There has been a lot of rumors about some of the telecommunications wire work going on in the neighborhood.
I received this from a neighbor (posted with permission):
So, I spoke to the technicians working in the neighborhood and they confirmed that we are indeed getting residential fiber (Verison calls it FIOS) installed to our houses. Obviously, this is voluntary. They’re just building out the capacity to provide the service if you want it, because their franchise agreement with the city requires them to do so, and they’ve fallen behind.
FYI- If you switch to FIOS from your old copper phone line, and begin purchasing phone service over the FIOS line, they may try to remove your old copper lines. This is to prevent you from going back to copper, or to use any other service provider.
In reality, they are required by law to reinstall your copper lines (at no charge to you) if they remove them.
Just keep in mind that Verizon may try to get you to bundle all your services into some plan that is delivered via FIOS, remove your copper lines, and then make it difficult for you to get out of that arrangement.
This is interesting, given some of the past appeals and speculation.