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Verizon Permitted to Default on PA Broadband Deal
Rich writes "This is simply amazing to me. Broadband Reports has the latest chapter concerning Verizon's con of Pennsylvania unearthed by telco-critic Bruce Kushnick last February. A 1994 agreement between Verizon and the state of Pennsylvania paid dividends to Verizon in excess of $2.1 Billion in tax cuts and other deregulatory goodies over the years. Verizon's part of that deal was to deploy 45Mbps symmetrical fiber service fiber to PA homes and residents by 2015 (something they knew would never happen). This week the well-lobbied state has apparently voted to totally ignore the 1995 agreement, after Verizon's already walked away with the cash, leaving PA residents (who are already pretty low on the broadband food chain according to a new report) high and dry."
By about 9am, once their slow connections download Slashdot's pages.
The unsurprising truth about most such affairs is that governments rarely spend money because it benefits their constituents, they generally spend it because it benefits their friends, and themselves. How much of Verizon's money went straight back to the people making the decision? 10%? 15%? 20%?
Ceci n'est pas une signature
just another day in the land of the *Free*
if you want "No More Hiroshimas" then I say "You First. No More Pearl Harbors."
to be a Pennsylvanian state legislator when the tax payers find out about all this. Too bad that the real bastards ( at Verizon) won't pay as high a price. Plus most of the legislators that made the original deal in 1994 probably aren't in office anymore. It dosen't sound like they put many checks or penalties into the agreement.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
I know this is slashdot, but before I condemn "the capitalist pigs and their puppets in the government," I would like to know the whole story.
"I know this is slashdot, but before I condemn "the capitalist pigs and their puppets in the government," I would like to know the whole story."
;-)
Nah, as Asimov said: it's far easier to argue from ignorance
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
..A leaflet from Verizon appeared in the paper. $35/mo for DSL. I laughed, checked their website, and I still can't get it in my area.
And I can only get cable from a single provider, whom I had dial-up account issues with in the past. (To say nothing of the people I know who do have cable modems from them - chock full of not-goodness.)
I'm not out in Backwater Boonies, either. I'm between a major metropolitan area, and a small city.
Pennsylvania. The broadband sucks, the roads suck, the tech job market sucks, and we're swimming in old people(tm). Not that the latter's bad, but retirees don't make for a good economy.
I pronounce this state befukt.
"This is simply amazing to me."
Where have you been for the past ten years. Big Corps. screwing the little guy, along with the government. Whoda'thunkit. Something needs to be changed here, and "being amazed" won't cut it.
Protests, boycotts, and contacting your rep.!
Error 407 - No creative sig found
Go figure?
A Telco and some politicians rape and pillage a State and Taxpayers for billions. Who'd a thought that could ever happen? Are so de-sensitized to this kinda crap that nothing will ever come of it?
Are we this fucked as a Nation?
my parents operate a home business just outside of a suburban area, roughly 10 miles from a midsized PA city (pop ~100k). the ancient POTS wiring is so poor that no ISP can give more than 28.8kbps actual throughput on a 56k modem.
adelphia has decided to stop its cable wire roughly a mile from my parents house, and they are too far from the switch for DSL. thus an entire small town has been left behind, to sign up for DirecTV or have fun with the old rabbit-ear antennas.
when websites started becoming very unfriendly to slower connections, i investigated the possibilities for faster service. the two that emerged were direcPC (satellite) with absurdly high latency, complete assymetry, and an obscene fee, or ISDN from Verizon with an equally obscene fee for a (largely) obsolete technology.
since 28.8 is becoming really unacceptable (updating a web browser is a real chore), i investigated the ISDN option verizon supposedly offers...2 months later verizon will still not return my calls or email regarding a residential or business ISDN line...they are simply not interested in a lone installation of an aging technology, or may not want to admit that universal availability of ISDN is a sham. i do not know.
bottom line--only provider actually willing to provide >28.8 service is satellite...10 miles from a city in a northeastern state! they might as well live in rural montana for all the 'information age' cares.
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"A 1994 agreement between Verizon and the state of Pennsylvania paid..."
