What Billions In Subsidies Bought: The Final Map Of Verizon's FiOS Fiber
from the that-looks-kind-of-empty dept
Back in 2003, we wrote about Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg's big bet to actually offer fiber-to-the-home for Verizon internet subscribers. Wall Street absolutely despised this move. While it was actually about offering consumers a better service (i.e., real broadband), short-sighted Wall Street folks don't like projects that cost a lot to build. Seidenberg ignored them and pushed forward with the FiOS buildout. Of course, the second that Seidenberg retired, Verizon suddenly made it clear that it would finish its planned buildouts, but wouldn't expand any further. That was five years ago. And, in the last few years, it's even looked for ways to get out of the wired broadband business entirely, selling off pieces here and there, and focusing on wireless instead. Late last week, it was reported that Verizon was now nearing completion of its promised fiber buildout, and wouldn't be doing any more. Well, some of its promised fiber buildout. The promises that it made to state officials about 100% coverage to get tax breaks and subsidies? Those it's backed out of (without giving back the billions it got in subsidies, of course).So? For all that effort, what did the American public get? Well, Verizon doesn't like to show it, but here's the map of all FiOS buildouts, thanks to the folks at Fiber For All:
Still, the simple fact is that if we want true broadband today, fiber is the way to go, but the big broadband players basically don't care. Verizon used to care, but Wall Street hated the idea of investing to offer what the public wanted, and thus, that option is now gone. And that big gray map is what we have to show for it. Lucky you, if you live in one of those counties. For the rest of us stuck on pokey slow connections, well, too bad.
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Filed Under: broadband, fiber to the home, fios, subsidies
Companies: verizon
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I wish I were joking.
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However there's almost guaranteed to be a scattering of cable companies offering broadband that does not overlap with the Fios coverage. So it falls short, possibly well short, of who has broadband.
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For example: I lost broadband yesterday by 1Mbps.
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FIOS user here
When they are NOT throttling me.
having 75/75 is worthless as fuck when they decide you should not have it at this time of the day or to this website.
Been seriously considering just saying downgrade me, I am not actually getting what I am paying for so eat my shorts bitches.
Watch... all those carries will just upgrade their 1.5 DSL lines to "Up to 25 down"... after all... you are only paying for the possibility of having your current speed you already have while never being able to achieve it!
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Re: FIOS user here
Verizon is a scummy company, but their FiOS product is less altered than other ISPs.
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Re: Re: FIOS user here
Really dood? Seeding will get you multiple connections from different sites, there is more than one way to throttle.
Example, I have an FTP server... a single connection never gets more than 1.5 Mbps down... I see a second come in and guess what... 1.5 each for a totes of 3 out of my bucket. The problem... the friends I am serving files too have 15+ Mbps on their end. It is damn clear that throttling is present. Just because your seeding on a different protocol nets you better results does not mean throttling is not present you nimrod!
I work in IT on the Infrastructure side of things... Take your accusation of anecdotes some where else SHILL!!
The Telco's don't even deny throttling and there have been more than fucking enough other efforts out there to prove what I am saying is true!
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Re: Re: Re: FIOS user here
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Ah yiss! I am entirely sure his calling my claims anecdotal despite all of the other, even more readily available, evidence supporting my claims was not being an ass at all either. Amiright?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: FIOS user here
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: FIOS user here
I believe you are right.
Okay guys... I stand down.
Serious, I apologize for the misunderstanding. Sometimes I go nuts and dig my own grave.
*Face Palm* to myself!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: FIOS user here
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I try not to be the turd muffin in the chatter, but sometimes I just go crazy.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: FIOS user here
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: FIOS user here
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: FIOS user here
Apologies. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes and I hope you can forgive me for mine as I have forgive you for yours.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: FIOS user here
You have no reason to apologize for standing up to a punk.
Thank you for the forgiveness and I forgive you for whatever you think you did wrong, I don't really see anything that needs forgiveness except my posts.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: FIOS user here
Yes, I was wrong, and I do apologize, I deserve to be called out on it.
Now, crude and insulting really needs to be tolerated even though I was certainly wrong in this context. If we decide to dismiss something just because it is rude or or insulting means we will only leave Free Speech hung out to dry, because at the end of the day... being rude or insulting in a lot of ways is up to the eye of the beholder.
Some things that insult others do not insult me. And some things that people see as rude are not seen as rude to me.
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Plus one Internet point for you.
