
Towns want Verizon investigated for abandoning networks through neglect - pavornyoh
http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/12/towns-want-verizon-investigated-for-abandoning-networks-through-neglect/
======
zw123456
One thing that I never see discussed whenever this type of topic comes up is
how badly managed the traditional telecoms have been. My first job out of
college back in the 80's was with Bell Labs and I worked on a task force to
look at how to replace all the old electro-mechanical switching offices. The
team I was on came up with the idea to use fiber optics to centralize to one
or two main CO's for each state. Traditionally, the way the telecoms set up
their networks is they have a CO (Central Office) in each neighborhood, the
reason was because of the old analog technology from the early 1900's, the
signal simply could not travel very far so there needed to be a station within
5 to 10 miles from the customer. Of course there is no need for that with
fiber. Our plan would have saved billions, but they instead decided to just
over lash the fiber to existing copper runs and replace the electro-mechanical
switch with a digital office. It was a huge blunder in my view. If you look at
which companies make money and which loose money in telecom, you can easily
see the relationship, cable co's, CLEC's, mobile operators all use the
centralized approach, one or two main offices per state and fiber to backhaul
to those offices, the losers, the legacy telco's have 100's of CO's for each
offices of the profitable companies. It is obvious to see in operational costs
but they are completely blind to it. I would put this into the category of
"Inventor's dilemma" type of problem.

~~~
Aloha
There was a significant amount of flattening in the initial digital rollout,
between SLC-96 and 5ESS remotes (GTD5 and DMS all have similar constructs)
they did eliminate some very very small suburban offices. But there was not
really another round of office consolidations after the last big round of
mergers - with the replacement of the legacy TDM hardware with newer soft
switches however this is happening.

This article however touches on an issue unique to Verizon, which is they're
letting their copper plant rot in the field, as a way to force customers off
of it (the railroads did much the same thing with passenger service in the
early 50's) when Frontier has bought a former GTE/Verizon area, they usually
have to hire a bunch more in the way of field techs, and spend millions on OSP
upgrades and repairs - to the point that additional FiOS expansion in the
immediate future is unfeasible due to cost.

The future is going to have a mix of wireline and wireless - and some of it
will still be copper, I still believe the best architecture for the future is
FTTN (fiber to the node) with a node every block (or 3-400 yards) allowing for
sub 1000 ft loops. I still think this offers the best price/performance ratio.

~~~
zw123456
Agreed, at this point the wired services are not profitable and they want to
let the plant rot as you said. I agree, there needs to be a mix of fiber and
wireless. The emphasis on wireless is because it is seen as being more
profitable, however that is eroding quickly. Perhaps Google fiber and similar
initiatives will spark some more activity around FTTH, FTTN.

~~~
Aloha
I actually disagree that wireline services are not profitable, they are
profitable, generate a very stable rate of return - but they are not
generating the rate of return, and more importantly growth rates the market
expects. Because of this, Verizon is trying to starve them to make its balance
sheet look better - which in the short term works, but it will also hasten the
demise of what is a somewhat lucrative revenue stream.

FTTN Makes the most sense in dense and semi dense urban and suburban areas -
FTTH/P makes more sense in very rural places, I'm seeing movement on FTTP by
CenturyLink, Frontier seems very interested in expanding its existing FTTH
footprint, but is not doing so yet.

~~~
zw123456
That's probably about right, the margins are just not what Wall Street demands
these days.

~~~
Aloha
because its so capital intensive, I don't think there is anything you can do
to make the rate of return better either. That's the trouble, its a good
stable business, but no longer in vogue.

------
sevensor
We have the same problem with Verizon in my Pennsylvania town. The copper wire
is in such bad shape that it barely works for voice. We tried to use DSL, but
our connection dropped whenever it rained. A technician told us it might be
months before they could get a truck out. Customer service told us there was
nothing wrong with our service. So we swallowed our pride and went back to
Comcast, which chortled and said "we knew you'd come crawling back" while
twirling its moustache.

~~~
jwn
Which town are you in? As it happens I own houses in both rural Northeast PA
and South Jersey.

My Jersey house must be one of the lucky ones, because I've had FIOS there
since about 2009. I can see why the towns are upset, they were promised fiber
and now Verizon is bullshitting them with broadband cellular.

As for my PA house. I had asked a tech a few years ago when FIOS would be
available here, and his response was "never". I didn't take him at his word,
but I'm still getting weekly mailings from Verizon for their 'high speed DSL'.

~~~
sevensor
State College -- we were never promised fiber, but the copper infrastructure
is being allowed to rot nonetheless. For another PA data point, my in-laws
have a house in Sullivan County where they have passable DSL with Frontier.
Verizon is not available there at all.

