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Verizon CEO Calls Municipal Wi-Fi 'a Dumb Idea'
ozone writes "
An interview with Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg quotes him as saying that 'Municipal Wi-Fi is one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard' and 'Why in the world would you think your (cell) phone would work in your house?' -- apparently Verizon's own 'Can You Hear Me Now' ad campaign has given customers 'unrealistic expectations' that their phone service will work everywhere. What?"
"Can you ping me now? No? Good!"
And, in true slashfashion, they eliminated all context in order to get us stupid plebes to post angrily and jerk off the adserver for them. Here's what he actually said:
That could be one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard. It sounds like a good thing, but the trouble is someone will have to design it, someone will have to upgrade it, someone will have to maintain it and someone will have to run it.
Which is a valid point. Even if it turns out that people are willing to pay for all the work that has to go into it and the system works, it's a perfectly valid logistics concern. It just so happens he doesn't have faith that it will work.
Furthermore, there's little context in the article about the comments on cell coverage. I get the impression he's complaining about people who call to whine that the phone doesn't work in certain, limited patches even though it works fine everywhere else. I'd wager that would be a small number of people complaining about lack of service in very limited areas, not a significant problem that he's writing off as being unimportant or below his company to fix.
And I'm posting this as a guy who hates Verizon so much that I go out of my way to avoid using them....
IHBT into giving slashdot revenue.
Oh, wait... no I haven't. Because ads.osdn.com is in my hosts file pointing to 127.0.0.1 until the day they stop scatterbanning me on networks I haven't done anything on, and start posting worthwhile, intelligent content to the site rather than this half-assed drivel full of half-truths and misinformation just to get people up in arms.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
to increase profits?
I knew I was expecting too much from my cell phone company.
And what does this have to do with Wi-Fi?
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
wow that comment came out of the blue. people should ignore moneystealing CEOs who drop random accusations (common sense)
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
CEO of company that would lose customers is city wifi is deployed makes argument against wi-fi.
More at news 11....
What Verizon needs is a good 'ol common man smack-down... Internet users of the world: UNITE!!!
It's more than that. WiFi wasn't really ment to be a substitute for other long-distance forms of communication.
o ss ary.asp
http://www.moto-zone.com.au/motoglossary/motogl
And yet we hear Wifi this, and Wifi that. Oh save us WiFi! We don't want to be alone, WiFi!
Are you kidding me? Why would a person buy a cell phone unless they are lead to believe it works in the area they live in??
Last year, the California Public Utilities Commission ordered all phone companies to give customers 30 days to test a service without slapping them with hundreds of dollars in early cancellation fees. But after the PUC suspended the rule a month ago, Verizon shortened its trial period to 15 days to match its 15-day return policy in other states. "We think there is a deal," he said. "We invest in the business and have the best service. But when you sign up with us, we'd like you stay with us."
Is this interview a joke? It has to be a joke.
This is what a monopoly is. When some CEO gets so arrogant they can act like that. In this case, it is a bunch of companies acting in collusion.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
...buggy whip manufacturers call automobiles "a passing fad".
in many areas not just software. This time it's a business model being threatened which starts the FUD just like MS does with Linux.
Verizon is evil generally and since having cable modem and Vonage I haven't paid a bill to them in at least two years. The charity I volunteer just switched to Vonage from Verizon and they are saving a couple of hundred a month.
Verizon has many reasons to be upset but technology marches on. You can't control everything. Learn a lesson from MS and their attempts to FUD Linux.
I call Verizon a 'dumb idea.'
From: Advertising Department
To: Ivan S.
Cc: Slashdot
Re: Your Recent Interview
Dear Sir,
Recently we've been spending a lot of money on a good campaign to convince America we have good coverage. We think we've been doing a good job of it.
Unfortunately, it has come to our attention that you made certain comments about Verizon's coverage, namely, 'Why in the world would you think your (cell) phone would work in your house?'
To keep our image from suffering in the eyes of the public, our response (i.e. damage control) will need to be quick, bulletproof, and all-encompassing. Thus, our final words:
AHH HAH HAH HA HA HA HAHAHAHAHAAAAH! LET THE MONEY FLOOD INTO OUR DEPARTMENT, FOOL!!!!
Many Thanks,
the Advertising Dept.
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
Actually, I think the article is a joke. It seems a little slanted, but I'm sure the reporter doesn't have any hiden agenda. I'm not one to defend phone companies, but where's the rest of the comments? I really don't think the CEO of a major telecom would come off that bad, unless the interview was held in a bar with strippers pouring free drinks!
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
This guy is the biggest uneducated tool I have ever heard from.
Community Wifi has dome things that verizon cant do and refuses to do. maybe if he got off his ass and did something instead of sitting there bashing others verizon would not be known as the worst telcom company on the planet.
hey Verison CEO, you are a stupid moron.
Sure its a really dumb idea for anyone but the telcos.
It is going to get VERY interesting when the big players really feel threatened and start taking citizens and municipalities to court.
I can just imagine how its going to ring with taxpayers vs customers... why should a municipal government be allowed to provide a free service to taxpayers using taxpayers money when we could easily charge them for it. Your honor this is very unAmerican!
I say it again: Cell phone users of the world: UNITE!!!
"The customer has come to expect so much."
That is unbelievable. Customer expectations are profit opportunities -- and if he's not willing to satisfy them, someone else will. He's actually angry that customers want service to keep improving!
"They want it to work in the elevator; they want it to work in the basement."
If Verizon won't provide the technology to make that happen, someone will.
How did he get so far? He reminds me of someone who'd say "I wish those customers would stop calling!"
Then again, when you're the CEO of a company that has a monopoly in most of its markets, I guess you can tell customers to f--- off with impunity.
I used to be a Cingular customer, then switched to Verizon. Superior cell phone service and in more areas. Cell phone reception isn't perfect everywhere, but I'll pay the company that gives me the best reception.
BTW, Verizon is not a monopoly. They aren't the largest cell phone provider in the US anymore.
"It sounds like a good thing, but the trouble is someone will have to design it, someone will have to upgrade it, someone will have to maintain it and someone will have to run it."
uhh. yeah.. why can't it be the city that pays for that part? because the city would get a too good deal?
"Why in the world would you think your (cell) phone would work in your house?" he said. "The customer has come to expect so much. They want it to work in the elevator; they want it to work in the basement."
uhh. I hate to break it to all of you - but here in Finland.. the cellphones actually (99.99% of time) DO work in normal cellars and elevators(they rarely work in big underground bombshelters though but that you can forgive). like, wtf? verizons boss thinks that it would be too much to ask for that, that the phone would work in your house? is he fucking bonkers? who would buy cellphone connectivity from a loonie that thinks it shouldn't work inside?
and what the fuck has that to do with the city offering the wifi for free, for all he should care he should be trying to SELL HIS COMPANY to be the PROVIDER of those networks - like he said, someone is going to have to build them, someone is going to have update them and someone is going to make a buck out of providing that SERVICE to the cities - he totally fucking fails there(well, he doesn't fail, he knows that if the municipally built networks don't become a reality then overpriced wireless connections in those areas will continue to sell providing them with a good margin, thing is, he trusts too much that his company would be the winner in that case, so much that he doesn't want to even try to make the other thing happen which would be verizon providing those municipal networks...).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
My two-year Verizon lock-in ends in a month.
Cingular, here I come.
