Verizon To Help SMEs That are Struggling with COVID-19 pandemic

During this unprecedented period challenging the world’s health and economy, Verizon announced, for the next 60 days, it will waive late fees that any residential or small business customers incur because of their economic circumstances related to the coronavirus. In addition, the company will not terminate service to any residential or small business customers because of their inability to pay their bills due to disruptions caused by the coronavirus. 

Verizon today signed onto the FCC’s new “Keep Americans Connected” pledge. Verizon’s new customer commitment will help ensure connectivity and offer assistance to customers and small businesses facing challenges from the global crisis.

“Now more than ever, we need to ensure that our customers, their families and businesses have the ability to connect to the internet even if they’re facing financial hardship from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic,” said Hans Vestberg, Verizon Chairman and CEO. “We want to ensure that our customers can continue to use the internet to work, learn, and carry on with their lives as we all address this collective challenge. We’re confident this joint effort will help make that happen.”

The company is pledging to use the power of connectivity now to help keep the nation’s economy moving forward. Equally important, it’s focused on the future, beyond this current crisis, as reflected in Verizon’s announcement yesterday that the company is increasing its capital investment guidance from $17 to $18 billion to $17.5 to $18.5 billion in 2020. 

“Both of these measures are indicative of our company’s confidence that the nation and the world will emerge from this current health issue stronger than ever,” said Vestberg. “I’m asking each of our business units and all of our dedicated employees to ensure we’re doing everything we can to make sure our customers stay connected. I also want our company to look beyond this period, ramp up our network investment, and build and focus on using the power of 5G to make the nation’s best and most reliable networks even better.”

Verizon offers its customers a variety of wireless and home broadband plans, as well as a suite of global IP-network services. Verizon does not have data caps on its Fios home, 5G Home and DSL home broadband services, or on its wireline business broadband services. Most of the company’s wireless customers are on unlimited wireless plans. Customers who are not are encouraged to connect to Wi-Fi hotspots whenever available. Wi-Fi connections do not count against a customer’s data usage.

To date, Verizon has not seen any measurable increase in data usage on any of its networks.