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Anyways... I may sound gruff, but you might be shocked that I talk like this to a lot of people. The ones that know me have figured out that I just talk admitted a little to crappy, but they know that my antics are not as serious as they sound. My own Mother complains to me the most about my uncaring and abrasive chatter. So I do admit that my mouth gets me into a lot of trouble.
If anyone tells me I hurt their feelings I usually back off and apologize. I have a lot of friends where our "male bonding" is essentially insults and aggressive behavior, but we have a lot of fun doing it too and sometimes that just bleeds over. So yea, I tend to have thicker skin than most and I do make people angry from time to time. But I try to staunch the stupidity when it gets outta hand.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: FIOS user here
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For those asking why I responded to everyone.
Just consider it my penance for being an idiot.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: FIOS user here
I'm not saying you're right or wrong. Just that your method of delivery makes people hate you and ignore you no matter what facts are on your side. While you may not care about the hate (or may even enjoy it if you're the kind of sad person that didn't get enough attention as a child), surely you want people to listen to what you have to say and not discount you because you're bile and vitriol are off-putting. Standing up and saying "I HAVE PROOF, YOU FUCKING SHILL!!!!1!!!ONE!!!ELEVENTYONE!!!" is much less effective than just sharing your different experiences because of how it makes people perceive you. Sure, you get your information to more people, but that's more people that end up hating those who agree with you because of how you act.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: FIOS user here
I deserved it. I have no problem with people saying bad things or being an ass about it either.
I really only have a problem with being wrong, that part is far more important to me. So I always try to pay attention when someone says I misunderstood, and will ask for clarification.
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Re: Re: Re: FIOS user here
15+ symmetrical or asymmetrical? Also do they perhaps have bandwidth controls on their ends, perhaps intentionally built into their servers, to prevent one person from hogging all the bandwidth for everyone else?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: FIOS user here
Its not just my two friends... all FTP outgoing connections see that same cap, regardless of geo location. Sure all the peeps that download may have that same limitation but that is really asking me to believe in a seemingly impossible coincidence.
Sure there are always other factors that play into this, but since my tests remain consistent per protocol regardless of time or day, I have no choice but to believe this is all throttling of different degrees.
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Re: Re: Re: FIOS user here
I'm sure you do with in IT on the 'infrastructure side of things.' That's half the problem, people like you who clearly don't understand internet architecture (1.5 Mbps down? You meant up, a typo, I'm sure. 15Mbps on each end, certainly the whole story here. Traffic definitely travels directly point to point).
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Re: Re: FIOS user here
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There is not the will in the private sector to do this, but they gladly gobble up any cash offered and fail to deliver on the promises. If I pay someone to build my house, and they just throw a cardboard box on the lot there are all sorts of recourses to get my money back or force them to honor the contract. Perhaps it is time we start demanding accountability with OUR MONEY. We've funneled billions to all sorts of providers who can't even meet the modest goals, it is time to stop filling the trough and perhaps take some of these prized porkers to the slaughterhouse and pick up some cute new piglets who might do better than the old tired hogs.
I wonder what Google could do with a portion of the billions we've handed out, I'm not sure what we'd get but it couldn't be worse.
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I think I would much rather have a refund than that particular company.
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The assets could bring a portion of the cash back when sold off, not to mention the spectrum made available to a new company.
We could extract maximum citizen value from it.
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Sadly, none of that happens to be the case today, and it was in fact the government who gave these companies your money and who did not even bother to get a return on their and your investment.
So who is really to blame here?
The Shyster Corporation whose one and only goal in life is to make more money this year than last year, by any and all means available.
The shitty self serving government that listens only to its corporate money wielding lobbyist benefactors and uses the tax-payer's cash to do favors for friends and associates, in return for cushy jobs on Wall street when they retire.
Or, We The People, for letting this shit get so far out of hand that there is now no real recourse or any possible means to repair the damage.
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"Who is really to blame?"
Part of this is a matter of human nature, of which our models are much better now. At this point we know there are many reasons for which people will NOT stay informed and vote according to their personal best interests, a notion on which Democracy relies.
Part of it is that we've never done democracy before, long enough to realize that two parties isn't enough. We could do better by tweaking the system -- if those people who represent weren't so benefited by the status quo as to rule out all changes.
But this is not the first time the merchant class has taken over government for its own greedy ends.
I'm not sure why you're looking to blame someone. It would be like blaming Edison for not inventing the light-bulb because his fifth version didn't work.
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Re: "Who is really to blame?"
My aim is to get people to actually admit that they no longer know how to control their government and that the government no longer controls the activities of the US mega-corporations.