"...voted to totally ignore the 1995 agreement, after Verizon's..."
Typo? Which is which?
Founder of Mirror Moon - Tsukihime Game Trans
or campaign contribution will do.
They'd have found some other way to avoise paying tax. At least this way Pennsylvania tried to get something out of them in return. I also notice that the rule now seems to be that they still have to provide 1.5Mb DSL over copper within 5 days to anyone who asks for it, which is still pretty useful to Barry Backwoods.
Not that they will, and not that it specifies affordable, but, meh, whatever. They're a corporation. Evil until proven otherwise. What else did Pennsylvania expect?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Does anyone know whether the govt guys that were involved in making the original agreement are still around? If so, are they free from legal action, or can they simply wipe the slate clean and get away with it?
If it's a totally different bunch of guys running the govt now, then they could conceivably justify it as being a dumb decision to enter into the agreement in the first place (using whatever logic they care to present...). If not, then maybe there's some negligence issues that can't be simply signed away with the swipe of a pen.
Poor people incurred frothing, hateful wrath of the middle class for getting money for food and rent. Yet these large, powerful corporations walk away with bagfuls of money every day and it's "ho-hum, what else is new?" How bad is it going to have to get before you get angry enough to do something?
<a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>
This is playing right into the cable modem provider's hands. They have a more reliable, more widly available, (arguably) faster, and easier to set up service. In State College (PSU's college town) nearly everyone I know has either Adelphia's or CEI's cable modem service, almost nobody has Verizon's DSL. Even those that are lucky enough to now live in servicable areas still went with cable when it was the only thing around, and really have no reason to switch. By the time DSL actually IS an option for most people around here, they will have already gone with cable.
Finkployd
How can mega-corporations remain competitive and maintain our free market economy without taxpayer support? Just look at what happens to countries like Japan, Korea and Taiwan where the telecoms are state owned monoplies. You wouldn't want to end up like that, would you?
However, before I condemn Verizon, I have some questions
Condemn first; ask questions later! This is Verizon we're talking about.
Hopefully IHNBT, but here we go anyway.
I think I would like to end up like South Korea.
Alcatel notes:
Spurred by aggressive government policy, South Korea has become the uncontested champion of the world in broadband Internet. Over half the country's 48 million citizens regularly log onto the Net, and 85 percent of new subscribers purchase high-speed service.
Mmm...broadband...
What reason did we have that he wouldn't do his best to run our state into the ground as well? It's not like much of the other candidates had a chance, really, but I did stick to my principles in the last election and voted Libertarian...
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
I did just wake up, afterall...
There are way too many old people in Pennsylvania, so much so that the state went on a media blitz last year trying to attract young workers to the state. Unfortunatly, there are no jobs for anyone who doesn't work in a coal mine or steel mill.
Atleast verizon left them high... So it's not that bad...
...that I'm glad I live in Canada, where broadband is widely available almost everywhere and the federal government is insistant on making it available in all communities.
I know this is off topic, but verizon is the biggest most blatent money grubbing company that i have seen in a long time. I live in Ann Arbor and my cell phone gets very bad signal every where. you would think that with a user base of several thousand UofM students they would make sure that we were happy, but no. I think verizon should be put down. but then again that's just me.....
People laugh at This guy for spending a couple billion to bring a 12Mbps connection to (everyone) in Japan for $21 a month; Sure his company is in $3.9 billion debt, but he has something to show for it! His customers have a 12 Mbps internet connection!!!1
"As Pennsylvania considers its telecommunications policy of the future, I believe that our collective energies will be best spent on creating a climate that allows factors such as competition and demand to flourish." Wow, all competition and demand has brought the entire broadband network of the united states for the most part DSL/Cable is 768k down and 128k upstream. I believe verizon does not even offer anything higher for residential customers anymore. Of course there is a previous article that the major service providers agreed to use standard equipment to connect their networks under the ruse that it will allow them to finally deliver their fiber to the curb pipe dream.
12 years ago I had a 2400 baud modem on a telephone line I shared with 7 others in a student home. these days most rooms in student housing have free 100Mbit in each room. and (no longer a student) I have 2048/512 adsl for 65 euro/month in my own apartment.
