Twenty years ago, the big cable companies made a pact to install broadband cable everywhere in the country, from sea to shining sea. They obtained higher rates and surcharges to fund it, and now they're flaking. And they want to keep the money. So says a report by David Cay Johnston.
Here's where rural communities will really get screwed:
"Verizon and AT&T are aggressively moving to dump a large percentage of their landlines and force customers to wireless networks [that] are expensive, restrictive, incompatible with medic-alert services, less reliable for 911 calls and will not hold up during power outages—and in a lot of places wireless just won't work. - Regina Costa Telecommunications research director for the Utility Reform Network in California
Low income people who still depend on landlines to call 911.
It's gonna be a mess.