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| Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 23:28:26 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Exclusive: In 'year of Apple Pay', many top retailers remain skeptical
Message-ID: <631D58C2-C928-4ABC-AF5A-986533AA427C@roscom.com>
Exclusive: In 'year of Apple Pay', many top retailers remain skeptical
In a January earnings call with investors, Apple Inc Chief Executive
Tim Cook made a confident prediction: "2015 will be the year of Apple
Pay," he said.
Since then, the company has aggressively courted retailers - and
claimed significant success. "We've spoken to all of the top 100
merchants in the U.S., and about half will accept Apple Pay this year,
with many more the following year," a company spokesperson recently
told Reuters.
But interviews with analysts, merchants and others suggest that
Apple's forecast may be too optimistic and that many retailers remain
skeptical about the payment system.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/05/us-apple-pay-idUSKBN0OL0CM20150605
|
| Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2015 10:45:45 -0400
From: Fred Goldstein <invalid@see.sig.telecom-digest.org>
To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon FiOS coverage said to be "miserable" in New York
Message-ID: <5575AA99.40700@ionary.com>
On 6/7/2015 7:32 PM, HAncock4 wrote:
> On Sunday, June 7, 2015 at 3:31:23 PM UTC-4, Charles Jackson wrote:
> > On Sun, Jun 7, 2015 at 3:20 AM, HAncock4 wrote:
> >> The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that southern New Jersey also
> >> suffers from poor FIOS availability despite an agreement with Verizon
> >> in exchange for an exclusive franchise.
>
> > I read the article and did not find the word "exclusive".
>
> >From the article:
>
> "In New Jersey, meanwhile, Trenton lawmakers passed a law
> in 2006 granting Verizon a _lucrative franchise_ to wire
> hundreds of towns for FiOS."
>
> To me, a "lucrative franchise" meant an exclusive contract.
> Otherwise, what would be so lucrative about the franchise?
>
> In any event, the post of the Inquirer article was to show
> that other areas had trouble similar to the original post.
As other have noted, the franchise was not exclusive. But back to
Bruce Kushnick's point: Verizon had originally, in 1992, promised 100%
fiber coverage of the state, in exchange for which the state move them
from rate-of-return to price cap ("alternative form of") regulation
(AFOR). Under AFOR, they are allowed to earn whatever profits they
can, though basic residential rates may be capped, at least for a
time. Based on historical documents Bruce & I have read, the original
plan was fiber-to-the-node, with 45 Mbps copper drops around the
neighborhood. Sort of like U-Verse.
They never met the promise. They switched instead to providing DSL
wherever it was convenient for them, and nothing elsewhere. A couple
of years ago, two Cumberland County townships, Stow Creek and
Greenwich, which had no broadband service, made a lot of noise at the
BPUC and got Verizon to put in FiOS. The issue is that now the
Christie-appointed BPUC is trying to vacate the original deal in its
entirety, relieving Verizon of its obligations and basically turning
it into an unregulated monopoly or (where there's cable competition)
duopoly. And nobody is a common carrier any more, at least in the
proper meaningful sense.
--
Fred R. Goldstein k1io fred "at" ionary little-round-mark com
Interisle Consulting Group
+1 617 795 2701
|
| Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2015 10:44:55 -0400
From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net>
To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Verizon PA's Broadband Scandal - A Quadruple Bait-and-Switch
Message-ID: <ml49mu$1dh$1@dont-email.me>
SUMMARY: Verizon PA's Broadband Scandal -- A Quadruple Bait-and-Switch
by Bruce Kushnick
Bait & Switch
First Bait & Switch -- Instead of rolling out fiber optic services,
Verizon deployed DSL over the old copper wires from 1996-2002.
Second Bait & Switch -- Because of weasel room in the original law,
Verizon was able to change the commitment from 45 Mbps in both
directions to 1.5 Mbps in one direction.
Third Bait & Switch -- In 2011, Verizon got the State to agree to let it
use any technology including Verizon Wireless, to fulfill this obligation.
Fourth Bait-&-Switch --As we uncovered in New York, in PA, the company
appears to be cross-subsidizing its wireless networks with monies that
should have been used for the wired networks.
http://goo.gl/yaBH54
--
Bill Horne
(Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly)
|
| Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2015 10:58:24 -0400
From: Fred Goldstein <spambait.seesig@gmail.com>
To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Opinion: Verizon gets a lot for little money in its deal for AOL
Message-ID: <5575AD90.5020802@gmail.com>
On 6/7/2015 10:54 PM, Bill Horne wrote:
> By PHILIP VAN DOORN
>
> Maybe the worst thing about AOL Inc. is its name.
>
> It confuses the coverage of the deal announced today, in which Verizon
> Inc. plans to acquire AOL Inc. for $4.4 billion in cash.
>
> The name "AOL" associates the current well-run company with one of the
> worst corporate tie-ups ever. That was the $103.5 billion acquisition of
> the old Time Warner by the old AOL in January 2001. The all-stock offer
> made in January 2000 was for $164 billion, but AOL's shares declined
> considerably before the deal was completed, as just about everyone
> realized AOL's market advantage as a pioneering provider of dial-up
> Internet service was going the way of the dodo.
Conventional wisdom totally misses the point of the AOL-TW deal. From
the AOL point of view, it was brilliant. A company whose value was
hugely inflated by a bubble used that stock valuation to purchase an
established company with real assets. So AOL shareholders ended up
with TW. From TW shareholder's point of view, of course, it was an
unmitigated disaster -- they sold more than half of the company for
essentially nothing. TW's directors proved they have no place in the
world of business. But of course this is America where the CEO class
gets compensated richly for doing well and compensated richly for
failing.
--
Fred Goldstein k1io fgoldstein at ionary little-round-mark com
|
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