In another 12 years I would expect at least another factor of 1000 increase in easily available bandwitdh.
this is in the netherlands, ( which is probably different from Pennsylvania ), but still.
willem
there's more going on here than just bribery. $2.1 billion is too much money for legislature reps to walk away from. I mean, the votes you could buy with that kind of money far outweight whatever campaign contributions where involved. Maybe I'm wrong (it's possible that all this is happening so quietly no one's really noticed besides the /. crowd). But this is a hell of a lot of money for the legislatures to just kiss goodbye.
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Hello, I live in an area outside of a small town in Pennslyvania, and i am about 1/2 mile away from two way cable modem, i got stuck with one way. With the lovely technology known as one-way i have to go through verizon for the upload (local phone company). When i talked to a tech support person at Verizon, i was told "28.8 is an acceptable speed" . I am in area where I can not get two-way cable or dsl, so whoever gets to my area first will gain 47 new customers, and I have the petition to prove it. My tax dollars are NOT getting spent well at all in my opinion. That money that was given to Verizon could of probably been used for the public library funds they are trying to cut in this state....
how is a junior-high grade anti-government rant without any substance considered "interesting?"
I knew the telecom industry was sleazy what with practices like slamming and whatnot, but now it seems to have gotten downright criminal.
It looks like Verizon just ignored it's contract with the state of PA.
In my own state Qwest (we put the 'w' in qwality) has been under investigation for shady financials.
Anybody else been noticing a general contempt for the general population from the telecoms?
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
I'm moving to PA and just went through a couple of months of searching for a house to buy or an apartment to rent. Based on my highly unscientific survey of places, DSL in the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton area is under 50% penetration, and two-way cable modem is virtually nil. Lots of one-way cable modem (inbound data by cable, outbound data by phone line).
I wound up settling for an apartment with DSL capability.
The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development
Guy walks through the Pennsylvania state house
"Can you pay me now?"
"Goooood."
they shoulda paid adelphia, then maybe they wouldn't be bankrupt and all that bad stuff. then my adelphia powerlink in pa would have been better, and not grind to a hault every 5 minutes.
Most offers are narrow-band not wideband or broadband. I am 40mi south of NYC. I cannot get DSL, don't want Cable, and Sat provides no internet game capability.
So, the USA TelCos say FYUS, and pay and loby to keep it this way.
We are the great Capitalist Republic, you get what you pay for and the citizens can vote, what works better is obvious. Therefor, it looks to be an oligarchic democracy not a plural democracy. You can get nothing for free (unless you're a criminal), if you want something, then pay or just forget it.
OldHawk777
Reality is a self-induced hallucination.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Where did they ever think they would come up with thatt kind of bandwith. 45mbit/s to every home??? That would be impressive to see done here in the states. Also, imagine P2P if everyone had that kind of bandwith.
Verizon, PECo (now Exelon) all own our politicians lock stock and barrel. It's not right, but that is how it's done in PA. Anyway, I have Verizon DSL and it works quite well. I don't have down-time more than maybe a couple times a year - usually due to heavy storm activity. I wish it was cheaper but the cable company is a monopoly too and will rip me off just the same. PA does not like competition - it stifles political graft.
Hm... money to verizon and nothing back? Sounds like Rendell is in on it. I think the broadband is the least of ideas. Atleast 25% of our taxes go to Philadelphia eduaction. There's another wise investment of our tax dollars....
I do have verizon and its not bad, but I also live 1 mile from a service building.
Not sure what you meant by this comment. There was a /. story a couple of days ago about 12Mb/s broadband access in Japan for $21 a month, which I'm sure is a situation a lot of people here would like to end up in (judging by the comments to the article).
In fact, because NTT is state-run, the government is very good at ensuring adequate competition- a bill was just passed forcing NTT to cut the rates it charges competitors for use of its lines. So I'd say that the telecom situation in Japan isn't that bad.
Sono koro, bokura wa, sore ga sekai no shinjitsu da to shinjite ita.
