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When I said take advantage of Title II i was referring more to the massive amounts of money solicited from state governments supposedly for telephone infrastruc

When I said take advantage of Title II i was referring more to the massive amounts of money solicited from state governments supposedly for telephone infrastructure upgrades or large network buildouts, as well as rights to government property under Title II.[1][2] from the article: >every fiber optic wire appears to be Title II." That includes fiber lines used to deliver home Internet service and the fiber lines that feed into Verizon Wireless' cell towers, >Verizon provides Title II-regulated phone service over both copper and fiber, but the fiber network also supports FiOS Internet, TV, and the largely unregulated Digital Voice service. Despite its claims about Title II harming broadband providers, Verizon used its common carrier status to gain perks that helped build the fiber network. You can't say capital investment is harder under Title II, then use your Title II branch of your company to gain investment for buildouts of your non-Title II business. That is directly hypocritical. If it were true, you would be seeing their fiber rollout financed without the guise of their Title II upgrades, by private investment rather than public. [1]http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/14/03/26/state-s-deal-with-verizon-on-high-speed-internet-service-finds-few-friends-in-garden-state/ http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/14/03/26/state-s-deal-wit... [2]http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/30544 http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/30544 edit: formatting

rayiner 12y ago
> i was referring more to the massive amounts of money solicited from state governments supposedly for telephone infrastructure upgrades As I have described before, there never was any "massive amounts of money" paid by state governments. What Kushnick calls "subsidies" was just agreements that allowed the phone companies to increase their prices. To Kushnick, that's a "perk."
- unprepare 12y ago
  The advantages aren't only in the form of agreed upon rate increases - this includes tax incentives/credits, real estate, and cash payments. [1]https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131012/02124724852/decades-failed-promises-verizon-it-promises-fiber-to-get-tax-breaks-then-never-delivers.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131012/02124724852/decad... [2]http://www.nyc.gov/html/doitt/downloads/pdf/verizon_nyc_franchise_agreement_approved_by_fcrc.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/doitt/downloads/pdf/verizon_nyc_fran...
- kushnick 12y ago
  No. What I call 'tax' perk has multiple layers. First, around the original fiber optic deployment time, Verizon et al took one-time tax deductions under something called FASB71 -- of-$25 billion dollars, which was 2-3 billion per bell company (like Bell Atlantic or Ameritech) Second, they were able to 'accelerate' depreciation, meaning write off the networks faster, regardless of the life of the network product, such as the copper or fiber wires. Depreciation, in this case, lowers the taxes paid as it is an expense, but in the old days, it was part of the calculations of the costs to offer service, so more expenses would mean -- oh, we're losing money, give us more rate increases. I don't have problems with accelerated depreciation -- if they actually were doing what they said which was replacing the aging copper utility wires with fiber optics -- but in most of these cases, they didn't replace it but took the deductions and got the benefits. Go into an audit with the IRS and tell them you wrote off equipment that you didn't buy or that you didn't replace-- see how that works for you.

rayiner 12y ago

> i was referring more to the massive amounts of money solicited from state governments supposedly for telephone infrastructure upgrades As I have described before, there never was any "massive amounts of money" paid by state governments. What Kushnick calls "subsidies" was just agreements that allowed the phone companies to increase their prices. To Kushnick, that's a "perk."

unprepare 12y ago
The advantages aren't only in the form of agreed upon rate increases - this includes tax incentives/credits, real estate, and cash payments. [1]https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131012/02124724852/decades-failed-promises-verizon-it-promises-fiber-to-get-tax-breaks-then-never-delivers.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131012/02124724852/decad... [2]http://www.nyc.gov/html/doitt/downloads/pdf/verizon_nyc_franchise_agreement_approved_by_fcrc.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/doitt/downloads/pdf/verizon_nyc_fran...
kushnick 12y ago
No. What I call 'tax' perk has multiple layers. First, around the original fiber optic deployment time, Verizon et al took one-time tax deductions under something called FASB71 -- of-$25 billion dollars, which was 2-3 billion per bell company (like Bell Atlantic or Ameritech) Second, they were able to 'accelerate' depreciation, meaning write off the networks faster, regardless of the life of the network product, such as the copper or fiber wires. Depreciation, in this case, lowers the taxes paid as it is an expense, but in the old days, it was part of the calculations of the costs to offer service, so more expenses would mean -- oh, we're losing money, give us more rate increases. I don't have problems with accelerated depreciation -- if they actually were doing what they said which was replacing the aging copper utility wires with fiber optics -- but in most of these cases, they didn't replace it but took the deductions and got the benefits. Go into an audit with the IRS and tell them you wrote off equipment that you didn't buy or that you didn't replace-- see how that works for you.