~~~
JasonCEC
Agreed - State College internet is dismally slow and unreliable for a town of
~60,000 college students, grads, and employees.

~~~
keithpeter
Curious UK resident

Does the College itself get a government/academic feed or do academic
institutions have to rely on local commercial providers?

UK has janet and UKERNA.

[https://www.jisc.ac.uk/network](https://www.jisc.ac.uk/network)

[http://icannwiki.com/UKERNA](http://icannwiki.com/UKERNA)

To overcome the limitations of our domestic ADSL (6 km from exchange over
solid aluminium wire voice circuit) I sometimes run queries over an RDP
session to my College PC.

~~~
sevensor
Somewhere in the middle, I believe. Penn State is big enough that it's
basically its own ISP. They're not buying retail internet service from
Comcast, but they do pay for bandwidth. Penn State is also an Internet2 node,
but that's not what carries most of their traffic.

------
AdmiralAsshat
For reference, a simple search for "Verizon" on ArsTechnica yields many
similar articles.

On Verizon failing to meet its obligations to a city:

[http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/06/verizon-ordered-
to-f...](http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/06/verizon-ordered-to-finish-
fiber-build-that-it-promised-but-didnt-deliver/)

[http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/06/22-years-after-
veriz...](http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/06/22-years-after-verizon-
fiber-promise-millions-have-only-dsl-or-wireless/)

On Verizon letting their copper landline decay:

[http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/08/why-
ve...](http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/08/why-verizon-is-
trying-very-hard-to-force-fiber-on-its-customers/)

[http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/07/verizon-let-us-
insta...](http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/07/verizon-let-us-install-
fiber-or-well-shut-off-your-phone-service/)

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/09/verizon-union-
see...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/09/verizon-union-seeks-
government-investigation-into-network-deterioration/)

I really hate that they're the best service in my area, because I think
they're scum. But then, I think _all_ the major telcos are scum.

~~~
iamsohungry
> But then, I think all the major telcos are scum.

The solution is decentralization through mesh networks.

~~~
meesterdude
or we could you know, just have many ISP's instead of just a few big ones. Not
that i'm against a different topology, but breaking them up is easier to ask
for / implement.

~~~
tw04
The solution to this problem is extremely simple. Government runs the last
mile fiber to _EVERY_ home. Then* pull it back to a central location and let
ISPs compete for service there where the barrier to entry isn't billions of
dollars.

 _REAL_ competition.

~~~
x1798DE
I'm pretty sure I don't want all network connections going through government
owned infrastructure.

~~~
tw04
I'm pretty sure the government can and does tap any line they want. If you
think a private company owning the last mile somehow makes you more secure
than if the government did, you're being extremely naive.

~~~
x1798DE
Well, I was less worried about the lines and more worried about the described
centralized clearinghouses.

That said, although obviously the government _can_ show up with guns wherever
they want and tap whatever they want, I suspect the legal situation would be
much different if we're looking at government-owned infrastructure vs.
privately owned infrastructure.

------
Shivetya
I am not trying to defend Verizon, but the goal of the FCC is to move off of
copper lines. However the rules state that phone companies cannot do that if
any service is interrupted which also apparently means if a customer doesn't
want to move off of copper they don't have too. So which is it? Do we move
people to fiber? There are many who hold on to copper lines because they have
a central power source whereas fiber does not.

My other concern is, why should they pick up the tab for maintaining
connections on an obsolete system if the new one will serve the area?

~~~
hapless
The problem is that they refuse to build out fiber in areas where they are
unlikely to sell a lot of high-dollar, high-margin TV packages.

In rural and low-income areas, Verizon wants to let the old copper
infrastructure rot, but they are uninterested in building out a real
replacement. Instead, they push low-margin customers to grossly inferior
wireless services.

~~~
massysett
4G LTE that works without a single wire in your home, with no truck rolls, and
throughout the USA is hardly "grossly inferior". Not preferred by some,
definitely...but not grossly inferior.

~~~
chiph
4G LTE isn't a valid choice for anyone who wants low-latency (online gamers,
and it doesn't even have to be a "twitch" game), or anyone who balks at
$205/month for 30gb (AT&T price)

~~~
profinger
Yes! Datacapped services are not a viable option. It'd be great to move to
cell service as my phone gets faster download speeds than the fastest
broadband available locally but I'd be capped at 10gb of data or be paying
some outrageous amount for more and that's like 3-4 movies worth of space...
ridiculous.

------
paulddraper
“The failure of Verizon to comply with its obligations… to provide fiber optic
service throughout the State of New Jersey,”

What causes this obligation?

~~~
hguant
In the US, many telecoms operate as a legal monopoly. In exchange for a more
or lesscaptive market, telecoms are legally obligated to maintain certain
levels of service, among other things - such as rolling out upgrades.

This is supposed to provide a higher level of service to the consumer/citizen
of the area that makes the agreement, while also meaning telecoms don't waste
their massive upfront costs by having no customers. It's supposed to provide
the same impetus to improve service as competition. In practice, you get this
kind of nonsense.