Welcome to the biggest junior high, fuck the establishment, I'm stickin' it to the man by swapping songs and uncapping my cable modem, elitist prep-school in existance.
You must be new here.
I live in a suburb of Philadelphia, and currently Comcast provides excellent cable-modem service. I have yet to really test the maximum download speed, but I'm guessing it's in the vacinity of 3200-4000kbps, while the upload rate was recently upgraded from 128kbps to 240kbps. Most ping times are also excellent. Of course, I did have to put up with many, many years of dealing with a 56k internet connection, but once the cable modem was availible, all was great. I suppose the moral of the story is: good things come to those who wait.
;) I can only guess they do some kind of routine maintinance which sometimes disrupts the connection.
Of course, the service is not without faults... sometimes it goes down around 3-4am and comes back around 6-7am, when I guess they figure no one is using it, which isn't true, especially during the summer
"Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose." --Douglas Adams
As long as these state representatives didn't receive blowjobs from interns, they will be forgiven.
Gotta love what is considered moral and immoral in the good 'ol USA.
Even better, In Europe goverments tend to rip off companies instead. Take e.g. the UMTS auctions in some states. Companies were paying billions just to get the right to use a natural free resource. That way all incorrectly gained profit by exploiting tax legislation holes etc. are directed back to the society. The result: much better social services and lower poverty rates in the society. The rules from libertarian ideology ideology are not always the solution of everything.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
Cliffnotes version:
Verizon says that they can wire the state for $X.
Legislators say 'We can't give you $X, but we can cut you a tax break'
With $X cut off their expenses, Verizion stock raises. Options are cashed. Resultant stock is sold for hefty profit.
Dot-com bubble bursts.
PA is left rubbing its ass, Verizon scales back, C*o's laugh all the way to the bank.
Verizon management states that it is impossible to do what they promised because the (choose one or more):
A)Economy
B)Lack of infrastructure
C)Technology did not keep pace
D)Management found out what Fiber actually is
E)Hackers
F)Lack of demand
G)Sunspots
(Editors note: This comment is purely speculation, and should be treated as such by all parties currently or previosly employed by Verizon, its subsidiaries, or anyone in a position to sue my ass off.)
Just read Frank Weigel's remarks at the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Verizon is ready to provide 45000/45000 to any school, hospital, or industrial park in Verizon's service area. Well...as long as the potential customer has the financial wherewithal to pay what Verizon wants to charge!
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/5210654.htm
Crime pays
...or at least mod the first response up.
This is an unsubstantiated, simplistic rant that flies in the face of the facts of the process.
Insightful? One line without analysis is insightful? Are we speaking English here?
Get off of dslreports! I have important business to take care of there and you Slash Daughters are taking up all the bandwidth! I live in PA and paid 2 billion for bandwidth and now I am not getting any!
Move along!
I always worried we would elect the first gay president before I saw broadband in PA.
Well sorry I didn't post earlier, but I was out and about Phila. w/ my WiFi Palm C, borrowing several Comcast connections (including outside a Cafe w/ an intentionally free hot spot). Now I'm at home where my Covad hookup (1500 down, 330 up) rox; I get actual speed of ~1300+, being 3 blocks from the CO. I have noticed during my warwalking rounds of Center City and University City Phila. that I see very few Verizon or Covad-connected hotspots - It's almost all Comcast here for some reason (not counting T-Mobil, since I don't subscribe to it).
There is choice, at least in the ABE area... if you can get RCN cable they sell some great cable modem service, with MUCH hihger bitrates than what you'll get from DSL (I've seen > 3mbit/sec on some sites).
If you actually look around, there are alternatives to DSL.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
I did look around. Everywhere I was looking (Bethlehem City, Bethlehem Twp., and Whitehall, mostly), RCN had one-way cable service. A friend of mine, in Bushkill Twp., has two-way cable, but he wasn't selling his house... :-)
For what I do, better-than-modem upload speeds is reasonably important (and, no, I'm not slated to be investigated by the RIAA), which is why one-way cable is a no-no. On the flip side, 768Kb download speed is tolerable, even if it isn't cable's 3Mb.
