.
Verizon does typically do things like this during times of need, like during hurricanes and such. But with the Coronavirus, it’s going to be a prolonged period of customers possibly not paying their bills because they simply don’t have the money to do so. Normally, that would mean Verizon would terminate their service, but the FCC has stepped in, asking carriers and ISPs to waive late fees and to put a hold on service termination.
So far, AT&T, Charter, CenturyLink, Comcast, Cox, Sonic, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon have all signed on to this “Keep Americans Connected” pledge. More will likely join this pledge in the coming hours and days.
Coronavirus is a serious disease that will have disruptions for months, if not years to come
While some still believe that the reaction to the Coronavirus or COVID-19, is a bit of an overreaction, it’s a very serious disease. It has already killed over 4,000 people worldwide, and that number is expected to keep climbing.
Because of the Coronavirus, we’re seeing a number of events cancelled, as well as anything that would have a crowd of over 250 people. Which is going to have big effects on the economy. The markets have already dropped quite a bit in the past week, erasing all the gains since President Trump was inaugurated in January 2017. Yesterday alone, the markets dropped 10%. Which was the biggest drop in the history of the stock market.
That means that many people are going to be going without working for days, weeks if not months. Making paying their bills pretty difficult. Seeing as the majority of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. So having Verizon, among other carriers opt to waive these late fees and put a pause on any terminations of service is a very good idea. This way everyone is able to stay connected. And now is the time they definitely need to stay connected.
Comcast has decided to raise the speed of its low-income internet service, and AT&T has lifted the data cap on its Internet service. And these companies have also taken actions to make sure their networks stay up, with the increased traffic, of everyone staying home from work and school. Everything should work out fine for those that need to work from home now.