Once that realization is admitted, it becomes obvious that the government in place is no longer "for the people" or "of the people", and is thus, no longer truly the American Government, but simply a gang of thieves masquerading as a federal government, in order to gain access to all the wonderful tax money the US public gives away every year.
Depending on existing legal foundations will no longer solve anything, as that route is completely shut down as far as public access is concerned.
Something new has to be developed publically, installed publically and controlled publically, in order to have even a small chance of successfully ending the enemy occupation of the United States Government.
Since I have no idea what that might be, or how that can be initiated, I hope to spur others into thinking, as I have no doubt it can be done and no doubt that it can be done only by those who have realized the complete shut down of law in the USA.
The recent admission that the US Constitution has been re-interpreted for the War on Terror, without public input and in complete secrecy, should go far to awaken people to the fact that their government is rogue and has no intention of relinquishing the powers they have secretly given themselves.
Fighting fire with fire against a foe who owns the furnace and all the fuel is futile. To win this war, I think we have to fight law with law, but in that area I'm lost entirely and my only hope is the minds of others less ignorant than myself.
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Re: Re: "Who is really to blame?"
Here in TechDirt prominades, I figured that those were pretty much understood. But yes, I guess we have constant inlet of new folks around.
Corporate State
Police State
Surveillance State
Torture State.
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Success
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Re: Success
Naturally, they wrote the laws in a way that gives them an effective monopoly, so they don't have to worry about competition.
Without competition, any industry is going to suck. It's just human nature.
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Re: Success
The elected officials set up these government entities so they can deflect blame from themselves. This behavior is so entrenched and common people do not even see it for what it is anymore.
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Re: Re: Success
We often do not have enough choice as an electorate for blame there to be very big because you only get to vote for those that are 'approved' by the political parties and 'backed' financially by 'corporate persons'.
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Such as?
The corruption we're talking about isn't really the result of the two-party system. It's a deeper systemic problem.
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Re: Re: Re: Success
Sooner or later we've got to stop pretending that this is a viable option: the Big Two parties like it this way.
Get the numbers, get the candidate in.
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Re: Success
An additional idea I would tack on to that, would be writing the contract such that failure to meet their goals will start to incur penalties, growing as time goes by as long as they are bound by the contract. If they want to drop the contract, then they are forced to refund the amount that was given to them, and until they do so the penalty keeps rising.
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Re: Re: Success
Hell, if they can charge me one, we should be able to charge them one!
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Re: Success
Erm, isn't half the problem that there are no actual competitors in a lot of places in the US?
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Re: Re: Success
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Kinda like how the 100 mile constitution free zone comprises more than 50% of Americans because that is how many there are that live within that zone.
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There's been a change of administration in NYC
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Population density?
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Re: Population density?
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As Sonic famously refused to participate in the MAFIAA's "six strikes" program, that refusal showed a degree of integrity wholly missing from the big ISPs.
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Wall Street would rather make 10 millions now than 10 billions in 15 years. And that's why such kind of infra-structure has be firmly regulated.
I'd love to see the billions in taxes subsidies charged from Verizon. Part of me thinks Wall Street would comply asap. The other thinks they'd feed the dead corpse of Verizon and rack in the profits just like they did in 2008.
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Verizon has sold off both landline telephone as well as broadband in low density areas, along with a few cities geographically isolated from the rest of their network (former GTE areas). While it's possible that Verizon intends to get out of the wired broadband and landline telephone business entirely, their behavior so far has been to divest rural areas.
Verizon is only a local telephone operator in a few states. They retain some of the old Bell Atlantic states-- Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, plus certain of the GTE territories, in California, Florida, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia.
What percentage of the country has Verizon service for their local landline company? In other words, what percentage of Verizon landline eligible customers can get FIOS? (Acknowledging that apartment buildings and the like can be tricky.)
Certainly places that were BellSouth/SouthwesternBell/the new AT&T were unlikely targets for FiOS in the first place, at least without a Verizon-AT&T merger that would dwarf even Comcast/TWC.
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Wow. Way to give the middle finger to the hundreds of companies who have run ftth. Unrecognized as usual.
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You want him to list hundreds of companies offering FTTH (are there really that many? Sounds extremely high) in an article that isn't even about that?
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Saying there are private companies like Sonic.net and Google Fiber (the attention seeking fiber-to-the-press release king and queen) and municipalities completely writes off the hard work other companies are doing. Many of these companies are actually doing this for real. Taking the real financial risks instead of it being some side hobby like it is for Google.