The story reminded me of http://verizoneatspoop.com/. Anyone know what happened to this archive of grievances by pissed of verizon victims? It was around for years and I'm pretty sure I looked at it as late as 6-8 months ago. Now it denies access.
If you build it they will come
All your Sybase are belong to us.
Segway CEO calls bicycles "gay as hell."
hello dear sirs my name is jamesh i are india (bihar) can u guide me install red had linux 9?
if municipalities considered contracting with verizon for installation or maintenance work on the system.
"Why in the world would you think your (cell) phone would work in your house?"
Uh, because it's not covered in tinfoil? Because my am/fm radio works? Because my friends' phones work here? Because not every cell system sucks as hard as verizon?
Seidenberg gets an F in PR.
municipal wifi is a great idea if you want to lock in 802.11g as the standard for the future... being able to sell homes and businesses wifi technology is what keeps pushing the technological envelope... want to kill wiMax? Support municipal wifi.
Amazing magic tricks
There's 5 major nationwide cell-phone companies, and Verizon is the 2nd largest of them. There's also numerous local cell-phone companies.
Over. Under is just stupid, means the paper is against the wall (unless you have a free-standing toilet roll holder). Several times trickier to get hold of, especially if you're a "european wiper" and want your toilet paper sheets flat and uncrumpled (apparently americans crumple up their paper - at least "Charmin" brand toilet paper had to change their formulation for the european market because crumpled vs. flat makes a difference to sog/breakdown rates (flat slower), and so american-formulation Charmin kept clogging european toilets...)
the claim that a city like san francisco is going to be totally unable to handle the logistics of wifi is, well, ridiculous. cities have to juggle a lot more than phone networks: they have to handle the logistics of roads, libraries, health services, schools, etc. --- a task which in my totally uneducated opinion appears to be substantially more complicated than running a wifi network.
the rest of the article seems to serve only as proof that seidenberg and the industry he serves is full of proud egomaniacs.
Good!
This word, I do not think it means what you think it means. Try here. I know here at slashdot you can say whatever the hell you want and it'll get modded up if it's inflammatory enough, but please don't add to ignorance.
Don't like Verizon's service? Think their CEO is a jackass? Their commercials annoy the hell out of you? DON'T BUY ANYTHING FROM VERIZON!!!!!!! See, you've just voted with your wallet, that's the most powerful vote you have. They listen to that.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
"Why in the world would you think your (cell) phone would work in your house?"
He should come to the UK. My mobile phone network has 99.9% coverage in the UK and that includes my house, garage, even my shed. I can even get reception in my basement. There are three other national networks too that also have more than 99% coverage. My phone will work in most buildings - even in the Channel Tunnel.
I know that the US is a big place, and I also know that the companies are bigger and the market is bigger, so rolling out a cell network should be easy in built-up areas - the kind of areas that have houses... where cell phones in the states don't work apparently.
So, my question(s); given that my mobile works everywhere in the UK - even 5 miles out to sea - are these kind of connection problems rife in the US or what? Is it just Verizon that are crap? How the heck do you live with such a patchy service for such an essential piece of technology?
'Why in the world would you think your (cell) phone would work in your house?' I find this really odd as someone that ditched my land line and now *only* use my cell. The number one requirement with that was that I could use it anywhere in my house.
I work for a large-ish company and as such have the luxury of being able to take test units home from all of the vendors. We ended up with T-Mobile, but the main reason for that was that I can be in my basement and still talk on the phone. On a humerous aside I have a friend who has Verizon and can only manage to get text messages out of his house. I guess I can tell him now that it's just because he has 'unreal expectations'. (My phone works just fine in said same house.)
It's really about the service folks. If Verizon was the only carrier that worked, that's where I'd be. When my city lights up with Wi-Fi, that's where I'll be doing VOIP. At least I can rest easy knowing that Verizon won't be bidding on that project.
http://web.archive.org/web/20040926122407/http://w ww.verizoneatspoop.com/
(you'll have to remove the space to enter the url)
the main page has an error in the middle but the rest of the site seems visible (navigation is in seperate frames)
Next thing you know, Evian will come out and say that drinking tap water is a bad idea. Microsoft will say that running Linux is a bad idea. Just then, Harrison Ford will pop in to say "I've got a bad feeling about this..."
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
This is due to the superior construction of European socialist toilet paper. It breaks down easily out of environmental concerns. The ugly Americans with their bourgeoisie toilets and toilet paper! Their capitalist evil wiping schemes never stop!
'640K ought to be enough for anybody' -- Bill Gates
'We think there is a world market for maybe five computers.' --Tom Watson
'Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?' --Samuel Goldwyn
'Municipal Wi-Fi is one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard' -- Ivan Seidenberg
Unknown host pong.
Kind of interesting to read the CEO's comments considering Verizon has already blanketed New York City in phonebooth hotspots. They work pretty well, and are free (for now) if you use Verizon DSL. Wouldn't be a stretch to see Verizon rolling similar networks out in other metro areas (and charging), in which case the muni's would kill them.
fsck -u
That is: Chad Keck Cingular Wireless chad.keck@cingular.com Shoot me an e-mail, will give you a great deal on service that DOES work in your house...and we want it to!
I know you are wondering, how could this happen? Well, I don't know either. But here's a theory:
Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, who will soon quit Verizon and join AT & T, was sitting around wondering, "How could I shoot off my mouth and damage Verizon? That would make my job at AT & T easier."
Okay, maybe not a good theory. What's yours, then?
Bill gates think Linux and open source is a bad idea, the MPAA doesn't think p2p is good, and the earth is flat. signed, Captain Obvious
"Are you kidding me? Why would a person buy a cell phone unless they are lead to believe it works in the area they live in??"
oh... I dunno... basic understanding of radio maybe? Anybody who's ever had bunny ears should get the hint.
"Derp de derp."
I can only suspect/empathize that some of the comments were taken out of context and/or the interviewee was not at the top of his game, or ?? CEO of a Fortune 500 company??
I can relate to this comment in regards to T-mobile. I work from my house and found that unless I'm willing to stand outside in my backyard, I have at most two bars of signal (out of a possible 8). If I happen to be inside at my desk coding, 80% of my calls are dropped within one minute, and another 15% within 2 mins. In extremely rare cases, I can hold a call for an extended period.
A call to T-mobile resulted in the following response: "Given where your address is, you cannot expect to have signal inside any structure". I live within city limits, and every one else who comes over and isn't on T-mobile has plenty of signal. I don't think its out of the question to expect to have signal, but apparently, T-mobile doesn't feel obligated to correct the situation.
I'm just not going to get a Verizon phone, then. If the CEO is running around saying explicitely that he doesnt think cell phones should work in my house, I guess I'll use some other company. I think my cell phone should work in my house. I'll be getting one next week.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Why do all you people think city governments are in a better position to offer wi-fi than companies? After all, wireless providers already have all sorts of antennas hooked up already.
Europe uses GSM coding. Verizon is CDMA, I believe, which is one step ahead of soup cans with string between them.
They want it to work in the elevator; they want it to work in the basement.
I used to work at a company where we had coverage in the elevator and the basement. Oh wait, that was the phone company I was working for.
The word the parent is looking for is, I believe, oligopoly, defined by dictionary.com as "A market condition in which sellers are so few that the actions of any one of them will materially affect price and have a measurable impact on competitors." You can also look it up on Wikipedia if you care to.