I've had two cable modems and one DSL in my past three apartments, and I'd've gone for cable had it been practical, but no dice.
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The real point of this article is not to inflame the reader about corporate greed and political scandal. As long as you haven't been living under a log for your entire life, you should be well aware of this.
The article shows me that simply a mistake was found by some intelligent people in state government, and it was repealed. The only reasonable alternative in this case was that Verizon continued to have its state-paid benefits for 11 more years, which is unreasonable. Thank God that the Mennonites decided to take their heads out of their rears now instead of later.
If you're incensed about the fact that Verizon got off "scott-free", then get over it. That kind of thing can't be fixed. Who's going to pay back the state of Pennsylvania? A company always hovering near rock-bottom? Where is Verizon going to get all the cash to pay the state back? Even worse, why would Verizon ever have to pay back money that was due to it by contract?
Supplying fiber to every home in PA was a joke. I'm just glad that they caught this in 2003 instead of waiting until the year 2015 to whine about it.
GO LEGISLATURE!
I think the main problem with broadband is the method ISPs charge for Internet access. I propose that, since broadband ISPs are virtually a monopoly, they should all just get switch away from flat rates and charge per bytes transferred. RIAA will be happy too since the cost of bandwidth will then effectively eliminate many P2P swappers. ISPs will then have more money and will be able to provide service to more areas.
i think there are plenty of other things going on here, and I think it's good you raised the right questions.
I use Verizon and in PA. We just got a notice in the mail a few weeks back saying our DSL monthly is going down (yes - down) in cost. I dont know if this was a factor or not, but I wouldnt be surprised.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Shows how stupid subsidies are, doesn't it?
...at it's finest.
Just a scheme so the rich can get richer.
Unfortuatly thier DSL sucks compared to cable modem.
Depending on how much you want to pursue ISDN and forcing Verizon to do something, one option might be the PUC. First, you'll have to find out if Verizon is supposed to have universal access to ISDN throughout the state with the PUC, you should also be able to find out the business and residential tarriffs as well. Assuming they do, next time you call Verizon, advise them what you have discovered at the PUC and that you will be calling and filing a formal complaint if you are unable to get the service at the tarriffed price.
I remember when I worked in PA (in the wireless biz, central and north-central part of the state). Dial up internet access was almost a joke, but at least it was there. This was in 1995/1996 timeframe. Though at one point I had to use AOL for internet connectivity in 1995.
PA is one of the states where I remember working with a group designing a wireless network for one of the blocks of spectrum auctioned off around 1996.. it was going to be used for the "last mile" type of connections. Sounds like things haven't improved much there, and there's still a great opportunity for that spectrum, too bad the financial people tried to cut out the engineering people near the end, and the rest of the group walked as a result.
. 62,400 repetitions make one truth -- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Big, important projects are what the government is good at. Look at the state of electricity distribution in America around the early 1900's. Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration pushed for the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority, wiring many rural areas for power that public companies would have ignored.
Another example: The interstate highway system. Do you think for one minute private industry would have created this system? If they did, it would only connect major towns, and require astronomical tolls.
Don't misunderstand. I am a stock-holder in many public companies. I think corporations are great for non-critical stuff like automobiles, entertainment, and the like. There is plenty of competition in those areas, and the products are a luxury, not a national necessity.
The internet and healthcare are too important to be left to the ineffeciencies of private industry. Don't give me the excuse that private industry is more "efficient" than public industry....that's crap. Government dollars go right into the people and equipment making the service available. The same is true for private industry with one very large exception - PROFIT. The lower the quality of the goods, the lower the cost, the higher the profit. The results are even worse (for the consumer) when there is no competition.
The bottom line is, if you care about actual results in public projects, you do not hand them over to private industry. Maybe the people of PA should consider voting Democratic or Independent in the next election.
-ted
What the fuck?!?
No wonder things are horrible here. It figures that something like this is keeping us from getting the technology we desire. I'm starting to wonder...
When Earthlink began to offer DSL (they rent the lines from Verizon to do so), I called them up to ask when it would be available in my area. The representative said that it would be available in about three months. Guess what. No big surprise really, but two years later, still no DSL.
