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When Telecom Mergers Hit Home
netbuzz writes "A telecom manager submitted an essay to Network World that paints a sadly humorous picture of what the mega-telecom mergers really mean on the ground." From the article: "Well, when I heard that these companies were about to combine forces, it made my blood run cold. How would they be able to take, in each case, two companies with already broken processes and mediocre customer support and successfully merge them? How could they continue to provide me with the support I need to keep my company's networks functioning as they need to in this age of the bandwidth junkie? The answer ... at this moment, is they can't!"
This is terrible, but you have to blame your local village AND your state for the pro-union regulations they've created, requirements that can not and will not change as the market needs them to.
In many states (my state is Illinois), there are so many pro-labor requirements that are managed by labor management, not by technicians, that I am surprised that most people still get ANY service.
If you can't call a third party to provide you service, why is that? It is because third parties are criminals if they run their own circuits -- criminals!
It sounds like you weren't around 20 years ago, you would know that AT&T of that time wanted to charge consumers when they hooked up a modem. It went to court and the ruling was the consumer had the right to either talk on the phone or send data over the phone. Shortly after that, AT&T was split up. The internet arrived because of competition not from a monolithic monopoly; however, all isn't that great. Back then my phone bill was ~$8 and right after the split it was ~$20. A ton of money was made during that time and the telcos had money to burn. It is pure speculation whether or not the internet would have evolved like it has today without breaking up AT&T.
As for wireless, you do know that all wireless communications (except same tower talk) goes over the land lines. You can't get away from the Telco just because you think its wireless or it as IP traffic.