While not as bad as monopoly, it's still a problem, at least if you are a consumer. Voting with your wallet in an oligopoly is not very effective, as the choices are all practically the same.
Monopolies and oligopolies are really capitalism gone wrong. While capitalism is the best system, it needs a firm framework, otherwise you end up with a handful of companies running the show. In that situation they care little about the customers, but focus instead on the CEO's compensation. At the same time they are entrenched, rich and powerful enough to keep out any newcomers, thus maintaining the status quo. This is especially true where the threshold to play is very high, such as in the phone business, excluding voip.
<sarcasm>Finally, I knew there was a reason that annoying Verizon guy in the ads is never shown inside people's houses, of course you shouldn't imagine you could cancel your landline and simply use a cell. Everyone knows cell phones don't work inside private residences.</sarcasm>
A furore Normanorum libera nos, O Domine! [From the fury of the norsemen deliver us, O Lord!] -- Medieval prayer
Perfect. Something about the term "buggy whip" makes me want to laugh anyway, but the comparison is apt. The telecoms think the world is going to slow down for them, so they can turn their behemoth organizations around and fight the next battle. While they're busy fighting their wars of industry consolidation, the technology is outpacing them.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Having worked for one of the larger cellular providers I can answer that question: Because customer are told that their cell phones will work in their homes.
In addition, cell phone companies (CellularOne for example) are trying to get folks to use their cell phone as their only phone, therefore one would expect it to work in your house.
http://www.busyweather.com/
They belong to corporate america and are dispensed by the FCC which is under the control of corporate america.
Radio was a nice way to deliver 'censored' and 'politically correct' information to the masses but....
a new competitor has arrived. It's name is Wi-Fi and it scares the hell out of the cozy 'good ole boy corporate-government' network at D.C. because it costs them $$$ for all that spectrum they paid billions for.
It's just a matter of time before public pressure forces the SELLOFF of the corporate radio networks back to the government or some other WiFi businesses. Nobody wants one way RADIO anymore.
The FCC should NOT be in the position of selling spectrum to the highest bidder.It should be handing spectrum to WiFi networks where it will be used alot more efficiently and help serve the most people.
I'm trying to remember the full paged adverts TCI and ATnT took out in the local papers back in the late 1990s when the city of Tacoma (just south of Seattlesta) was planning on laying their own fiber optic network for telivision and network access. I believe they called them selves "Citizens for Fair Cable" and explained how monopolies were good and how competition would result in lower rates but quality of service would suffer. Those who actually took the time to visit other cities knew full well that their present cable provider was crap, from static to ghosting you name it. It's a wonder they didn't take the money they spent educating the public why the cable monopoly was good and actually used it to upgrade the network which they had to do anyway as the city did put in their fiberoptic network.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Wish I could drop Verizon as a landline provider, but that's all there is in my neck of the woods. No Verizon = no dial-up for me. Not in a place where cell phone coverage is for shit and broadband is nonexistant. With that said, I'm considering on moving back downstate anyways and for other reasons besides a lack of choices other than 'Verizon or nothing'.
Verizon (and comcast for that matter) are fighting Philly's attempts at free wireless network.
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/11410060.htm
-- soldack
no wonder, since the recent hike in month to month dsl thay want to milk that for awhile first. maybe with a few more price hikes then they'll praise the idea as the greatest thing since velcro shoes
Step out of the box and enjoy life
Lately Verizon has been waging a nasty campaign against community WiFi networks that includes spreading blatant lies and bribing politicians. It makes me so sick that I am about to switch my service to a different provider.
Verizon doesn't make any money from that.
That's probably the dumbest thing the CEO of Verizon ever heard.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
For God's sake, it's San Francisco we're talking about. Show me ONE thing the city has done right. All that bunch of liberal clowns can come up with is to offer free everything to everybody (to keep from leaving anybody out) and raise taxes on the working people. Bad idea. Really bad idea.
Wishing for the next big earthquake.
Time to call the helldesk again. You'd think after 5 calls in a month they'd get tired of me. I'm debating sending a check for $2 for service this month- I'm getting 1/15 the advertised speed, so I should only have to pay 1/15 of what I owe, right?
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
But private telephone companies aren't doing it. Governments and enthusiastic hoppyists are. Private restaurants and bookstores are. Private phone companies are trying to get individuals to pay through the nose by the megabyte for 4G services and selling them data-enabled phones that they can't access their preferred data services from.
I have a Verizon phone. It's more powerful than my PDA, but I can't run any of my own software on it... in fact I can't run ANY software on it, except by paying exorbitant rates to Verizon for "Buy It Now". Verizon has a cash cow in their captive customer base, and they don't just milk it... they bleed it. Is it any wonder people don't see them as the natural providers of high speed data services, services... I note again... they they're not even providing.
"Why in the world would you think your (cell) phone would work in your house?" he said. "The customer has come to expect so much. They want it to work in the elevator; they want it to work in the basement."
You're selling me a telephone, and you tell me it's good enough to replace my landline. Why shouldn't I take you at your word?
AT least your coverage is better than T-Mobile. T-Mobile I had to walk to the other side of my street to get a signal. Hell with "in my house" how about "in my back yard"?
Last year, the California Public Utilities Commission ordered all phone companies to give customers 30 days to test a service without slapping them with hundreds of dollars in early cancellation fees.
A few years ago I had a nice PDA-phone combo. I went to the phone companies that were compatible with it, and tried to get it activated with the pre-paid card they were selling.I didn't get far enough to find out about "early cancellation fees".
Open your books, mister Seidenberg, quit treating your customers as criminals and fools, and then maybe people will quit turning to government because the free enterprise system has failed them... because the cellphone market doesn't resemble anything so much as a parody of a soviet health-care program. Homeopathic levels of service and no accountability...
I did this to Comcast and it worked:
Open up a new trouble ticket every day.
Most companies outsource their helpdesk, or at least there is an internal SLA that specifies how many trouble tickets they're supposed to close per day. In about 3 days you'll stick out like a sore thumb.
I did this after 3 weeks of being down on my cable modem. I called every day and insisted it was a new trouble.
In about 4 days, the supervisor called me up wanting to know "what the heck I was doing". I asked him the same thing. It was fixed (no joke) in 2 hours.
Mr. Seidenberg:
I sincerely hope you read this, I am not a zealot, merely an observor and a potential future customer of Verizon.
Your interview with Mr. Wallack obviously shows that there is a market for public municipalities to run their own telecom services. Especially in rural areas where it might not be economically viable for larger telecoms to set up towers.
As you said in your interview "It sounds like a good thing, but the trouble is someone will have to design it, someone will have to upgrade it, someone will have to maintain it and someone will have to run it." The public municipalities will do this of course. If they can do it in a costwise manner how would it affect your company?
What if the public community ran their own free network? How would that affect you - it is only increased competition - good old fashioned capitalism. There might be people that volunteer their time in order to serve the greater community. I seriously think that public municipalities will be able to do this in a couple years once the hardware becomes cheap enough. Remember when you needed a team of system administrators to run a unix box? Now you need 1 person and some open source software and one person can manage a network of 10000 boxes. It is that simple and that easy - it just takes time to bake. But once the cake is baked you'll have to eat it and rapidly create a new business plan to keep Verizon afloat.
