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Verizon About To End Construction of Its Fiber Network

WheezyJoe writes: If you've been holding out hope that FiOS would rescue you from your local cable monopoly, it's probably time to give up. Making good on their statements five years ago, Verizon announced this week it is nearing "the end" of its fiber construction and is reducing wireline capital expenditures while spending more on wireless.

The expense of replacing old copper lines with fiber has allegedly led Verizon to stop building in new regions and to complete wiring up the areas where it had already begun. The fiber network was profitable, but nowhere near as profitable as their wireless network. So, if Verizon hasn't started in your neighborhood by now, they never will, and you'd best ignore all those ads for FiOS.

5 of 201 comments (clear)

  1. Why lay fiber at all when you can gouge wireless? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The free market strikes again!

  2. Whats really going on... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They're going to say they've stopped, wait for local municipalities to take care of it themselves, then pop back up and say, "Actually, we want to provide service in this area anyway - you need to give up your infrastructure to us cause FREE MARKET!"

  3. But we already paid for it... by FellowConspirator · · Score: 5, Informative

    We paid for the fiber with surcharges in our phone bills in the 80's through the 00's -- we just never got the fiber, and the companies pocketed the cash. Money's good, if you can get it.

  4. Opportunity (paid for but) lost NJ by See+Attached · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Verizon is off the hook? Who is going to answer for that? Well rip me off! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... Verizon has been getting breaks since this was first signed in early nineties. HP advises 4,000 -> 5,000 (excess charges and tax breaks) per houshold paid to Vz? This rolls up to the Board of public Utilities for letting them off the hook. Time for a BridgeGate scandal check here. We have a very anti-competitive environment, where each carrier must have a handshake-certified regional monopoly in many towns. Comcast, Optimum, and Verizon seem to have cut the state into mico-monopolies, while the rest of the world is passing us by. Are our taxes too low? Nope!

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    Time for a new Political party in the US (or two!) One is off the rails Other cant pony up a leader.
  5. But they won't let you municipality to build it. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Informative
    Not only they won't build it, they will not let you municipality build it either.

    Long back Google had a April Fool posting about toilet net. That idea is fundamentally sound. The municipality can run fiber optic cables in storm water drains. It won't cost as much as it is costing Verizon to dig up and bury the cable. But you won't get it. They have the state law makers in their pockets.

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    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact