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Now that people aren't forced to use Verizon's network for telecom service, Verizon shouldn't have to maintain the networks any longer. Half of people don't ha

Now that people aren't forced to use Verizon's network for telecom service, Verizon shouldn't have to maintain the networks any longer. Half of people don't have a landline--growing each year. Among those, many get their service via cable companies or VOIP. In 10 years there might not be any need for a functional landline telephone system. And since the cost of such a system is mostly fixed, not variable, the less people use it, the more it costs per customer. Which only drives the cost up. Only a fool would spend good money updating this stuff.

tedunangst 11y ago
Also, in NJ, verizon has an unusual incentive to decrease market share. Whichever company has the majority (more than 50%) market share in a town pays an additional tax to maintain infrastructure. If you drop below 50%, you don't have to pay the tax anymore.
- gist 11y ago
  Interesting I wonder who compiles that data exactly? Also what this means is that if you are already clearly over 50% or clearly under 50% your behavior would be predictable and you might consider increasing market share.
jwn 11y ago
The towns aren't necessarily demanding copper upgrades. They were promised fiber and now Verizon is trying to placate them with cellular.
saulrh 11y ago
That'd be fine if this was just voice. Unfortunately, they're also failing to maintain landline internet, which is a much bigger deal. You can't do your homework on a phone. You can't download updates over a phone's internet connection. You can't run a game console over a phone's internet. You can't get print forms or paperwork with a phone. It's not just internet access that's a requirement - it's usable internet access, and phone internet is not incredibly usable. Tethering is an option, but it often costs something like $30 a month, and even then phone plans, even the $70-a-month 'unlimited' ones, start hitting caps at 5gb or 10gb. What the fuck can you do with 5gb? You can wipe that out with software updates alone. Offering cellular is unacceptable. If they can't put in fiber, they need to maintain the copper. (source: comcast took three weeks to fix the internet in our apartment before we just terminated our plan and switched to another provider - lucky use we weren't fucked into only having a single option - spent a week trying to survive on phone internet before putting in the work to do tethering)
- rhino369 11y ago
  It's very possible that it's not possible to deploy fiber profitably. Remember, Verizon doesn't get exclusive franchise rights to fiber or ISP service. When Verizon rolled out FIOS to areas it thought were going to be most profitable, they ended up not making nearly as much as they thought they would. Turns out people stuck with the cable company. FIOS only get 40% of people in FIOS coverage to actually sign up. That's why they stopped their FIOS expansion. It was barely profitable in the easy and rich areas. No way is it going to be profitable in poor and rural areas. In fact, we've always had to subsidize rural and poor areas. The deal was originally that AT&T--which split into the current AT&T and Verizon,etc.--got to have exclusive telephone rights in exchange for making sure everyone got a connection. AT&T was legally entitled to a certain profit margin. Now governments are expecting the same sorts of benefits without giving Verizon and AT&T the same sort quid pro quo. And they are finding out that nobody is going to build a new fiber network to rural and poor areas. In fact, Google Fiber is capitalizing on it. The biggest concession Google gets before deploying Fiber, is that they can pick and choose which neighborhoods get Fiber. So they can cherry pick profitable customers. I think one great compromise is providing LTE coverage without tyrannical data caps. There is no reason to data cap traffic during non-peak periods. And you don't need to tether a phone, there are wifi routers that work on LTE.
  - lhc- 11y ago
    If it isn't profitable, maybe they shouldn't have signed contractual agreements and made promises to the govt related to their buildout. They've already gained large benefits from promising to build out their network; it hardly seems unfair to expect them to follow through on their end of the bargain.
  - saulrh 11y ago
    > It's very possible that it's not possible to deploy fiber profitably. So, I have an honest question about this: why is fiber so much more expensive than copper? Is it just that the boxes the ends are bigger and more expensive? I've always heard that digging up land and running wires is nasty, but if that's the case, how were phone lines ever profitable without costing $100 a month? > I think one great compromise is providing LTE coverage without tyrannical data caps. There is no reason to data cap traffic during non-peak periods. And you don't need to tether a phone, there are wifi routers that work on LTE. I think that I'd like to make a modification there - I can agree on capping _bandwidth_ during peak periods. _Total transfer quantity_ should never be capped ever. Unless a significant portion of the cost of an internet connection is caused by a difference in expenses running the hardware at 75% utilization instead of 50% utilization, which I kind of doubt is the case. I also don't know if we'd ever get it; the wireless providers love claiming that they're out of capacity and can't even support bigger pictures on imgur, much less people shoving Windows Update through their networks. That said, yes, an uncapped LTE modem with wifi router and some quality-of-service guarantees would be an excellent compromise.
AndyMcConachie 11y ago
They're obligated to maintain their networks if only for E911 service. Let's not forget that people still depend on POTS lines for things like calling the police and fire department. > In 10 years there might not be any need for a functional landline telephone system. That's fine, but this is today, and we're not there yet.
- rhino369 11y ago
  If the state wants Verizon to provide a public service, the state should pay for it then. >That's fine, but this is today, and we're not there yet. But that is the issue. Maintaining a network like that requires longterm capital investment. Verizon can't rent a network for 10 years. If you expect Verizon to operate a service will be gone in ten years, then they have to depreciate the assets over that period. Which increases the price.
  - techsupporter 11y ago
    > the state should pay for it then. Oftentimes, the state has paid for it. In my home state, Verizon-then-GTE was given tax breaks and cash payments to build a rural broadband system. It has not come anywhere close to completing that task, but now it pleads poverty and dumps the crappy copper infrastructure on Frontier.
  - empath75 11y ago
    I've long thought that states/municipalities should take over the running of last-mile connectivity to customers.
tw04 11y ago
Those fools were given billions of dollars to upgrade the stuff by state and local governments and never followed through. They either need to write a check on the order of about $50 billion, or they need to follow through on what they promised. Let's all pretend they didn't just run fiber in the areas they needed it for cell towers and ignored everything else. And as for profitability - it's a long-term investment. If they're laying the right fiber, it will last them a LONG time without needing to be replaced.

tedunangst 11y ago

Also, in NJ, verizon has an unusual incentive to decrease market share. Whichever company has the majority (more than 50%) market share in a town pays an additional tax to maintain infrastructure. If you drop below 50%, you don't have to pay the tax anymore.

gist 11y ago
Interesting I wonder who compiles that data exactly? Also what this means is that if you are already clearly over 50% or clearly under 50% your behavior would be predictable and you might consider increasing market share.

jwn 11y ago

The towns aren't necessarily demanding copper upgrades. They were promised fiber and now Verizon is trying to placate them with cellular.

saulrh 11y ago

That'd be fine if this was just voice. Unfortunately, they're also failing to maintain landline internet, which is a much bigger deal. You can't do your homework on a phone. You can't download updates over a phone's internet connection. You can't run a game console over a phone's internet. You can't get print forms or paperwork with a phone. It's not just internet access that's a requirement - it's usable internet access, and phone internet is not incredibly usable. Tethering is an option, but it often costs something like $30 a month, and even then phone plans, even the $70-a-month 'unlimited' ones, start hitting caps at 5gb or 10gb. What the fuck can you do with 5gb? You can wipe that out with software updates alone. Offering cellular is unacceptable. If they can't put in fiber, they need to maintain the copper. (source: comcast took three weeks to fix the internet in our apartment before we just terminated our plan and switched to another provider - lucky use we weren't fucked into only having a single option - spent a week trying to survive on phone internet before putting in the work to do tethering)