It's a funny thing about context. Some people see it, some people don't. What you've chosen to ignore is that in one paragraph he disses San Franscisco's proposed infrastructure based on ongoing costs, and in another paragraph admits the reason they want MCI is to grab THEIR infrastructure. Nothing about the costs of THAT, though no doubt Verizon will be passing that on.
The man is a hypocrite, and you are indeed a stupid plebe for wasting your time on a site you apparently hate so much.
insecurity asks the wrong question irritation gives the wrong answer
'Why in the world would you think your (cell) phone would work in your house?'
Why would anyone get a cellphone if they wouldn't work indoors? Unless you're a lumberjack or something you spend 95% of your time indoors. Areas with no indoor coverage is areas with no coverage.
Most town and city governments are barely able to manage this much. Quite a number of them don't manage to do it.
Sorry, but while I agree WiFi shouldn't be banned from municipal operation, most municipalities need to focus on those pesky problems like education and emergency services...none of which are being handled very well on average around the US.
Please help metamoderate.
As for indoor reliability of cell phones, my Sprint works quite well at home, but only after they built a new cell-phone tower quite close to where I live. I probably have the Chicago Bears to thank for that, as they played their home games here in Champaign a year or two ago while their stadium was modernized, and the cell phone capacity probably had to be upgraded for the temporary flood of Chicagoans.
Cell phones could easily be upgrade to work indoors by either of two ways. A repeater station with a larger antenna, possibly pointed in some general direction of the nearest cell if the signal is really week. Secondly, smart or dynamic bandwidth use. The electronics probably aren't cheap enough yet, but no doubt soon will be to dynamically use only as much bandwidth as is needed for reliable data transmission. A benefit of this would be the ability to pay a little more for a higher quality voice signal, say using a full 32K or 64K of bandwidth instead of the over-compressed 16k one-size-fits-all chunk used today. In the digital realm a weak signal can be compensated for by using more bandwidth. You can also go the other direction, more reliability by keeping the bandwidth constant but slowing the data rate.
In any event the cell phone is a specialized device, the early ones where analog, the latter ones hard wired to handle a very specific chunk of 16K voice data. Adding on cameras and the like are really just kludges and I suspect true 3G services will never truly arrive being side stepped by the advent of an internet everywhere sea of data always flowing, flowing, flowing. When out of range to reach the internet backbone some devices will probably be courteous enough to hand data along in bucket brigade fashion until it gets to where it needs to go.
Letter To Iran
And a municipal utility is a what? A monopoly?
Ok, sure, so maybe cities won't outright ban other providers, but isn't it kinda unfair that the competition has to pay taxes in order to subsidize the municiple offering? Wouldn't it be better for companies to take those taxes and turn them into lower prices? Wouldn't it be better if the low-income families could pick and choose between providers rather than being forced to use a municipal provider?
Anyhow. Verizon is hardly a monopoly.
Sure, several years ago you could say that you could only get local phone service from them (in certain areas). Funny thing is, I can get local phone service (not VoIP) from at least one other company around here. Throw in VoIP and now things begin to sizzle.
Just wait until wi-max starts rolling out, then see what happens to all these "monopolies"... oh wait! they won't be able to compete because the municipal government will have a wireless net access monopoly..
Can't wait to read those interviews.
The FCC gives out some tiny sliver of the spectrum that can be used by the everyman without a federal license; why should private businesses be allowed to use a significant portion of the spectrum for their own for-profit business? It'd be kind of like Clear Channel setting up radio stations on the walkie-talkie and CB bands.
It just seems like a rip off for consumers to get a useful radio technology and then get it essentially taken away by someone making a buck off it.
So... not most of the people who buy/use cell phones?
Game... blouses.
Visionary or idiot? You decide.
"If Municipal WiFi is adopted the Terrorists Win." - Verizon CEO
This Message brought to by Verizon Wireless. Talk to friends and family for free*
* Fees apply.
stfu
Verizon, Comcast, and all the other entrenched communications carriers will have to fight the same battle that LA la land is fighting. The digital age means that things are done differently, and consequently the business model has to change. None of them will get anywhere with the public at large if they refuse to roll with the punches and innovate.
Any company that refuses to innovate deserves to die a long and miserable death, and they probably will.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
The CEO of Coca-Cola says that Pepsi is the dumbest idea ever!
Verizon CEO said:
"It sounds like a good thing, but the trouble is someone will have to design it, someone will have to upgrade it, someone will have to maintain it and someone will have to run it."
And God knows the city isn't capable of managing anything that complicated. The only comparable thing they do is, oh, I dunno, for example, provide clean water to every address in the city at an affordable price, in a region where fresh water is scarce?
Run a public transportation system that can get you anywhere in the city almost as quickly as a private automobile, for $1.25?
Just minor logistical challenges like that. And other tiny things that work so well no one even knows they're there, until they stop working. The city has certainly never undertaken anything as complicated as--Jeepers!--citywide wifi, which heretofore has been much too daunting for anyone but local cafe owners and college undergraduates to attempt.
someone will have to design it, someone will have to upgrade it, someone will have to maintain it and someone will have to run it.
Ivan Seidenberg (who's an MBA not an enigineer) makes this sound way more complicated than it needs to be.
In my experience most bandwidth (business, residential, government) is mostly unused. San Francisco has a lot of surplus bandwidth that taxpayers have already paid for. What we'd like is for the city to fund wireless nodes via sflan that give some of this bandwidth back to the people.
I think Seidenberg's real concern is that Verizon won't be able to charge $29.95/month for something that should be practically free.
I have 3 words for this guy. Get a job.
Verizon has a monopoly on local phone service here and does act in the manner described.
San Francisco wants to perform a public service, and Verizon is only pissed because they lost an opportunity to grab a buck. These greedy businessmen would charge us for the air we breathe if they could get away with it. They are nothing but bloodsuckers.
How ya like dat?
The company "Verizon" is completely different than
the company Verizon Wireless.
Isn't it Verizon Wireless who has the "can you hear me now" catch phrase? If so , you are
comparing oranges to tangelos with all your dumb "can you hear me now" jokes.
Really. Please. Stop. We don't need WiFi everywhere. I understand that it's prepping our genome for space (by blanket-washing the Schumann Resonance, just like in tall, electrified / wired buildings), but not all of humanity will move into space. Earth's resources will long be a base for exotic and subtle tastes (we even managed to convey this in Star Trek, our model for technical development). Over cosmic distances we'll use a 'broadcast-less' communications tech based on a modified / future revision of Quantum Foundations, and won't need to OD on wattage broadcasts. Better to spend your efforts developing in these directions, or in the Interdiscplinary Arts - to fuel vision in these directions.
.
-shpoffo
gro airDNAxeLawen
kNOw Research
Despite an opposing reputation, my Sprint phone has much better reception than my Cingular one did. I also did not have to agree to let Sprint periodically inspect my credit record to hook up either. Baby Bells have the worst of all service and are dumb enough to tell you so while filling every advertising space with a different message.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
"Seidenberg said it's not Verizon's responsibility to correct the misconception by giving out statistics on how often Verizon's service works inside homes or by distributing more detailed coverage maps, showing all the possible dead zones. He pointed out that there are five major wireless networks, none of which works perfectly everywhere." So he has nothing to complain about when Verizon's reception and dropped calls reviews are compiled on a web page, the info has to come from somewhere, and since V's not telling...
and you know why? Because, in spite of all the Verizon ads, they can hear me now when I use Sprint! They cannot with Verizon!
Can you hear me now, Verizon?
