Verizon Sells Off Rural Lines

ffejie writes "Verizon has announced that it will be spinning off rural assets to FairPoint Communications. These include all assets in the states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The deal will close sometime in 2007 and is worth $2.7 billion. 1.6 million phone lines, 234,000 DSL subscribers, and 600,000 long-distance customers will be moved to FairPoint in Verizon's effort to shed its low-margin lines in rural areas. The sale has been rumored since the summer at least. With Verizon aggressively rolling out high-speed FiOS (FTTP) in its service area, what will happen to the consumers stuck with a smaller telco like those moving to FairPoint?"

Comments

Probibly be better service.

['nother poster]

I don't know anything about FairPoint, but when I went to a small 13,000 household telco my service improved greatly. Prices went up a bit, but only a few percent and my service has been great.

What's wrong with regional telcos?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

...what will happen to the consumers stuck with a smaller telco like those moving to FairPoint

Not sure, but do you know any "larger telcos" that do anything but s*** on their residential customers? My best experiences with phone and data services have been with "regional" providers; the only reason I gave up my last one was that I moved to an area where the only two choices were AT&T and Charter (lose lose).

Smart move

[Spazmania]

This means they anticipate a Democratic-leaning FCC in the coming years. By creating structural seperation for the markets where they don't want to roll out FiOS, they insulate themselves from the impact of a ruling to the effect that they have to roll out service in an equitable manner.

Wimax

[bstadil]

Wimax is perfect for rural areas and a smaller telco can much easier make deal with various suppliers for test cases. Intel would be a perfect choice since they are already spending billions on Wimax.

We'll continue not to get broadband

[vtcodger]

***With Verizon aggressively rolling out high-speed FiOS (FTTP) in its service area, what will happen to the consumers stuck with a smaller telco like those moving to FairPoint?" ***

Rural customers in Vermont couldn't get DSL from Bell Atlantic. And they still can't now that the bills have a Verison logo on them. Oddly, they can get DSL from some of the smaller local providers -- notably Waitsfield Telecom which is pretty much the poster child for usable rural broadband for customers in its service area in the Central part of the state.

Unless the Vermont Public Service Commission suddenly grows some balls -- something they've never shown much sign of having -- I imagine that things will get worse, not better with this sale. The governor says that broadband is one of his priorities. But IMO he's a political hack -- mostly mouth. OTOH, occasionally I'm pleasantly suprised. Maybe Jim Douglas or the next governor or the one after that will take some meaningful action.

Re:We'll continue not to get broadband

[Radon360]

I wouldn't necessarily keep looking to the telcos for broadband access. It seems to me that there's an increasing number of options to the consumers, including more rural areas. If you can't get DSL, then what about cable (there's more of it strung up in the countryside than most people realize)? If you can't get cable, what about satellite? If satellite is too expensive, someone might be offering WiMax. I know where I live in semi-rural Wisconsin, there are several companies that have established a network of Motorola Canopy wireless broadband sites. If not that, check into Sprint/Nextel's 3G cards...about the same price as satellite, without the propagation delay.

I realize that low-end DSL rivals a good dial-up on cost, but one should realize that the more expensive broadband options are typically faster. The DSL that Verizon was offering in my area was 384kbps downstream for the $19/mo charge. Will that serve most people's needs? Maybe. If it will, then a ~56kbps dial would probably meet their needs, too. For a little bit more, I get 8Mbps from the cable company. I pay more than the DSL, but I also get quite a bit more in speed...particularly on upstream performance.

The way I see it, there's an emerging number of means of conveying voice/data available to the consumer...and it's already started reaching those in less populated areas through various wireless schemes. The paradigm shift from looking to the telcos for your voice/data needs to other providers has long since begun./P.

Everyone else will pay

[supabeast!]

With Verizon aggressively rolling out high-speed FiOS (FTTP) in its service area, what will happen to the consumers stuck with a smaller telco like those moving to FairPoint?

