Bell's and line counts

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "David Lesher" <wb8foz () panix com>
Date: January 9, 2009 9:28:53 PM EST
To: dave () farber net (David Farber)
Subject: Bell's and line counts

Prof F:

The Bells have been whining that the number of phone lines being rented
has been falling. That's a new experience for them; even during the
{previous....} Depression, line counts didn't drop.

An obvious explanation is increasing numbers of cellular-only
households. A second one getting less notice: many households had 2nd
or 3rd lines for dialup access; and they're being dropped in favor of
broadband.

But Bruce Kushnick <http://www.teletruth.org/> has stumbled on another
factor.

Now, at least in the FIOS case, VZ requires you to surrender the copper
feeding your POTS, and they cut it off to prevent future use. (The
existing copper is regulated and may be rented by COVAD, etc; but not
the fiber. Their executives, by the way, denied this coercion in a House
hearing, then later sorta admitted it. <http://tinyurl.com/5g559m>) I
assume ATT is similar, but don't have personal experience with that.

It appears than when you get FIOS [VZ] or U-Verse [ATT] service, and  
your
friendly Bell moves your POTS service from copper to that media; they
count that as a loss. If true, the number of "lines" may well not have
dropped as much as they claim.

I'm curious as to another issue: FIOS is deployed on both Bell-owned and
electric company-owned poles; and in ducts. There's various tariffed
rates for such sharing, and settlements between all the players,
including cable companies. I have to wonder if unregulated FIOS VZ pays
regulated VZ for such usage, and if so, at what rates?

I suspect your experience at the FCC exposed you to the wonders of
utility bookkeeping and rate bases. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? comes
to my mind.






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