'I don't really have time to sit down and write. But when I think of a melody, I call up my answering machine and sing it, so I won't forget it.' -- Britney Spears
If my laptop can connect to the 8 different unsecured wireless networks in my apartment building, why shouldn't I be able to get celluar reception in my apartment?
and by the way, they can screw themselves if they think i'll get into a cell contract with them.
Having a government provide services where it can is a good idea. No-one sensible advocates privitizing the fire-department. Why? Because we know government can do a better job than private industry at this.
Maybe the business of providing communications infrastructure is now such an essential and standardised service that it's a government job. If a democraticly elected government wants to try and prove that, that's their mandate. If it turns into one big fuckup, the ballot box will sort them out.
If this guy wants to stop it happening, he should have to make his case to the people, not sneak around lobbying bent politicians to get an insane law passed against it. Ideology brought down the communists, and it will bring us down too if we let it.
Also they have the worst logo in all of recorded history. Even if they didn't suck in so many other ways, I'd still avoid Verizon just so I wouldn't have to see that godawful logo every time I looked at my phone.
If we have fast quality Wi-Fi everywhere in the city, you can use an IP-based phone everywhere. There's no need for other phones. No need for DSL for Internet access. This would be a terrible thing for the phone companies, and it would probably spread rapidly if it works in one place and the economics work for that city. Note also the parallel with Municipal-owned Public Power which is usually much cheaper than Investor Owned Utility power. We're already used to municipal roads, water, and sewer.
"Someone will have to design it,
someone will have to upgrade it,
someone will have to maintain it and
someone will have to run it.
Ivan left out his main objection: "I won't own it."
I have verizon and it sucks big time. Signals drop on my constantly, especially in my house.
"Hey fuckhead, can you hear me know? Take my $175 cancellation fee and shove it up you're executive ass."
No wonder the service is so bad, the CEO is a complete imbecile.
out.
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
The FCC should NOT be in the position of selling spectrum to the highest bidder.It should be handing spectrum to WiFi networks where it will be used alot more efficiently and help serve the most people.
Umm... Why the hell would I want to pay the FCC just to keep delivering free wireless Internet access to my customers? Maybe you meant that they should be opening more of the spectrum for use with things like WiFi, but everybody would need new hardware to take advantage of that (I know, in most cases it would just be a firmware update, but if the network equipment companies can sell you more cards and routers instead, that's the route they'll go) so maybe that space would be better utilized by a future wireless networking scheme. Or perhaps the key to deciphering this is to focus just on the bit about the FCC not selling spectrum, but that would be stupid, not only for a self serving government agency, but for the quality of life for people who enjoy being able to listen to the radio or talk on a cell phone (though I would like to see more acceptance of decent power pirate radio/television where it doesn't interfere with commercial systems, even if that is becoming less relevent).
Monopolies and oligopolies are really capitalism gone wrong.
Look, I hate to burst your bubble, but what you're describing is the natural conclusion of capitalism. You can't say "capitalism is the best system" on one hand while describing in detail its very obvious and very current deleterious effects.
Capitalism is not a synonym for "well-oiled economny." Nor is it a synonym for "freedom" or "opportunity." Capitalism is a set of power relations, and nothing more. The conclusion of those power relations is the present day world.
You can't get around it, like most traditional economists do, by saying: well, that's not how it's supposed to work, so what we see here are aberrations. Just like you can't look at communist command economies and say, "Well, that's not how it's supposed to work." Tell it to the Polish.
We need a new alternative. People are brewing one as we speak.
Telecoms providing tariffed services subject to government regulation are not fans of change. Anything they can do to inhibit change and protect their current revenue stream is something that they will do. Some less well-informed people will read his comments and think twice about investment in new technologies. Therefore, mission accomplished for him.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
That quote doesn't change a damned thing, as numerous other people have pointed out. Dumbass.
"Why in the world would you think your (cell) phone would work in your house?"
When I was with Verison I didn't expect it to work OUTSIDE either. Hence why I went to another company.
We're a small city in Virginia, and we're implementing an 802.11b/g wireless network across our city, as a municipality. We're exempt from Virginia's (Verizon sponsored) law about that because we are also our own electric department. We are implementing it because we can, and we should, and our citizens deserve it, and Verizon won't do it because we're below their profit margin ... not for the state as a whole, but for south central Virginia. We are doing it because it's smart. We are doing it because our schools, fire department, police department, and low-income residents can use it -- cheaply, securely, and quickly. We are doing it because our citizens don't want to wait until 2030 to get decent wireless broadband coverage. We are designing it (with help from Virginia Tech) and we are maintaining it (yes, all 4 of us in IT) and we are going to implement it (with help from the electric department and a cable contractor) and when we get done, we'll have something our tax dollars have paid for that all of our citizens can use cheaply, a wireless street-to-street network for a city of 6000 people. If Verizon could have, why didn't they? Because we are too poor? far from an urban centre? insignificant? unhip? Thanks but no thanks, Verizon; take your bullying elsewhere. We are the folks who deserve better treatment than that.
Irish by birth, Southern by the Grace of God.
Yet you're sticking it to Verizon?
Who profits? Verizon might not be the most disinterested of viewpoints.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
CDMA is a method for dividing up the spectrum, just as TDMA (the scheme used in current GSM) is. GSM is actually being replaced by UMTS, which uses a technology called WidebandCDMA (which is totally different from, and incompatible with, the IS-95 CDMA technology used in the US by Verizon.)
That CDMA will be replaced by CDMA2000, which is comparable to WCDMA as a 3G system.
Both CDMA (IS-95) and GSM are obsolete, and on the way out.
Not sure if I really agree with you on the oligopolies part (totally agree about monopolies though). Oligopolies are actually pretty good for the economy because they really promote innovation. While in a perfect competition situation (an example being wheat farmers) there is no point of innovating. If the farmer wants to make more money, he/she just increases his/her's output because it will have no affect on the price.
Oligopolies are all around us. Examples range from IBM's DB2 and Oracle to Coke Cola and Pepsi to McDonalds and Wendy's and the other large fast food places. And in these oligopolies we have fierce competition which leads to innovation. Imagine however if you had 1000 different database vendors which provided essentially the same product. What would be promoting innovation? You would know that there very little that you can do to stand out (and you won't really have money for R & D).
So in summary I think oligopolies are not really situations when capitalism went wrong.
:P
Disclaimer: All this info is coming from a 1st year eco course
And expensive-to-cancel contracts help us do that because, well, frankly, otherwise we'd have to keep improving our service and that's expensive!
At this point, the phone call abruptly ended: he entered a tent.
IMPHO his lowballing of the MCI bid, unawrranted rantings at the second bidder, Qwest, and buying one shareholder out at two and a half bucks over their MCI-accepted buyout offer all tend to paint "plays for real" terrible ivan as having an unusual number of disconnects recently.
financial mags were saying a year plus ago that he intended to retire in a year. he should have.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Maybe this guy says this could be one of the dumbest ideas he's heard of, but the only REASON people are thinking about it is because companies like Verzions are *not doing anything good with wireless*.
We're sick of the low speed, very expensive crap wireless that's out there now. GPRS is okay for sending an e-mail with your phone but it's slow for anything else. Even Verizon's new fast wireless service being deployed in some cities leaves much to be desired.