Our crooked semi-socialist government will do same thing for internet connectivity that was done for voice connectivity. Residents of rural America with cry and whinge about how it isn't fair that they don't get the same service everyone else gets, and demand that they get at the same price. Eventually one of their Congressmen will introduce a bill requiring phone companies to pool a portion of their profits and use it to supply broadband to needy people in rural areas. The phone companies will get their Congressmen to amend the bill to instead charge everyone in the country with internet access a monthly fee and that money will be used to provide broadband to the backward hicks who want to live in the middle of nowhere and still enjoy the comforts of civilization. And everyone in America will continue the slow grind towards our eventual slavery to the wants of others.

Re:Everyone else will pay

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the rural areas should just shut the water off to the big cities for a week as a test case and renegotiate the "socialist" water you receive at highly subsidised rates. How would you superior advanced urbanites like to pay
"what the free market will bear" for your tap water? Ten a gallon sound OK to you? Or do you have your own personal water well in the basement of your condo? Then the rural folks could afford some things better if we ended the urban socialist subsidy.. Oh, food? let's do the same with all the roads that bring you in the food, let's start and stop tolls at every property line. thinkl your chinese takeout will be so cheap then? Rail? Same deal. Your electrical supply? Runs on wires running on land seized from rural people, with no compensation to them at all, let alone any fair market rate. How about we just assume all that property is owned by rural people like it used to be and make your electricity company pay for transit, on an individual owner by owner basis. think you'll be running your oh so effin important "home theater and network" 24/7 anymore then? If you paid true free market rates,with no regulations and no socialist intervention, you couldn't afford anything past one 60 watt ligtbulb in your upscale uptown digs because it would quickly become a closed cartel for service.

Frankly, you are just a spoiled urban retard, an obnoxious drool, which unfortunately is too common in our society and which you can always see on slashdot when the rural connectivity issue comes up-yes, a combination of low IQ trying to cope with gross negligent ignorance at the same time- one of those who doesn't even have an inkling, not clue one, of how things work.

  I bet you think packaged groceries grow in the back of your local deli, that starbucks keeps coffee trees in their closet, and that your high score on some videogame simulator means you can now really operate a helicopter.

Re:Everyone else will pay

[Buelldozer]

THIS resident of "Rural America" would like you to know that Wyoming coal provides better than 30% of the electrical generation for the East Coast. Without the infrastructure necessary to support the mines and the people to work them how exactly would your precious city run?

You're a typical city dweller. You look down your nose at any one who lives outside the city but fail to realize that without us rural people your city wouldn't be possible.

You can't feed yourselves, you can't provide your own water, you can't generate your own power, you can't dispose of your own garbage, you can't supply yourself with the raw materials to build anything and you cry and whine for Government Aid whenever something happens (weather, terrorist attack, union strike, etc). Yet there you sit complaining about a "Socialist Government" and looking down your nose at US?

Mister without the support of a whole heckuva lot of "rural America" and the people who live there you'd be dead from starvation, disease, weather exposure or lack of materials.

Wake up and smell reality, we all need each other.

Re:What happens?

[otis wildflower]

They get better service?

Possibly, but it'll probably get more expensive...

In comparison, a small company like Fairpoint is going to have to focus on the customers they've got. Which means either making them happy, or losing the business to local Co-Ops setup to provide the missing services.

Not a lot of telco-heads out in farm country, the skills are either not there or are already fully-employed elsewhere. Also, depending on the state, this is legally tedious.

Nope, rural folk will probably just get jacked even harder.

Monopolies in other countries

[mxpengin]

This is why, sometimes monopolies are something not so bad, it depends on the country where you live. Here in Japan NTT is a virtual monopoly for landlines, but I am in a semi-rural area and I have fiber-to-home.
In Mexico Telmex is also a virtual monopoly, the prices suck and the technology as well, but you can use DSL more less in all simu-rural areas.
Same policies for all the country. In general I hate monopolies but this is one of the few good points on them.

So what?

[raehl]

You know why they pay $69? BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT IT COSTS!

It is a mistake to warp economics so that all customers pay the same price even though some customers cost far more to serve than others. If the telco company has to run and service two miles of cable to provide service to you but only has to run and service 100 feet of cable to provide service to me, you should pay more than I do.