> Whatever Verizon's other evils (and I agree with you that there are many), a government-mandated transfer of wealth from fiber adopters to copper-clinging Luddites is not good policy.
Most of what people perceive as Verizon's evils are the result of government-mandated transfer of wealth.[1]
The way most markets work is that new technology is introduced in the premium segment, and trickles down to everyone else once the fixed costs are amortized. In almost every city, Verizon is legally prevented from doing this. If they want to wire up a city with FiOS, they can't start with the rich neighborhoods and expand to poorer neighborhoods as it makes sense to do so. They have to commit to wiring up the whole city in one go. Because that's an unattractive proposition in most places, they've halted new FiOS deployment.
The same thing is true of the existing copper network. Many of the places that are currently wired shouldn't be wired. In a free market, they wouldn't be wired. It makes no sense to wire them, for remoteness or density reasons. The reason they're wired is that the government taxed certain of Verizon's customers to subsidize the customers that it doesn't make sense to build out to.
[1] I'm not against such programs as a principle, but when you try to implement it "by the back door" instead of through direct subsidy, as the government has done in the telecom sector, you get exactly the sort of dysfunction that we see now.
You're absolutely right. Rural America and poor people shouldn't have access to the internet or phone service. It is a horrible tragedy that we have a universal service fund that helped to give everyone in the country a basic level of service.
If we want to give these people/regions services then we should be clear about what we are doing and explicitly subsidize them, and fund it by explicitly taxing others. Instead, these policies implicitly subsidize them by implicitly taxing others.
Why should we subsidize peoples' housing choices? And if we do, we should do it directly, instead of creating a regime that makes it unattractive for companies to invest in telecom infrastructure.
Most of what people perceive as Verizon's evils are the result of government-mandated transfer of wealth.[1]
The way most markets work is that new technology is introduced in the premium segment, and trickles down to everyone else once the fixed costs are amortized. In almost every city, Verizon is legally prevented from doing this. If they want to wire up a city with FiOS, they can't start with the rich neighborhoods and expand to poorer neighborhoods as it makes sense to do so. They have to commit to wiring up the whole city in one go. Because that's an unattractive proposition in most places, they've halted new FiOS deployment.
The same thing is true of the existing copper network. Many of the places that are currently wired shouldn't be wired. In a free market, they wouldn't be wired. It makes no sense to wire them, for remoteness or density reasons. The reason they're wired is that the government taxed certain of Verizon's customers to subsidize the customers that it doesn't make sense to build out to.
[1] I'm not against such programs as a principle, but when you try to implement it "by the back door" instead of through direct subsidy, as the government has done in the telecom sector, you get exactly the sort of dysfunction that we see now.