rhino369 11y ago
It's very possible that it's not possible to deploy fiber profitably. Remember, Verizon doesn't get exclusive franchise rights to fiber or ISP service. When Verizon rolled out FIOS to areas it thought were going to be most profitable, they ended up not making nearly as much as they thought they would. Turns out people stuck with the cable company. FIOS only get 40% of people in FIOS coverage to actually sign up. That's why they stopped their FIOS expansion. It was barely profitable in the easy and rich areas. No way is it going to be profitable in poor and rural areas. In fact, we've always had to subsidize rural and poor areas. The deal was originally that AT&T--which split into the current AT&T and Verizon,etc.--got to have exclusive telephone rights in exchange for making sure everyone got a connection. AT&T was legally entitled to a certain profit margin. Now governments are expecting the same sorts of benefits without giving Verizon and AT&T the same sort quid pro quo. And they are finding out that nobody is going to build a new fiber network to rural and poor areas. In fact, Google Fiber is capitalizing on it. The biggest concession Google gets before deploying Fiber, is that they can pick and choose which neighborhoods get Fiber. So they can cherry pick profitable customers. I think one great compromise is providing LTE coverage without tyrannical data caps. There is no reason to data cap traffic during non-peak periods. And you don't need to tether a phone, there are wifi routers that work on LTE.
- lhc- 11y ago
  If it isn't profitable, maybe they shouldn't have signed contractual agreements and made promises to the govt related to their buildout. They've already gained large benefits from promising to build out their network; it hardly seems unfair to expect them to follow through on their end of the bargain.
- saulrh 11y ago
  > It's very possible that it's not possible to deploy fiber profitably. So, I have an honest question about this: why is fiber so much more expensive than copper? Is it just that the boxes the ends are bigger and more expensive? I've always heard that digging up land and running wires is nasty, but if that's the case, how were phone lines ever profitable without costing $100 a month? > I think one great compromise is providing LTE coverage without tyrannical data caps. There is no reason to data cap traffic during non-peak periods. And you don't need to tether a phone, there are wifi routers that work on LTE. I think that I'd like to make a modification there - I can agree on capping _bandwidth_ during peak periods. _Total transfer quantity_ should never be capped ever. Unless a significant portion of the cost of an internet connection is caused by a difference in expenses running the hardware at 75% utilization instead of 50% utilization, which I kind of doubt is the case. I also don't know if we'd ever get it; the wireless providers love claiming that they're out of capacity and can't even support bigger pictures on imgur, much less people shoving Windows Update through their networks. That said, yes, an uncapped LTE modem with wifi router and some quality-of-service guarantees would be an excellent compromise.

AndyMcConachie 11y ago

They're obligated to maintain their networks if only for E911 service. Let's not forget that people still depend on POTS lines for things like calling the police and fire department. > In 10 years there might not be any need for a functional landline telephone system. That's fine, but this is today, and we're not there yet.

rhino369 11y ago
If the state wants Verizon to provide a public service, the state should pay for it then. >That's fine, but this is today, and we're not there yet. But that is the issue. Maintaining a network like that requires longterm capital investment. Verizon can't rent a network for 10 years. If you expect Verizon to operate a service will be gone in ten years, then they have to depreciate the assets over that period. Which increases the price.
- techsupporter 11y ago
  > the state should pay for it then. Oftentimes, the state has paid for it. In my home state, Verizon-then-GTE was given tax breaks and cash payments to build a rural broadband system. It has not come anywhere close to completing that task, but now it pleads poverty and dumps the crappy copper infrastructure on Frontier.
- empath75 11y ago
  I've long thought that states/municipalities should take over the running of last-mile connectivity to customers.

tw04 11y ago

Those fools were given billions of dollars to upgrade the stuff by state and local governments and never followed through. They either need to write a check on the order of about $50 billion, or they need to follow through on what they promised. Let's all pretend they didn't just run fiber in the areas they needed it for cell towers and ignored everything else. And as for profitability - it's a long-term investment. If they're laying the right fiber, it will last them a LONG time without needing to be replaced.