If people can't get it from the private sector even if the technology could make it happen, they'll look to local government.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Throw the term "Community" or "Socialism" on Big Brother seizing control of private communication and people normally "commited" to choice and privacy will rejoice and throwing it all away.
So what if the government controlling Internet access means that the police will be able to monitor your communications without a warrant (After all, you are using THEIR wifi network, they are free to monitor the traffic all they like)... so what if your location will be tracked by the government (if they are operating a grid of wifi stations, they can determine where you are by which cell you are connected to)... So what if it means the people providing wifi will be obligated to enforce every rediculous court order (RIAA banning file sharing, some religious nuts banning "pornography" and info about birth control). Running against the Mayor in your town? How do you know your private browsing history, emails, etc., won't end up in the hands of the public? (oh yeah, I forget, the government never leaks secret information!). And instead of having your service shut off when you don't pay your bill, when you don't pay your Internet tax you will be sent to prison. And sure, I am sure government wifi service will be great once there is a government monopoly on it. Yeah great... if I don't like my service provider now, I can find another one... but with the government running it I can expect the same great service one has come to expect from the U.S. Postal Service, public schools, the IRS and DMV. Fantastic!
"The government running wifi networks won't stop private companies from providing the services!" you say. Oh really? How many people can afford to pay for Internet service twice? Once for the government wifi tax and one for your private service. How many private buisnesses will bother setting up wifi networks when for the 10% minority of people concerned about privacy?
Are all the geeks at Slashdot thinking they are gonna make it rich with big government wifi contracts? Or have even the Slashdot crowd become a bunch of government worshiping suckers, with absolute blind faith in the government?
Why not provide free food to everyone, free clothes, video games, guns, cars, housing, etc.? At what point is it no longer a good idea for the government to provide a service? Traffic lights, streets, cops, etc. keep the city working and organized. Socialized WiFi just gives people free internet access.
The difference between this and a business is that the business has a good reason to keep costs down: to stay in business. When the WiFi project is in need of an upgrade, guess who pays? Everyone, regardless of whether they like it or not. Not only that, but knowing most government projects it'll cost more and be less useful than a private sector alternative.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
We have radio on the net and we can have something like cellphones with muni's using WiFi.
Costs would be way lower and could be another big new market for products.
Can you hear me switching to Cingular now? Good.
This allows Verizon to get away with providing shitty service,
I have Verizon DSL. In about a year, it's been down about 6 hours. I have about 1500/330 for 29.99 a month.
I'd still avoid Verizon just so I wouldn't have to see that godawful logo every time I looked at my phone.
Duct tape over the logo will work wonders.
Note to self: NEVER sign up with Verizon
Peace
"The FCC should NOT be in the position of selling spectrum to the highest bidder.It should be handing spectrum to WiFi networks where it will be used alot more efficiently and help serve the most people." WiFi has all the spectrum it will likely get (ISM and UNII bands). The FCC did just relese spectrum at 3650 for wireless internet use. It currently has some satillite and goverment ground operators. Crackers
Imagine however if you had 1000 different database vendors which provided essentially the same product. What would be promoting innovation?
:P
Why would 1000 different database vendors provide the same product? I guess your definition of innovation must be microsoft, whose products are indeed marketed by a 1000 vendors. Sarcasm aside, when 1000 vendors sell the same crap, its because they are lazy or their hands are tied, both of which kill innovation.
Disclaimer: All this info is coming from a 1st year eco course
Change that to I know nothing about economics but would like to claim otherwise
Although, in his defense, he is captaining a sinking ship. Verizon (the land-line communication company) is lately having a lot of troubles, while the daughter company, Verizon Wireless (which has its own officers and infrastructures) is kicking ass. VZW has toyed with *buying* Verizon, so that should tell you something. Verizon's CEO is probably a little panicky right now, and given the current state of affairs at Verizon, I would believe that he's not a great CEO, so saying stuff like this is realistic.
Vote for global prefs bug
One such compilation is wirelessnotes.org .
Municipal government: Has a vested interest in giving their constituents what they want in order to remain elected. Corporations: Have a vested interest in increasing their bottom line, which ultimately comes down to the stockholders, not the end users. Which do you think is the better choice?
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
The sooner there are mobile VoIP phones, the better.
The buzz on the wireless boards (howardforums, phonescoop) is that in 4Q05 T-Mobile will be launching a new service that uses WiFi VoIP at home and GSM wireless when you're not.
Before Verizion quipped that their wireless phones don't work at home it seemed that T-Mobile was only wireless carrier that freely admits that 1900 MHz does not work well in buildings. To address this problem they are going to sell a new phone and a VoIP access point in a bundle. The phone switches to WiFi when it is in range of your base station and switches back to GSM when out of range.
It will require high-speed internet access. This is an extremely clever idea. I was not able to find out what happens when you "roam" onto other people's WiFi networks or if you could hook up your POTS phones to this WiFi VoIP gateway.
Kris
Kriston
Congress has no authority here. All powers not specifically delegated to the feds are reserved to the states or the people - it says so, right there in the Constitution. And you can't even make a week case for interstate commerce since what one state does doesn't interfere with the trade of another state in any way, shape or form - it only makes it more difficult for the company, which is *not* the arm of any government.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
'Why in the world would you think your (cell) phone would work in your house?'
What?? Cell phone in the US of A are not supposed to work in houses? Here in India they very much do!
What the hell is this guy talking about? Why can't the customers expect their cellphones to work everywhere? Infact, one of the cellular operators in India lost out on a major chunk of its market share because its cellphones didn't work (or worked sporadically) within houses - especially basements.
Nandz.
Inherently, phone manufacturers do not want the customer to understand that each new technology they develop is not intended to increase quality but save bandwidth and require less spectrum. CDMA is just coming into maturity after 10 years. It will be a few years more until the small ic's in the average cell phone work perfectly. Verizon manages to get 3x the phone traffic as a standard TDMA setup like GSM in the same spectrum space. As the saying goes no free lunch.
federalism has been weakened over time by the supreme court. there is not much that the federal government can't do.
That doesn't mean that one 802.11 setup will really serve the entire city on its three non-overlapping channels with tens of thousands of users. But it'd be a great place to put a WiMax antenna to feed a bunch of 802.11g local pods.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Also, most DSL systems are fairly oversubscribed, in terms of number of users per megabit of upstream bandwidth. So to do a rooftop network, you put more real bandwidth in the wired sites and do the oversubscription out on the radio side instead of in the DSL router side, and it works fine.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Well, yes he can if the other systems are worse.
Oddly enough, Verizon was the only carrier I tried that actually did work in my house. It's got really good coverage. I have a little trouble at work because they don't have a transmitter on the Stanford campus, but it still works fine on the extended network. I don't have to pay extra for it either.
There's really no reason for the CEO to be such an ass. The service is actually fairly decent. Most people I've talked to have had similarly good experiences with it. But if I had heard this guy before I started the service, I wouldn't have even tried them. If that's the kind of tough talk that gets him ahead in business, businesses must be more out of touch than I thought.