There are hundreds upon hundreds of companies deploying FTTH.
http://www.bbpmag.com/search.php?s0=1&cols=-co&st=&ve=&gr=&te=&se=& ty=-mun-ppr&qco=&qme=&qan=&qus=0&qmu=&qsu=&qpa=&qin=0
That list alone includes nearly a thousand companies and municipalities. And I can think of several off the top of my head that are not included in my state alone. One of which has nearly completed a full 100% ILEC fiber overbuild.
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The elephant in the room.
"You're going to waste money, that could be paid out to investors as dividends, on investing in profit generating infrastructure instead?!? Downgrade that company's stock! Sell! Get out before it's too late!"
How anyone can defend the stock market in this day and age mystifies me.
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Re: The elephant in the room.
It all about turnover of stocks, as the brokers make their profits on the transactions.
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Re: Re: The elephant in the room.
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HOWEVER. That was 6/7 years ago and I now live in a different place and have Charter. Whenever I go home I am shocked at how slow it is when it is supposed to be much faster then what I am getting. Don't know what's going on there, but I swear they aren't getting what they paid for. It is like pulling teeth waiting for pages to load at their house when I know their internet should be faster.
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Just as 'all roads lead to Rome', it seems all money flows toward Washington.
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The subsidy was to expand fiber?
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The last of them.
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Obviously...
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Contracts
That we are OWNED by the state/counties on Who paid WHO, to get the Franchises, in each area..which means..NO competition.
The only way to get past all this "WE put the lines it, WE own it, you cant use it"...Is for the gov. to install the new Fiber backbone.
This is why, all the Nations advancements have been BACKED by the gov. in the first place.
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FiOS Satellite Farm in Illinois, & little Midwest FiOS
BTW, 1 of the 2 Verizon FiOS satellite farms is located on west edge of Bloomington, Illinois, on former GTE property.
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Because the system is corrupt.
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The system is corrupt
1. When the bill was passed to grant the subsidy, there were no contingencies included in regards to if Verizon failed to meet the promised conditions.
2. Verizon owns (contributes generously to the campaigns of) many representatives in office, which it can cease doing at any time one of them acts to hold Verizon accountable. Verizon can also hire people for cushy jobs representatives and regulatory agents that it particularly favors.
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fios
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Actual vs. target
How much area did Verizon's "100% coverage" promises actually include? I get the impression that those were made to specific states, and would have extended to only those states even if fulfilled to the letter.
This map would be nicely complemented by another one showing what the coverage would look like if Verizon had, in fact, fulfilled all of the commitments they made before receiving funding et cetera.
Unless that map would just be "solid red across every state", of course, in which case an explicit statement that Verizon really did promise 100% fiber coverage everywhere would be enough.
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one word
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Greed is always a factor.
And while greed serves when you are big man in the village, it doesn't work so well when you're big man in the state because greedy hoarders disregard anyone who isn't in their close circle of friends. If Ayn Rand's letters are indicative, not even them.
It's an important tip for the next time we try to develop a working economic model.
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Re: Greed is always a factor.
I'm not and never have been against a free market, I just don't pretend that there already is one.
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Re: Greed is always a factor.
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Money IS power.
I suspect (though I don't have numbers to back my hypothesis) that much of the ownership culture that makes content creators (big and small, alike) is driven from this desperation. When we see people being a jackass about some content they allegedly own, it's because we've become fighting desperate for any sofa-change we can uncover.
And whether you want someone dead or someone elected, money will get you that.
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http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/please-bring-sonicnet?source=c.em&r_by=4516097
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and now..
http://www.pcmag.com/news/351857/verizon-pledges-5g-to-11-cities-by-midyear
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Re: and now..
Which means they have top Upgrade all the existing systems And not deal with the Land lines..
AS well as creating their OWN format, insted of waiting to finalize 5G..
There is an OLD understanding about WIRED services..
THEY WORK...They can ALWAYS WORK..Look at the Phone corps did..Thru any form of weather or Earth quake, THEIR system works..
These folks are trying to make a SHORT CUT..that will keep THEM in business..No one ELSE can HAVE this wireless..no one can interfere with it or Anything..its a way to LOCK up the system..
And anyone thats dealt with Wireless, from Shortwave, FM, CB radios, walkie talkies, and soforth...can give you LOTS of reasons, wireless is going to have PROBLEMS..
#1 problem..
Security..the Old phone system HAD/HAS security from BOTH Police and CROOKS..Whirelss has allot less. For reasons..
#2..
You may not believe this, but the System ISNT fully encrypted..
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