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Verizon FiOS In New York City - Advertising a Service You Can't Get But Paid For. --- What A Scam.
TIMELINE: Verizon New York Broadband Failure with links: 1992-2008 http://www.newnetworks.com/verizontimeline.htm
I'm sitting here in Bay Ridge Brooklyn being bombarded by advertisements for Verizon's FiOS TV. This campaign has been going on for years in different media, from phone bill inserts to TV advertising. So what if I can't order the service today? In fact, except for pockets of customers in some communities, virtually no one in New York City can get the service today. These campaigns surround the recent announcement of a proposed franchise agreement with New York City to deliver Verizon's FiOS TV. Bay Ridge isn't even listed as a potential deployment area in the next 5 years. Advertising a service you can't get is, of course, being done to convince regulators and the public that Verizon is going to give us the service if Verizon gets want it wants in the franchise agreement.
What a scam - that's a technical term to explain just how Verizon screwed New York City and continues to do so and will continue to do so. Customers? New Yorkers paid about $2400 per household and counting for a service we may never get or want. The city should have been rewired with high speed fiber optics starting in 1995. Verizon has been collecting money ever since in the form of higher rates and tax perks -- billions in higher phone rates. Here's what Verizon, then called NYNEX, said in 1995 ---13 years ago. NYNEX: "New York is the most information-intensive economy in the world, and telecommunications networks -- which transport this information -- will spur economic development in the state... With an advanced telecommunications infrastructure, a number of industries can, and should, flourish in New York: health care, financial services, information technology, research and development, educational services, entertainment and real estate." http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_1995_March_14/ai_16657811 Sound familiar? Economic growth, advanced telecommunications networks, education and entertainment would flourish. Think of it as --- A Company is paid billions from state residents in the form of higher rates/taxes to upgrade the roads to a new super highway. Instead, the Company supplies inferior dirt roads but continues to collect the fees. Then it says, "We'll start rolling out new stuff -- but we own it and we decide which cars can be on it. Keep paying and shut up or we'll just stop building anything. In the meantime, we'll charge you more for the current roads." The dirt roads in this case were ADSL, Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line, which was rolled out around 1998 as an afterthought. It allows the customer to use their phone line for faster Internet service. It was considered an inferior technology in 1992, as it is carried over the old copper wiring, not upgraded fiber optic cables. It can't handle delivering high quality video services and so instead of a Ferrari on the Information Superhighway, New York and the rest of the country got a skate-board on dirt roads. Verizon's FiOS, if built, is now defined as an 'interstate information service' by the FCC, not a 'telecommunications service'. By this decision, Verizon does not have to open their new networks to competition of any sort and is essentially being funded through the upgrading construction budgets for local phone service. Verizon used to be a telecommunications utility which was funded through local rates. It had obligations to the public and based on the Telecom Act of 1996, the incumbent was supposed to be open to competition and have ubiquitous deployments What we have now is a 'free market' company who can now build the new networks with our funding and then keep it with no obligations and negotiate whether areas get built at all. The Impacts: America is now 15th in the world in broadband because Verizon et al didn't build out their networks. This should be the question at hand. Japan and other countries already have 100 Mbps services today at prices cheaper than our inferior DSL products. The entire New York economy lost over $215 billion in economic growth in the state. New York City's technological edge was dulled by a failure to deploy critical infrastructure ---seriously high-speed networks. Local NY City phone prices have increased 472% since 1980 because the phone companies have been able to keep excess profits in an environment where competition has been mostly removed from the phone networks. And even cable prices, which should have dropped if there was Verizon competition, cost New York state residents about $3.5 billion in higher cable rates ---$500 a household. Unfortunately, this same scam also happened throughout the US, including the AT&T and Verizon territories. By 2008, 98 million homes should have been rewired, with an estimated $240 billion collected - and counting. Verizon was the keeper of this infrastructure over the last decades, yet politicians failed to ask basic questions like -- what happened? Why are we 15th, why did the regulators allow the phone companies to not build out the networks as stated and required? More to the point, if we paid for new networks, where did all the money go? And why is Verizon allowed to advertise a service that customers can't get, especially when they are supposed to be the utility? Ironically, former Governor Spitzer announced a plan for New York State to have ubiquitous, open networks capable of 100 mbps in both directions by 2015. Yet, the proposal has no serious data or outline to achieve these goals - and the plan doesn't even mention Verizon, the major incumbent. While Verizon may roll out something, it won't be held accountable for all of the past money nor have open, ubiquitous networks, much less deliver high speeds at reasonable rates. Meanwhile, it is clear that virtually every service is being funded via local rates through massive cross-subsidization including Verizon's Internet and DSL service, long distance service or even their wireless services-and FIOS is no exception. From advertising on phone inserts to use of staff or network equipment, all help to increase local phone rates. This campaign is just the start of the advertising, astroturf, corporate-think-tank, fake consumer groups, co-opted 'consumer' black, Hispanic, senior, and even the disabled corporate funded groups, campaign-financed politicians, lobbying and pr FiOS campaign. Verizon has a long history of out-shouting everyone by funding politicians or creating dubious research and fake consumer groups to make their case. Franchise lies? Even the small details about the proposed franchise should annoy you --- Example: Verizon keeps telling the public that if they are allowed a franchise: "Verizon will … pay the city a 5% annual franchise fee." Verizon doesn't pay this fee. We do. It is a tax directly placed on its own separate line item on the actual bill. Time Warner also passes through this tax on their franchise tax charged to customers. So, as I watch the advertisements for a service I can't get, paid for by myself and millions of others viewing these same advertisements, I hold my head in shame as the digital-divide comes to Bay Ridge, pushing us ever forward into becoming a 3rd world digital nation. Let's put some facts on the table -- a timeline of the scam: Verizon, New York includes the former bells --NYNEX and Bell Atlantic.
Summary:
Rant by Bruce Kushnick, Executive Director, New Networks Institute Chairman, Teletruth |