Monday, March 17, 2014

Telecom Giants Drag Their Feet on Broadband for the Whole Country - Newsweek

Telecom Giants Drag Their Feet on Broadband for the Whole Country - Newsweek

Of course they drag their feet; it's their fiduciary duty to shareholders to do so. This story spotlights the inherent conflict in relying on the private sector alone to construct telecommunications infrastructure needed by a much larger constituency: the American public.

Despite their claims of having invested billions in telecom infrastructure, investor-owned telcos simply don't have enough cash to finance the transition of their networks from the old, copper POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) cables to modern, fiber optic-based networks. Given that circumstance, they are leaving the old networks in place throughout most of their service territories. But since these networks are decades old and require a lot of costly maintenance, telcos are asking regulators to relieve them of the duty to maintain them to ensure every premise can get telephone service, sparking consumer push back.

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