Verizon’s strategy to stop municipal governments in Pennsylvania from providing broadband services worked. The governor signed a bill which mandates that the ILEC has the right of first refusal on any such project in the state. Verizon, the local carrier for nearly all of Pennsylvania, said it would waive its right for Philadelphia, the first city in the state to propose providing such access. (See here and here.) So Philly will get its wireless network and Verizon can now maintain its slow pace of broadband rollout across the rest of the state. [Update: According to this article in the Washington Post Verizon must provide broadband service across half its territory by 2015. Public service indeed.]
Seems like a giant step backwards to me. The bill contains a provision that the ILEC must provide broadband services within 14 months of exercising its new right but its easy to imagine many claims of technical delays etc. So instead of hastening the availability of broadband the governor has made most of his state beholden to Verizon once again. Reminds me of the days before the MFJ: if the phone company didn’t want to sell it to you, you probably didn’t really want it anyway. Bill McGowan is rotating rapidly at his rest.
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