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DaveNJ
No Fear
join:1999-09-01
New Jersey
 ·Comcast
·Patriot Media
| dont care about verizon
I am not a verizon customer, and could care less about anything they offer. yet i live in a verizon area. Cable offers better speeds, and i use voip. Verizon when you finally offer your over-funded, under deployed service, please dont offer it to me. Cable will have surpassed you already with something more attractive. | |
mishaq
Premium
join:2004-01-24
Richardson, TX
clubs:
| Well, uh, fiber will be better than cable, sorry. And this does bring back old questions about the stances of telecom monopolies. Why should verizon lay all this fiber down if they are going to have to share it with companies who didnt pay a cent to build it? Competition is good, but it is also bad. I still toy with the question, what would things be like if AT&T never broke up? With telecom being an actual business now instead of a utility, perhaps things could be better. With it being a utility, perhaps getting the services to as many as possible would have been more of a concern than pure profits. But alas, it is the American culture to make money, and the DoJ saw fit that there would be not one company in control over all communications facilities. Im just not sure, but if AT&T were still around, it makes me wonder whether or not Id have FTTP right now.
Addition: And I know, people dont like the idea of one company providing a service, but we all (or most of us) have on power company, one water company, one gas company. If they can be regulated and work to maintain satisfactory service, all can be well. Its all the FCC's fault, our country's communications are in a big mess right now, perhaps someday it can become one unified network as it once was, I mean, the former 7 RBOCs are now what, 3? or is it 4? Verizon, SBC, BellSouth, and Qwest? Eh, I can't write 
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Damn you FCC! | |
hottboiinnc
ME
join:2003-10-15
Cleveland, OH
·Time Warner Cable
·buckeye cable
| How can you say the Telco's are paying for it? They're not the customers are one way or another. Like in PA the residents paid for it there by giving VZ a tax break and by giving them money. I'm sure PA could have used that money for something else.
Thats like you pay VZ to expand and "improve" their network by having them for service. What they do with that money is nothing but leave it sit.
VZ is just like SBC. We get promised something then never see it. | |
boogie74
join:2001-06-19
Neenah, WI
clubs:
| said by hottboiinnc  :
How can you say the Telco's are paying for it? They're not the customers are one way or another. Like in PA the residents paid for it there by giving VZ a tax break and by giving them money. I'm sure PA could have used that money for something else.
Thats like you pay VZ to expand and "improve" their network by having them for service. What they do with that money is nothing but leave it sit.
VZ is just like SBC. We get promised something then never see it.
Umm... right. So your claim is that a company that invests in something and then pays for it by using revenue that it generates from its customers doesn't own the original investment?
What if I get a federal grant to open a small business? Does the public then own my business? How about subsidized financial aid loans and Pell Grants for college tuition? Since these are tax subsidized, does EVERYTHING that anyone does that is based on the education paid for using these subsidies have to be owned by the public?
Perhaps you'd like to suggest that anyone who gets a Federal Stafford loan for college should pay extra income tax because the loan is subsidized and that education got them a higher paying job?
Any better logical ideas you've got? | |
Justin Playfair
@198.231.x.x
| reply to mishaq
And I know, people dont like the idea of one company providing a service, but we all (or most of us) have on power company, one water company, one gas company. If they can be regulated and work to maintain satisfactory service, all can be well.
Either you're too young to remember what it was like when there was just one phone company or it's just been so long that you've forgotten. The service was much more expensive (in real dollars) than it is now, especially long-distance. In fact, making a long-distance call was something of a luxury, and it was only after AT&T was broken up that the cost began to drop. As far as the quality of the service goes, you can still occasionally see the old Saturday Night Live skits where Lily Tomlin plays an operator and in at least one case closes with, "We don't care. We don't have to. (Snort) We're the Phone Company."
It's debatable whether or not service has improved since "Ma Bell" was broken up, but what's certainly true is that we have more choices than we did and prices have dropped. Where I live, I can choose between Verizon or SBC for my local phone service, Verizon, SBC, or Covad for my DSL (or Comcast for a cable modem), and I have lots of choices when it comes to long distance. Then there are options like VOIP, cell phones, etc., that provide even more choices and that have served to drive prices down -- which is exactly what competition is meant to do.
You mentioned utilities in your post, which is a good example. Where I live, I can choose between electric providers (but not gas or water service), and as a result my electric bills are about 10% lower than they would be if I had stayed with the "incumbent" provider. The prices I pay for monopoly-provided gas and water, on the other hand, have continued to gradually increase.
For another example of the effects of competition, look at the falling prices (and increasing speeds) offered by DSL and cable providers to compete with each other. Do you suppose that they'd be offering lower prices and higher speeds if they had no competition? Why would they do that -- just to be "nice"?
Competition doesn't necessarily improve the quality of service received, but it most definitely does drive down prices. My long distance service works at least as well as it did 30 years ago, but it's a heck of a lot cheaper. | |
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