[insert witty quote here]
I had enough trouble paying attention in college back when the only distractions were windows or female students. (Cue the "when I was a boy we had to walk to school through the snow, uphill both ways" music, but since this was Cornell that was pretty accurate, except when I was bicycling through the snow uphill both ways. Portable computers hadn't come out yet, but we did have calculators except for chemistry where we still used slide rules.) (And none of this "didn't have a girlfriend, eh?" business either - being in the same classes she was in was even more distracting, except of course that it was only physics so it didn't need a lot of attention :-)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
SIM cards are useful, but what's really useful about GSM is that almost everywhere in the world uses it, except for a couple of small specialized markets like the US and Japan (:-) That basically means that the Europeans had better sales people, not necessarily better technology. It was largely driven by the fragmented European PTT markets where the economies of scale worked much better if everybody who was upgrading from older analog systems went with the same newer technology, while the US markets had much larger markets with multiple carriers in them so technology fights were more realistic.
Very few wireless telcos are focused on serving data customers well - they're focused on extracting money from people however the market will let them, and if that's crippled overpriced data services used to deliver ringtones, texting, and low-res animated Hello Kitty pictures to teenagers at 10 eurocents or yen per pop, then that's what they'll deliver. Most of the US carriers that sell data are trying to sell phone-to-phone casual data services - if what you want is to replace Metricom with a truly portable always-on connection for your laptop, most of them don't want to sell that except for very high prices. Doesn't matter whether the data service underneath could do far more - if it's not what they're selling at a rational price, it's not useful.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I've two cell phones. One that works in dang near every country in the world.... except the US and one that dang near works in the US.
... no problem. The dang things just worked. Not only that, but they were about 1/4 the size of the phones selling for hundreds of dollars in the US and .... the phones where free. Phone charges were by the minute (If you started the call) no minute limit with a small (around 5 dollars US) monthly change just to exist. Here in the US we can't even cover a whole city. Yet China is rapidly approaching the whole country, In Africa getting a land line is a dream. But sitting on the corner is a man with a cell phone. BTW he IS the pay phone. Yet today in the US..... we still can't cover a block let alone a city with a 100k population.
I had the distinct pleasure a number of years ago o sitting in on a meeting. I was chosen to sit in on this meeting because of my role in maintaining a Korea wide pager system for the US Military. In that meeting and a number of less formal ones over the years I came to understand the basic difference between the US attitude and the attitude of the rest of the world.
Locally we keep asking "What's our Value Add" "What's our IP" A number of Asian and European Businesss people have pointed out to me that they love to hear American Companies saying this. Why? because they know that by the time the Americans figure out their value add and their IP they will have a product on the market already that is light years ahead.
In 1999 living in Korea I could go 7 stories underground, or zip along on the Subway at 50mph all while talking on my cell phone. 20 stories in the air no problem. In a plane flying over the freaking country
Did you know that the US is the only place I've seen in the world that allows both sides of a call to be charged? Did you know that that is illegal on land lines?
As to why I expect my phone to work. I've got one that I've taken from Singapore, to Manila, through Banglor and Hong Kong up to Korea and Tokyo and I don't have to ask if people can hear me. Here in the silly con valley though..... 5 out of 10 places I go are either off net or barely serviced. So yes I do expect it to work. Mofo that is what I'm freaking paying you for. Not overloaded Cells spread to thin to be effective. If you'd spend as much on maintenance as you do on lunch stuff might work.
Last note. After 4 years of watching that poor slob on the Verizon commercial saying "can you here me now" you'd think he'd have found at least one point were someone could hear him.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
If the city *really* wanted to spank Verizon, who aren't the local wireline telco, they could offer to let SBC or Comcast use lamppost space or some similar favor in return for providing free wireless. Of course, The City Government (and also the Bay Guardian) appear to have hated every cable TV provider in the last few decades, so it may not happen with Comcast, but perhaps SBC could do it.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
"It sounds like a good thing, but the trouble is someone will have to design it, someone will have to upgrade it, someone will have to maintain it and someone will have to run it."
Someone to design: O/S community
Someone to upgrade: O/S community
Someone to maintain: O/S community
Someone to run: O/S community
Oh my! My business model is flawed!
Yep, got that right.... Now go sit in a corner, troll.
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
is health care. We Americans pay more money for less health care, most of it due to massive amounts of bureaucratic overhead in the supposedly "efficient" private sector.
Is Universal health care in other countries perfect? No, of course not.
But UHC is better than a sixth of the population simply having no health care coverage whatsoever and many beyond that having inadequete health care coverage. Better than half the people declaring bankruptcy doing it because they got killed by medical costs. We're getting screwed by the insurance companies here.
And before some dittohead chimes in with "malpractice costs" talking points, insurance companies are screwing us there too. Lawsuits and payouts have been trending downwards for years but insurance rates keep going up. Some of it is due to the insurance companies making poor investments and getting killed in the stock market. But mostly it's just greed. If you need any more proof of how malpractice "reform" solves nothing, check out how rates in the states that have imposed limits have gone up faster than the states without them. Go figure. A Bush-sponsored solution that solves nothing. Whatta shocker.
Universal health care would slash huge amounts of overhead out of the costly and inefficiently run health care industry, provide better health care for Americans and make businesses here(especially small ones) more competitive with each other and with others overseas.
Municipal Wi-Fi as a way of getting an entire city online (mesh networks etc.)
in terms of it's population's homes is bordering on impractical, costly and
prone to trouble (like reception sucking ass behind someone's walls).
But Municipal Wi-Fi also includes Wi-Fi-ing up city centers etc. I think if you
go to downtown Seattle or Austin or whatever (pick a city where there is a lot
of tech industry, because the public uptake will be higher to start if they all
work for Motorola or Microsoft
wireless access to the net.
At home you may as well be wired and relay your own secured wireless inside your
own 4+ walls.
Neko
My mobile, small as it is, works everywhere, it works in the lift/elevator, it works in the underground carpark. My last contract even held onto it's UK signal all the way across the chanel on a ferry, I made calls. I was only when it actually docked at the French Ferry port that it switched to a French provider. I was also able to make calls from the Sahara desert in Egypt while treking on holiday.
"Why in the world would you think your (cell) phone would work in your house?"
That has to be one of the dumbest things I've heard anyone say about a mobile phone. Of course it works in my house, why would I buy the damn thing if it didn't? Still, the market knows best eh? Suckers!
Why wouldn't your mobile phone work in the house? Don't your phones work everywhere?
Quote from the above linked article: 'The Corporate Library, an independent research firm, rated Verizon's board as one of the "10 worst" among 1,700 companies in 2003 for excessive pay, a lack of independence among directors and other practices.'
What company in the U.S. uses UMTS?
I notice that imperial CEO's always self-destruct, like Jerry Levin of Time-Warner, who sold his company to AOL just before the Internet company crash. Perhaps that's why the Verizon CEO sounds so arrogant.
Uh. That's capitalism at work. Because it's not as profitable to cover the entire country, as it is to cover just selected portions.
That's why your socialist country has to force the telcos to cover your country.
It doesn't benefit the telcos - they actually make less money than they would if they covered a smaller and more profitable area.
But it arguably benefits the country as a whole. It's a bit like building roads to small villages. And street lighting.
Well I'm sitting here in my house in the UK and my Orange cellphone has a full signal. I live in the middle of nowhere too... Why would I want to use the, quite frankly, stone age landline that has no directory, no caller id (I know you can buy extra boxes to do this on landlines) and no conference facility to name just a few of the standard things a modern digital cellphone can do...? That 'phone is just a side effect of having ADSL to me - I use my portable 'phone to make calls.
