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Fast, affordable Internet access for all.
She [Elaine Harris of Communications Workers of America (telephone employees union)] believes the payoff for Verizon is it cannot only make money selling off its assets, but it can take advantage of a federal tax loophole that allows tax-free mergers between companies. The smaller companies are left saddled with debt and, as a result, can't make the necessary upgrades to existing infrastructure, turning off customers and ultimately leading to work force reductions as dissatisfied customers turn somewhere else.Trying to figure out how to force absentee-owned, profit-maximizing corporations to bring true broadband to everyone ignores the reality of our market system: we are trying to force the square peg through the round hole. These companies may well invest in urban and suburban areas (though these areas continue to fall behind major cities elsewhere in the world) but they have no reason to invest in rural America. To get the job done, we need smart public investments to ensure everyone benefits from the communications revolution. When we expanded telephone and electrical infrastructure to everyone, everyone in the United States benefited because networks always become more valuable as they increase in size. More people on the network means increased markets, increased productivity, and a higher quality of life. Ensuring everyone has quality broadband is not charity for rural folks, it is in all of our self-interest. The narrow self-interests of Verizon, Frontier, and FairPoint (this is not a shot at them, companies are designed to have a narrow self-interest for legitimate reasons) do not line up with our larger national interest - something that too few people understand when dealing with broadband policy. This is a video offering good coverage of the FairPoint problems: This video is no longer available. Photo by Derek Jensen, used under creative commons license.