Adelphia and Charter, the two big cable companies around our area, have begun to offer Cable Modem services in our relatively rural area. Unfortunately, it's not available in the town where I live yet (covered by Adelphia). Five miles down state Route 53, however, it's available in the next town. The fiber optic to coaxial hybrid nodes are hanging all over town, they just haven't gotten around to making them active yet.
The sad part of it all is there is only one reason they're not bringing us this service: Money. The almighty Buck. You know, it's really quite asinine, since there is a huge demand for it in my area. You'ld think they'd be more than happy to bring it to us so they can start collecting fees, thus making more money.
I think that on Monday, I'm going to bring this story to the attention of my local State House Representative, who just happens to also be my uncle. Unlike alot of politicians, he's a good man and has served this area well for over 30 years. He has alot of pull down in Harrisburg...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
I had wireless running between my office and my apartment, a quarter mile away, for a year and a half. It worked through trees and rain. The only time the signal sucked eggs was windy rainy weather. That tended to rustle the trees and scatter the signal.
You have it easy now, ethernet bridge devices are cheap, and they have an external antenna mount.
$400/month (for the T1) spread over 10 users is $40/month.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I'm curios to know about you people in PA. How many people provide broadband, in what area, and for how much. Also where are you located (city/county) in PA.
/. Heroics - 99.999%
There is one thing you are overlooking... money.
Yes, the politicians are voted in. But money plays a HUGE role in all this. What money does, among other things, is enable you to carry out actions that you otherwise wouldn't be able to. For example, advertising and other mass "brainwashing" campaigns. I hate to say it but humans fall for that kind of stuff. After all, how can you possibly explain how Americans fought a war in Iraq without any evidence, or how most Americans don't even know they invaded Panama, or they were behind the brutal regimes in El Salvador and Guatemala? The answer lies in information and brainwashing techniques... If politicians or governments didn't carry out these activities then what you are saying will be true: people voting should be responsible.
On a related point, regardless of who wins, the winner will always grant special rights to people donated the most money to his/her campaign. Make no mistake about it. This is why wealthy individuals, unions and corporations donate a lot of money to parties (no, they are not doing it because they are charitable--in particular, for-profit bodies like corporations are certainly not charitable). Once somone is elected, they grant ACCESS to their close confidants, party donors, etc. What this means is that whoever that donated to the party or the person will have greater ACCESS. Will this translate into a benefit for the donor? In most cases, yes.
For all these reasons (and many more), countries like USA are really plutocracies--not democracy! If you don't think so, just look around. Study countries and see what happens. Americans (or Canadians or French or whatever) feel proud that they are running a "democracy" but this is no different than in a developing country. There is little difference...
KoalaBear33
......The worst thing in my life happened when the stock market started mattering more than the economy
and have cable modem..sucks for the poster. As for the deal with Verizon, ce la vie.
Let's not address the issues that most people find are important to them. Let's instead address individualistic issues that only you bring up. That doesn't sound fair to me!
There are many reasons why important-to-the-majority issues are addressed before minor, non-important do. First, if the majority cares about gun reform and birth control, then you aren't going to get elected without taking a firm stance on such issues,
I WANT my politicians to address issues that are highly publicized (in comparison to the size of the community) and affect many people and that are important to many people. In fact, I think it's bullshit whether a politician is for guns or against guns, birth control, welfare, social security, small business, industry, education reform. WHAT I want to see a politican who makes the right choices based on what the MAJORITY wants combined with INTELLIGENT CRITICAL THINKING to find the best unbiased solution. In an anti-gun state, with most people against guns, I would expect to see all politicians, whether they own shitloads of guns or are afraid of them, to push for what the majority wants along with the reality of having guns in people's hands and also the reality of the constitutional right for citizens to arm themselves. However, if it's popular for a certain state to almost exclusively ban guns, then I expect each politician to gauge the pros and cons, the current existing laws, the effects of any changes, and if there need to be changes, and what other solutions exist to a purported problem. If a vocal politician with an NRA membership supports a bill to ban the use of guns of half of the people current allowed to carry them, you will scream "STOP! THAT POLITICIAN IS BAD!! HE IS JUMPING TO SUIT THE POPULAR! TO GET RE-ELECTED!" But if that's what the population wants, that's his job to do it. Not to conflict his personal views, although he should not hide his personal views or change them to make people feel happy, he SHOULD CHANGE HIS STANCE on issues if the MAJORITY WANTS SOMETHING DIFFERENT. How can he not? He is not a 'cheap hack' for changing his views, he's a public servant.
Politicians I've seen can manage time and have fun but are busy people who want to keep their jobs by serving the community. They have joy and pride in serving the community.
Cover your eyes and click this link!
So instead we get privately owned monopolies that are supported to with tax[payer dollars and have no obligation to live up to thier agreements. Sure, you can get a your telephone service from someone other than Verizon, but Verizon owns the wire, and it's gonna cost you more because of that. You can get DSL from someone other than Verizon, but Verizon owns the wire, and it's gonna cost you more, and you'll be lucky if it works properly, because Verizon controlls the DSL equipment the competitor must use to provide your service.
So either way Verizon has you screwed. They are the phone company, even if you choose to use thier competitor.
If the state owned the wire, or if the company that owned and maintained the wire did not also offer the services, then there would be reasonable competition for the services. Apply this also tho cable modem service, and you have competition in the wire business as well.
If I had some mod points, I'd give you a "funny".
Read, L
I've had verizon for ~1 year, and up until last week I had your opinion that they were the absolute shittiest wireless service there was - constant chop and drop during calls, lousy signal, and huge dark spots (I'm on eastern LongIsland - it's mostly flat, shouldn't be THAT bad).
Then I borked my old phone (Mot v120c) and got a new one (LG VX10)...in a week of using the phone I haven't heard so much as a chirp during a call, even in the worst spots - mostly my house (you have no idea how much that sucks when you have no landline) and on Sunrise Highway, and even down to NO bars of reception. All told, Verizon is actually turning out to be better than any other wireless company out here.
IMHO, the phone makes a lot more difference than a lot of people realize. Try the LG, if you're eligible for Verizon promos it's like $69 with a $50 rebate, and a 15-day trial period, so if it doesn't make a difference you're set.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
[nt]
espo
I am from PA and the real question here is why would the state spend 2.1 billion on broadband.... Do COWS and HORSES really need Broadband connections????
Umm...yeah they do. They spend their money but don't take your jobs. I don't see how that's bad.
"I say consider this day seized!" -Hobbes
"Tomorrow we'll seize the day and throttle it!" -Calvin
I lived in Philadelphia for six years and I have to agree. Any city that would allow the mayor to *discontinue* the street cleaning program for FIVE YEARS clearly needs a wakeup call. Just the fact that Frank Rizzo ever GOT elected was nightmarish. Now that he's gone they're STILL digging his cronies and non-working, overpaid family out of the system. PA is a rotting, festering hulk. You'll never catch me living back there.
Out here in Loudoun County Virginia -- home of AOL and major WorldCom offices, in addition to a myriad of other high tech companies -- there's very little in terms of broadband. If you are lucky, you can get the crappy Adelphia cable, but that's three years late in some parts, still.
But let me return to the focus of this message -- Verizon. We can't get DSL in much of the county because of fibre loops and because there's simply a lot of fibre underground, instead of copper. Nothing 100% substantiated, but there has been talk that this area was set up as a testbed for Fibre to the Home/Curb (FTTH/FTTC) about 12 years ago, but the experiment was cancelled.
So what has Verizon done? In the past two years, they've gone in and started the experiment all over, instead of using existing infrastructure, in a new part of the county, a new development called Brambleton.
I emailed the author of an article about the Brambleton Project, asking if the things they learned from it meant that the rest of Loudoun would benefit from the 'discoveries'. His response sound suspiciously like a non-response.
I wish I could post a copy of his answer, but the only copy I seem to have anymore is at broadband reports.com -- which seems to be down, currently. You can find it in their Washington-Baltimore forum, however.
