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."

Comments

Just the other day..

[Anonymous Coward]

..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.

Re:Just the other day..

[Anonymous Coward]

Not yet, not all of them.

It's a pilot program - they're allowing a few stores to open on Sundays to 'see how it works out', then they're going to consider letting them all be open on Sundays.

Frankly, I'd rather they change their hours rather than be open on Sunday. Of course, I'd love both, but I'm more annoyed that I can't go out drinking with friends at 11 pm unless we've already bought booze or we go to a bar. :P

_no_ broadband over much of PA

[rmm4pi8]

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.

Cable

[finkployd]

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

No PA broadband problems here..

[Rangsk]

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.

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 ;) I can only guess they do some kind of routine maintinance which sometimes disrupts the connection.

Don't worry...it's just a a smear campaign...

[Anonymous Coward]

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

What's filed with the state PUC?

[linuxtelephony]

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.

check out ProLog

[Anonymous Coward]

I use ProLog which offers good broadband across most of eastern PA. It's got to be one of the state's biggest ISPs.