Reviews:
 ·Optimum Online
 ·Verizon FiOS
| not the exact reason, but close allowing telcos into the lucrative video/content business was actually a mistake, although not the one you THINK it's about...
getting telcos to think that they could create a video business by copying the cable-tv (coax) industry was a huge mistake. all that did is get an already greedy set of corporations under the impression that they could go back to their old monopolist ways, with a new revenue source and not do the necessary things to ensure competition, fairness to the consumer and evolution of the business model without having to make excuses (for gouging the consumer) why one part of the business is sucking the life out of the other parts. bad also begets bad.. in the ways that the big cablecos reacted.. instead of lowering rates, they raised them and implemented capped bandwidth, increased throttling (even on so-called non-bandwidth hog subscribers) and increased cherry picking of geographies for system upgrades/maintenance. for these and other reasons, we have a horrible set of circumstances that let fewer large corporations control more media content, allowed at&t to swallow up a company to own 2/3 the USA geographic last mile, allowed verizon to SELL off so-called bad ROI geographies to companies that either have or will file for bankruptcy due to massive debt-- for which they PAID $$ MILLIONS $$ for the priviledge to own. in addition, targeted lobbying and "behind the scenes" dirt sabotaged many efforts to create & build either municipal or 3rd party (independent carrier) last mile networks across the country from California, to New York, to Texas and up the Mid-Atlantic states (not owned by at&t).
don't expect much to happen except your rates for ALL THREE SERVICES WILL GO UP NEXT YEAR, if they haven't already-- even the holdouts in the most competitive areas! meanwhile, the cost of providing internet access itself declined (the backbone service, not the last mile infrastructure part). |
