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Verizon Sells Off Wireline Operations, Blames Net Neutrality Plans
itwbennett (1594911) writes "Verizon Communications will sell its local wireline operations in California, Florida and Texas for $10.5 billion, citing uncertainty around federal Internet regulation as one reason for the move, although Verizon executives said the sale has been in the works for several years. It's no secret that local wireline phone service has been a shrinking industry, and Verizon and other carriers see mobile as their greatest growth opportunity. Verizon Chairman and CEO Lowell McAdam cited the Federal Communications Commission's upcoming net neutrality proposal as another potential threat to the growth of wired services. 'Washington should be very thoughtful how they go forward here,' he said. 'This uncertainty is not good for investment, and it's not good for jobs here in America.'"
That's just an excuse.
... for your fuckups and lack of revenues?
Gee, here's an idea .. about you stop with the crappy customer service .. so you know, you actually can *acquire* customers for the long term.
Why can't they have legal monopolies and abuse their position to compete with Netflix via throttling and charge $100 for a 2 Meg pipe and still be a broadband provider which means no taxes. Wahaha EVIL socialist bastards.
http://saveie6.com/
Our huge profit margins are not maximized under the current plans, and it means we cannot use our government enforced cartels to force other companies to pay us again for services the end users are already paying for.
Therefore we will 'protest' by selling off an area of the business we have been planning to sell of for normal commercial reasons for quite some time, but using our highly paid group of lobbyists and spin doctors, we will make you think this is bad for you, and therefore change the playing field to make us even more profitable, at your expense.
The sad thing is some people will actually fall for this rubbish.
And the sadder thing is it wont matter if you dont fall for it, because 'campaign contributions' mean they get whatever laws they desire anyway, given enough time and no one peaking behind the curtain.
Welcome to the new world.
This is actually quite silly. Plans to sell 11 figures worth of business assets ($10,000,000,000) don't happen overnight. This has obviously been years in the making.
This is not new for Verizon at all - they have been shedding their landline and FiOS business for years. Back in 2007 they abandoned Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, selling off the business to FairPoint Communications, a tiny North Carolina company that struggled for years to overcome billing system issues. FairPoint announced then that they would not be expanding the fiber Internet service (FiOS TV never got started here) and the service has been static since then. (On the positive side, my bill hasn't increased since 2007!)
Even in Massachusetts, where Verizon still operates FiOS TV, they announced a couple of years back that they would not expand service to more areas. This tripe about Net Neutrality is just a convenient smokescreen for what they've been planning all along.
Our customers expect to get screwed over, and this legislation would put a stop to that for wired service. To ensure consistent customer experience, we must unceremoniously dump our wireline customers.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
As we've noted, Verizon's been looking to offload its fixed-line assets for years, since the company clearly finds wireless service (and caps and overages) a far-more profitable venture. As such they've spent the last few years actually raising rates and neglecting unwanted customers in the hopes they'll leave to wireless, or leave to companies like Comcast (where they'll then be pitched...you guessed it...Verizon Wireless services as part of a co-marketing arrangement). After massive sales to Frontier and Fairpoint in years past, Verizon this week convinced Frontier to buy all of the company's DSL and FiOS customers in Florida, Texas and California. Amusingly (or not), Verizon is trying to spin the latest deal to pretend they were forced down this path because of net neutrality: ...
it's called a natural monopoly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...
zero government regulation doesn't mean magic free market fairy makes everything fair. it means you still have a monopoly, because the barrier to entry is too high: no one has billions to invest in building more conduits. or they have the money, but it's not worth the risk to them to invest billions and they don't make enough back after years, the network effect works against them
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...
google can compete, sure. so just wait for them to show up in your city in 40-50 years
meanwhile, you're still shafted in the ass with zero recourse whatsoever
government is not the problem
in fact, the ONLY solution you have to natural monopolies is government, via regulations
the problem we have in the usa is legalized corruption
corporations, by buying your congresscritters by funding their elections, and promising revolving door regulators a cushy job, *corrupt* your government
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...
there are other countries, canada, the nordics, where corruption is greatly reduced (it will always exist, the point is to minimize it). these countries do not have the same problems we have (see also: healthcare as another example of where the usa is corrupted and we are financially shafted with low quality, and our social and economic peers don't have the same level of problem)
if you were an intelligent person, you would be arguing for laws against corruption in your government. you would be asking them to heavily regulate natural monopolies, especially in regards to profit taking. please note heavy regulation does not mean *corrupt* regulations, which of course have to be reversed
but if you are a propagandized moron, you ask for a weakened government, which works for the plutocrats, because now there is no regulatory capture they have to engage in or corruption they have to fund. that makes them happy, and you get shafted even more in broadband (and healthcare)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
'This uncertainty is not good for investment, and it's not good for jobs here in America.'
'Overpriced unreliable internet is not good for investment, and it's not good for jobs here in America'
The FCC is trying to create an environment of certain well defined rules, but you, Verizon, keeps taking them to court. If you want certainity in federal regulation, stop suing the FCC.