They just take and take and take
Sounds like sour grapes to me - he wasn't so much saying "thats a dumb idea" but rather "thats a dumb idea because you didn't ask us to do it"
In other news, the Fox said farmers have unrealistic expectations for the safety of henhouses. "Guarding a henhouse takes a lot more than just closing and locking the door", said the Fox. "Why would you expect the door on a henhouse to work? Only an expert like myself has the capability to guard the hens."
In Bangalore, India, we had the airwaves open out only VERY recently - Prices are, I believe, among the cheapest in the world.
A CEO can be arrogant, regardless of their status as a monopoly. Plenty of people are arrogant without any semblance of real power.
Verizon's position as a monopoly is laughable. There are at least 5 nationwide cell carriers, many local and long-distance landline carriers, an explosion of VoIP carriers, with Comcast threatening to enter the VoIP market soon, which will only further eat into their market share. Internet service providers abound, including cable, DSL, and satellite, plus normal dial-up.
Verizon is not a monopoly. Your use of the word is wrong, as is your implication that a company having a majority market share is bad. I suggest you return to your economics and history books.
I think the problem is the framework has gone wrong.
Originally, a corporation was only allowed to be created to "serve the public good". This meant that all other businesses were either sole proprierships or partnerships. In these types of businesses, someone is LIABLE for what the business does. That encourages good behavior because you as the owner can be sued or sent to jail when you do something wrong.
The idea of a corporation is to limit the owners liability when the purpose of the corporation is to serve the public. In fact (here in the US) most states still require you to state how the public good will be served when filing your articles of incorporation.
I think the process of accepting new corporations has become too easy. We need to put liability and personal responsibility back into business. It should be very difficult to start a corporation, and very easy to start a business.
Capitalism is based on the idea of businesses owned by "individuals". Having a handful of corps run everything and controlling the government looks like communism. You can argue that the government isn't running business. I fail to see the difference between the government running business and business running the government. In both cases service sucks, and the public suffers.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
You haven't been following too many stories about Verizon have you? Their CEO is one of the most arrogant asshole CEOs I've seen and has a tendency to blatantly disregard the wants and needs of his customers. Sadly, your average person never sees these comments and sign up with Verizon cellular because it still has the best coverage.
It sounds like this is their intent, to lead people on, but doesn't that make it false advertising? Even they are aware of the misconception.
...seems like a douche. I mean, really, where does he think his profits are going to go if he keeps making fun of the customer?
and nobody will ever read it but I have to say that Verizon just sucks. I'm so done with them that I cancelled my phone service with them and got a sip line (over cable) for my house. They just suck. I thought that all of this competition shit was supposed to make things better but it hasn't changed and has probably gotten worse. At our office, we had to place a total of 8 orders (4 per office) with Verizon for DSL (yeah, it's a seperate company my ass) and we still haven't gotten service. The CO is about 400 feet away in one case and ACCROSS THE STREET in the other.
Reason? We didn't have phone service installed for the number in question. Uh, yeah. I finally had to hook up a butt-set and call them from the line in question.
In my view, anything that can get us away from those a**holes is a good thing.
"Publically owned" wifi networks paid for with taxpayer dollars? Dumb! Verizon CEO's that think you shouldn't have the ability to use your cell phone (or wifi VOIP phone, perhaps) in your own house? Tempting fate.
Relax, folks. I don't like Verizon any more than anyone else does and it's going to take some time, but things will work out as they should. Gumption is for the movers and the shakers; Patience is for the average reader of Slashdot articles.
Put up a reliable municipal Wi-Fi network, combined with something like this.
Netlink 802.11 phones
You won't need Verizon anymore.
and being forced into a business model that takes care of customer needs
Ironically, that may become their strongest selling point. One thing I haven't seen mentioned about public infrastructure, is that after the initial implementation, the maintenance and upgrading will most likely be limited to what is absolutely necessary to keep it in working condition. If you want an example of what I'm talking about, look at any other public utility - the sorry state of road maintenance, schools, etc. I have no reason to believe that this won't meet the same kind of fate.
One more thing - it would be difficult to imagine the government passing up an opportunity to impose a greater tax burden. I'm guessing that the cost for this could be converted at some point down the line, into a specific tax of some kind. This tax of course will go into the general fund, it won't be used for its intended purpose, and despite its cost, the government-backed WiFi system could still be substandard.
Recently advertised in Poland. Already available:
Unlimited wireless Internet access over GPRS for PLN99/month ($30USD), countrywide. (What do you mean by "does it work inside buildings?" What crappy network would it be if it didn't?)
I really don't see how local WiFi networks would be better.
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At least I can choose not to buy Verizon service, voting with my wallet, but it never ceases to amaze me how some incompetent doofus can get to such a position of responsibility in a major corporation. I won't knowingly contribute to his paycheck, percs, and stock windfalls.
you mean to tell me that cell phones don't work indoors in America??? what!!!! it's a common sight in the UK to see people using cellphones almost anywhere... some of the weirdest conversations I've ever overheard have been in public washrooms while people have been interrupted by their phones ringing while on the john... it's a perfectly normal sight these days to see people going down the supermarket aisles while on the phone asking their husbands or significant others to check that they haven't already got something in the fridge or freezer... or asking if xyz will do instead of zyw for the dinner party...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
WIFI infrastructures must not be that much to set up and run. Otherwise hotels, large businesses, etc, would not be doing it. Extending it to a city only makes sense from a cities perspective. A city, in a nutshell, provides shared infrastructure so that people can live and make money theres. Offering everyone universal WIFI is a great selling point for cities looking to compete with exurbia.
I'm as Republican to the bone as any man, but it bothers me that Verizon is taking this stance. The entire theory of competition is that private institutions can compete better than governments can. If that is the case, then Verizon could easily offer a service at a lower cost than that offered by San Fransisco or Philadelphia. If not, then, they should shut the f- up.
This is my sig.
Well, there is also the fact that when the frequencies were originally auctioned off, the cellphone companies had to prove over 90% coverage of the geographical area they were covering.
Unless they were ATT.
The product used to do this at the time was produced by LCC. (I worked on it). The product is as good as the morphology data provided for it. In the USA the data is general (such as, here is a bunch of 25 foot tall trees). In Germany, the data is specific (here is a tree 15 feet tall). The product also generated a cell-phone tower map.
It could have designed the whole network, but cell phone engineers would never buy it.
In big cities, the product was called Micro-Cell. It could handle cellphone coverage in buildings. And between buildings.
Those tools exist for cities to design their wireless networks too. And they are the tools used to design foreign cellphone networks. So they are good enough.
"It sounds like a good thing, but the trouble is someone will have to design it, someone will have to upgrade it, someone will have to maintain it and someone will have to run it."
And if the city of San Francisco planned, implemented and maintained such a system, eventually companies like Verizon might have to actually plan, implement and maintain their systems.
"Why in the world would you think your (cell) phone would work in your house?" he said. "The customer has come to expect so much. They want it to work in the elevator; they want it to work in the basement."
Uh, yeah we would. What's wrong with that? Isn't the ultimate purpose of cell phones to replace home land-line phones? Why would I, as a consumer, want to pay for 2 phones? And isn't another major concept behind cell phones emergency calling? I know most people think of that as car trouble in the middle of nowhere, but shouldn't it also include elevators or my living room? I assume that if my house is in that little beige blob, then I'm going to have service there. Or at the very least on my front step. If my house is in Verizon's little coverage blob and doesn't receive service, isn't that called false advertising?
It's days like this that make me glad I'm an AT&T Wireless customer.