City dwellers might not realize how good they have it in comparison to their country cousins. With their only connection to the Internet offered through slow-as-molasses dial-up connections, such as that offered by Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ), their online experience might only be viable at 4 am.
Bill and Ursula Johnson, as documented in this NYTimes.com article, have to get up before dawn and not just to milk the cows on their Vermont dairy farm. 4 am is the only time they can get online to access the Web site of the company that handles their payroll. Verizon, instead of upgrading them to high-speed Internet, is trying to sell the 1.6 million local phone lines it controls in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
Verizon isn't the only phone or cable company looking to reduce the number of landlines they own or to avoid upgrading and expanding local networks in sparsely populated areas. The return on their investments in the city is higher and so that is where the money is spent for projects and improvements.
Verizon has plenty of company in the selling of phone lines, as they did in 2005 in Hawaii. In May, Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) spun off its local phone division with 7.1 million lines, naming it Ebarq and in July, Alltel Corp. (AT) spun off its local phone group and merged it with Valor Communications.
The proceed of sales of phone lines in New England would fund the more lucrative fiber optic network Verizon is building in and around cities like New York and Boston. All this is fueling the political and economic debates over whether the region is being left behind as wealthier states nearby pull further ahead. Jobs and employers might leave the region in larger numbers due to the lack of high-speed Internet access, Vermonters fear.
Know More about the furture of the Internet at WebMetricsGuru.com.
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