Hmm. Since suing might not work, I wonder if a punitive doubling of taxes on Verizon for breach of contract might get some sort of positive result.. either the money comes back, or Verizon decides to do what they promised.
Also, it would open that state up nicely to competition.
That's even better than being paid not to grow crops, which I've been considering. I was going to try not growing five acres of corn, and if it worked out well, maybe expand to twenty acres. But it sounds like I'm better off getting paid not to install fiber.
I use ProLog which offers good broadband across most of eastern PA. It's got to be one of the state's biggest ISPs.
But, hey, if you can't get cable or DSL then it beats the hell out of dial-up. As another poster mentioned, you won't be playing Quake over this connection, but for browsing the web, doing e-mail, downloading Linux
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Last summer, they came through my neighborhood (Rosemont/Garrett Hill) near Philadelphia and installed miles of fiber optic cable. That cable apparently doesn't go anywhere, at least not that I can tell. I can't even be sure they actually buried any cable - none of the utility polls have any of the characteristic orange conduits where there are fiber access modules. Hell, I suppose they could have just come through, dug everything up, and left.
In the process of burying the cable, they destroyed the water infrastructure, which Philly Suburban Water Co. had to come in and replace this summer.
Verizon raped PA real good, and left me and my neighbors holding the bag.
A similar thing happened when Exelon wanted to build a nuclear reactor that we didn't need. They promised the state that they'd make money selling the excess capacity to other states, thereby bringing money into the state. Limerick 2 has been dormant since its commissioning and as a result, we pay over $0.13 per kilowatt hour if PECO is the provider. If you go north or west and get PP&L, your bill is more like $0.07 per kwh.
Seems PA is just a breeding ground for "lets screw the citizens" deals.
Anyone living in the Bryn Mawr, Rosemont, Garrett Hill, or Ardmore areas who is interested in Community Wireless Access should email me.
:)
:)
These are high-density areas with many dwellings in a small area, so one hotspot could cover several homes. I already have hotspots installed on Prospect Ave. in Bryn Mawr and on Garrett Hill in Rosemont. With these two hotspots, I could cover approximately 15 homes at each location.
I am interested in setting up community broadband wireless access in these areas on a NON-PROFIT basis. I have been working on this in my spare time for a while, but thought I'd open the floor to others
Sorry if this is pimping, but it's for the greater good
No, they DON'T spend money. They spend very little. They don't spend on luxury (ie: high margin) items. They don't spend on hi-tech. They cash in their options and investements. Pay off their house. They take money OUT of the market. They're converting their paper wealth into real wealth, and, believe me, there's not enough real wealth to cover all the paper everyone's holding (whether they like it, or even know it, or not).
You may think you have some control over the reigns of power, but look closely at any political system - an I challenge you to find one on earth that proves me wrong - and you will find a marketplace in which powerful men trade their power. Money, favors, other kinds of power... that is what politics and big business is about.
You do not spend money randomly - why you believe so optimistically that those in power do?
Ceci n'est pas une signature
...is definitely an oxymoron.
They're still screwing me on the bill for my DSL. $39.95 my ass!
Would this be the same Canada where vast numbers of First Nations people on reserves still don't have drinkable water and live in substandard housing? I'll grant that the Canadian government is pushing internet access more than many other governments, but let's not overstate the facts TOO broadly, eh?
(And yes, I live here too.)
~ Leilah
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NO MSG
How so? I've never had a problem whatsoever.
[Rant]I wish people would attempt to qualify and explain what they mean when they say something sucks instead of just saying it does.[/Rant]
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
last year made a measley 58 million. How can we expect him to make his company honor theur commitments on that paltry salary? He's prolly working nights just to pay his phone bill.
Doubtful. My Verizon DSL is going down in price too, and I'm in MA.
Its slower. At least here anyway, i'm sure in other parts of the country it may not be the case. But a friend at work tried both side by side, and he said that the DSL was slower. It took longer to respond, and the average DL rate was lower then cable. The only benifit was that the DL rate was stable; once it got to the max speed, it pretty much stayed there, wereas cable seemed to burst.