Fergie's Tech Blog

The $200 Billion Telecom Ripoff -- Summarized!

Thanks to David S. Isenberg, who writes over on his isen.blog:

The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University has published a great summary of Bruce Kushkick's $200 Billion Broadband Scandal book. According to Kushnick, the reason the U.S. is falling behind the rest of the world in broadband-per-capita is that the Bells promised broadband, but then lied, cheated and stole instead of delivering it!

Kushnick writes:

By 2006, according to telecommunication companies’ own documents, 86 million customers in the United States should have received 45 Mbps service . . . the merger(s) of the phone companies that control the phone networks decreased competition. Instead of deploying the high-speed fiber-optic lines they promised, they were content to collect profits, tinker with existing copper connections instead of rewiring, and roll out inferior DSL services.

posted by Fergie @ 3/16/2006 10:13:00 AM