Verizon Makes Out Like A Bandit

Scams

from the promises-promises dept

Andy writes “And people ask me why I’m cynical. A 1994 agreement between the State of Pennsylvania paid out over $2.1 Billion in tax cuts and other deregulation rewards to Verizon. Verizon’s part of the deal was to provide 45Mbps symmetrical fiber service to the all homes and businesses in their service area by 2015 (unrealistic, but part of the agreement). Telco opponent Bruce Kushnick originally reported on this back in February; now Broadband Reports has the latest on what essentially amounts to a well crafted scam. Knowing they could never really deploy that kind of bandwidth, Verizon ran off with the dough, and apparently lobbied the state hard enough that this week they voted to completely ignore the 1994 agreement, despite already making a killing off of it. A deal was signed, Verizon cashed in, then probably turned around and used the money to lobby the state into ignoring that it never lived up to it’s side of the bargain.”