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Arty50
Premium Member
join:2003-10-04

1 recommendation

Arty50

Premium Member

Best money ever spent

I'm so happy we gave the telcos $200B to bring us fiber.
Skippy25
join:2000-09-13
Hazelwood, MO

Skippy25

Member

Me too. They are so responsible and good to us consumers.

We should give them more, they really really deserve it!

ITALIAN926
join:2003-08-16

ITALIAN926 to Arty50

Member

to Arty50
and what 200 Billion in charity are you two referring to?

trparky
Premium Member
join:2000-05-24
Cleveland, OH

trparky to Skippy25

Premium Member

to Skippy25
Damn, I've never seen so much sarcasm in my life!
Arty50
Premium Member
join:2003-10-04

1 recommendation

Arty50 to ITALIAN926

Premium Member

to ITALIAN926
said by ITALIAN926:

and what 200 Billion in charity are you two referring to?

»www.pbs.org/cringely/pul ··· 683.html

ITALIAN926
join:2003-08-16

1 edit

ITALIAN926

Member

So, obviously, you believe that the telco's have 200billion in a vault somewhere. Or was any monies in question used to provide for EXISTING SERVICES at the time.

... and besides all that, Verizon FiOS and AT&T Uverse has passed many more homes than the article states. There are over 4 million FiOS customers alone.
Arty50
Premium Member
join:2003-10-04

1 recommendation

Arty50

Premium Member

Congratulations on completely misrepresenting the article. Did you even read it?
said by ITALIAN926:

So, obviously, you believe that the telco's have 200billion in a vault somewhere. Or was any monies in question used to provide for EXISTING SERVICES at the time.

"Over the decade from 1994-2004 the major telephone companies profited from higher phone rates paid by all of us, accelerated depreciation on their networks, and direct tax credits an average of $2,000 per subscriber for which the companies delivered precisely nothing in terms of service to customers. That's $200 billion with nothing to be shown for it."

That money isn't sitting in a vault anywhere. It was used to record record profits and to re-consolidate the Baby Bells back into less than a handful of companies. Two in particular, AT&T and Verizon, are much larger than the rest.

They were originally supposed to use that money to roll out "video dial tone, which referred in the mid-1990s to the provision of video-on-demand and cable TV-equivalent service by U.S. telephone companies at (bidirectional!) speeds up to 45 megabits per second over fiber and hybrid fiber-coax networks." They got that dumbed that down even further in the final bill to ADSL, and then they gamed the states' public utilities commissions so that they could basically reap all of the benefits but roll out minimal service.

Need I also remind you that this was originally supposed to be 45M SYMMETRICAL service. U-Verse tops out at 24m down and 3M up...if you can even get it. Hell, I can't even get AT&T DSL and I live in the Bay Area.
said by ITALIAN926:

... and besides all that, Verizon FiOS and AT&T Uverse has passed many more homes than the article states. There are over 4 million FiOS customers alone.

"In a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) report from 1994 there were requests from U.S. telephone companies to provide video dial-tone service at unprecedented levels. Bell Atlantic (now part of Verizon) wanted to install service to 3.5 million homes in its service area. Nynex (now also a part of Verizon) requested permission to install service to 400,000 homes. Pacific Bell (now part of AT&T) wanted to install service to 1.3 million homes. Ameritech (now part of AT&T) wanted to install service to 1.2 million homes. GTE (now part of Verizon) wanted to install service to 1.1 million homes."

Adding up the numbers for Bell Atlantic, Nynex, and GTE yields 5M...in 1994. Fios has hit 4.6M as of Q3 2011. Not bad, until you realize that the US population has grown by 50M people and 17M households since then, of which I'm sure Verizon has its fair share.

Basically, we got totally screwed.

Bell Baby
@bellsouth.net

Bell Baby

Anon

Good old BAIT and SWITCH. At&t was real smart at getting the money they wanted to use for other things. In the end there cell service is still the worst out there.

Doctor Olds
I Need A Remedy For What's Ailing Me.
Premium Member
join:2001-04-19
1970 442 W30

Doctor Olds to ITALIAN926

Premium Member

to ITALIAN926
said by ITALIAN926:

So, obviously, you believe that the telco's have 200billion in a vault somewhere.

Nah, They already done spent that money (while it was still hot from the Treasury presses) on Mansions, Jets, Exotic Cars, TGE Call Girls, personal Stock Options and Balloon Payment to non-producing CEO's (Prior and current). Etc. None went to investing into infrastructure to provide fiber to the home.

ITALIAN926
join:2003-08-16

ITALIAN926

Member

OK, so the billions that was used for FiOS must have been counterfeit.

Doctor Olds
I Need A Remedy For What's Ailing Me.
Premium Member
join:2001-04-19
1970 442 W30

Doctor Olds

Premium Member

said by ITALIAN926:

OK, so the billions that was used for FiOS must have been counterfeit.

Um, Right! Tax dollars, Tax Credits and Yearly cash flow from paying customers are all counterfeit funds.....