George Rebane

Big monopolies and oligopolies are no better in the private sector than they are in the public sector.  Both types of organizations suffer systemic failures in the feedback necessary to keep them on the straight and narrow as far as their customers are concerned.  Of course, big government can do more damage to its ‘customers’ because it has guys with guns and can print money without your permission.

But here’s an example of the kind of chicanery Verizon, the big broadband connectivity supplier, puts over on its consumers.  The following report from my friend and correspondent Dr Larry Press, IT professor at Cal State Dominguez Hills, is included with his permission.

We ordered 7 mbps service from Verizon and they turned it on, but we were only getting about 1.5 mbps — presumably tons of retransmission errors due to an aggressive modulation scheme.  They scheduled a truck roll to fix the problem.

The minute the driver arrived, he told me that, at 9,000 feet from my central office, there was no way I was going to get 7 mbps.  He checked the line, and concluded that I could reliably run at 4.2 mbps, but, unfortunately, Verizon only offers 3 and 7, so I could only get 3.

They could have easily told me at the time of the order that 7 mbps was not available at my house.  They could have saved a truck roll.  The “technician” who scheduled the truck roll could have done the same.

The driver told me he does 5 calls per day and 3 are typically fruitless, but that it gave him job security so he was happy with the system.  What a guy.

I had to make yet another 30-minutes-on-hold call to Verizon to change my order to 3 mbps — he could not change the order automatically.

The driver also confirmed the Internet rumors and leaked memos saying that Verizon was not installing new fiber, but focusing on increasing the take rate on what they have installed already.  So much for my getting fiber.  (I wonder how much Verizon has extracted from the California PUC in return for “promises” to roll out fiber).

Professor Press also runs a website for his students that has more info (here and here) about what’s going on in the world of broadband.