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

_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.