11-02-2012, 09:59 AM
Frankly, I'm not impressed with Verizon. They are in it to make money (over $1.5 billion profit at 32% margin according to StreetInsider site) and to do so they, much like the banks and credit card companies, tack on as many fees as they can. They made a good bet on LTE technology and like any well-funded technology company they want to be first to implement and maintain a standard. The complaint is that we are getting less than we should and paying more for it as shown in international comparisons, much like the health care financing debate. But it's not just Verizon's profit greed, it's also a non rational and political process in which corporations and political figures go for power grabs and mo' money rather than produce a rational and technocratic solution that actually serves the wider population. This is most exemplified by the slicing and dicing of the EM spectrum as fewer companies try to control more and more bandwidth by paying ever larger sums to spectrum hoarders and the FCC is apparently little able to regulate what's there.
In my opinion, several areas of commerce should be regulated much like the public utility districts we are familiar with from the Pacific Northwest. We simply do not believe that private corporations that control limited resources (bandwidth, electricity, petroleum, etc.) have the broader public's best interest in mind. In the PNW the PUDs focused on providing electricity (and good jobs) efficiently, basically at cost with additions for investment and improvements. Nobody made a profit (rentier) and we had great service. Does HELCO have our broadest interests in mind when they set rates with the PUC? Many don't think so. In our personal case, HELCO seems to have no interest in marching poles 2.5 miles down the road to our local community of probably over a hundred households, all currently off grid. Rural electrification happened on the mainland in the 30's. Not so much here. Do BP and Exxon have our broader interests in mind when they provide $4 a gallon gas? You guess.
Not that any of this will do much good. I'm sure I haven't moved Verizon to provide good service at reasonable rates. But broadband-based communications are more fundamental to society now then ever before. We should be careful about entrusting those capabilities to entities whose only basic purpose is to extract more profits from us.
In my opinion, several areas of commerce should be regulated much like the public utility districts we are familiar with from the Pacific Northwest. We simply do not believe that private corporations that control limited resources (bandwidth, electricity, petroleum, etc.) have the broader public's best interest in mind. In the PNW the PUDs focused on providing electricity (and good jobs) efficiently, basically at cost with additions for investment and improvements. Nobody made a profit (rentier) and we had great service. Does HELCO have our broadest interests in mind when they set rates with the PUC? Many don't think so. In our personal case, HELCO seems to have no interest in marching poles 2.5 miles down the road to our local community of probably over a hundred households, all currently off grid. Rural electrification happened on the mainland in the 30's. Not so much here. Do BP and Exxon have our broader interests in mind when they provide $4 a gallon gas? You guess.
Not that any of this will do much good. I'm sure I haven't moved Verizon to provide good service at reasonable rates. But broadband-based communications are more fundamental to society now then ever before. We should be careful about entrusting those capabilities to entities whose only basic purpose is to extract more profits from us.