~~~
rayiner
It's not quite so simple. The whole point of the 1996 Telecom Act was to get
rid of the legal monopolies and get the government out of the business of
regulating them. What we have now are _incumbents_ not monopolists. However,
in a low-margin industry (Verizon's wireline operating margin is 2-5%) with
enormous capital costs, that's kind of a theoretical distinction.

~~~
empath75
ILEC's still have a monopoly on copper runs in most jurisdictions afaik.

~~~
rayiner
They own the copper runs. But if you want to compete with them by building
your own infrastructure you're allowed to do that. In most places, it's the
power companies that own the utility lines, not the telcos. The problem is
it's not worth anybody's while to do it to earn 3-5% return.

~~~
dragonwriter
A monopoly doesn't require that other people be legally prohibited from
competing (if they are, that's a _granted-by-law_ monopoly), it requires that
you have sufficient dominance in some market as to exercise pricing power
within that market.

~~~
rayiner
"In the US, many telecoms operate as a legal monopoly."

I assumed we were talking about ^^^.

I'm not being pedantic about the distinction. If you're of a libertarian bent,
there is a big difference between legal and de-facto monopolists.

------
doctorshady
Just remember that if you're ever in the position of having to press Verizon
up against the wall, they're legally obligated to fix the outside plant,
whether copper or fiber.

They're also obligated to provide you with non-VoIP (marketed under things
like the Verizon Freedom package) phone service over fiber. The service is
implemented much better, and since it's legally phone service, is obligated to
meet a certain quality standard and be fixed in a certain length of time if it
breaks.

In any case, it really does piss me off to see how far the telecom market has
sunk. A lot of these companies have never gotten over the monopoly mindset,
and really do nothing other than hold themselves back in every way possible.
It's times like these, I kinda want to go buy one of these markets Verizon has
effectively abandoned, and put the whole industry to shame.

~~~
mcherm
> I kinda want to go buy one of these markets Verizon has effectively
> abandoned, and put the whole industry to shame.

The Google Fiber experiment has proven that if you put the whole (US) industry
to shame in an incredibly public way that gets covered multiple times by just
about every news outlet in the country... that it will have no effect at all
on the entrenched players (except perhaps causing them to lower their prices
in the areas you serve in order, I suppose, to harm your income).

------
bovermyer
Remind me, why we don't just nationalize Verizon and the other telecom
companies? Serious question.

~~~
nugget
Free market competition is usually the best solution to problems like this.
Google and others are on the horizon offering better connectivity already. If
Verizon doesn't fix its problems then they will start to lose customers which
is the ultimate market pressure. While Government-led solutions often seem
superior in theory, they rarely work out that way in real life. Government's
most effective role, in my opinion, is to create a regulatory environment that
encourages consumer transparency, corporate accountability and free market
competition. One example of this is what is happening in the health care
market (intentionally or not) with the move to high deductible health care
plans. These plans incentivize consumers to individually comparison shop fee-
for-service medical services for the first time. There is no reason to pay
$1,500 for an MRI when there is another place across town willing to do it for
$500. This type of mass optimization on a micro economic scale will likely
result in better access to services at lower price points than, for example,
the Government (CMS) negotiating a universal rate card with low, fixed copays
for all patients, all providers, and all services.

~~~
jsprogrammer
>There is no reason to pay $1,500 for an MRI when there is another place
across town willing to do it for $500.

Why should everyone need to individually comparison shop for every medical
procedure? Why do two places in the same geographic area have a 3x price
discrepancy? Shouldn't I be able to just get an MRI without having to worry
that my doctor, or other medical provider, is ripping me off?

~~~
refurb
_Why do two places in the same geographic area have a 3x price discrepancy?_

Because determining the cost basis for medical procedures isn't all that easy.
It's not hard to figure out what the MRI machine costs, but how about the
physician and nurses? How about the building? They do a lot more than just
MRIs at these hospitals/clinics. From what I've heard from people working in
hospitals, the hospitals themselves have no idea what their procedure costs
actually are.

What they do instead is charge as much as they can for each procedure and hope
they turn a profit at the end of the year.

------
rhino369
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.

~~~
saulrh
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
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.

~~~
saulrh
> 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.

~~~
massysett
Elvis Presley's phone bill for local service in 1973 was $134.19. A simple CPI
inflation calculator says this would be over $700 today.

[http://www.elvispresleymusic.com.au/pictures/1973-april-2-ph...](http://www.elvispresleymusic.com.au/pictures/1973-april-2-phone-
bill.html)

