Verizon Slashes and Burns, Ohioans Will Get Screwed

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Recently, Verizon has sold off all of it's telephone landlines in several states. The results have been that Verizon makes extreme windfall profits, but consumers get screwed.

(You've heard this one before, haven't ya?)

Over the years, Verizon bought out most of the smaller phone companies in Ohio. As a result, they are the only landline provider for much of rural Ohio. And in most of those areas, they are also the only provider of any form of "high speed" internet through DSL because very few of these areas have cable lines, outside of some villages which were wired (thank gawd!) by small time cable operators, almost all of whom have since been bought out by Time-Warner. (bleecch)

Now, Verizon is selling off all of it's landlines in Ohio and thirteen states to an outfit called "Frontier Communications Corp." But before divesting these operations Verizon is also "extracting $3.3 billion from the units before selling them off, by having them pay cash to the parent company and letting them assume debt."

Emphasis added. And yes, that's BILLION with a "b".

Companies who have taken over Verizon operations in two other states have gone bankrupt after they were "beset by customer service problems after taking over the Verizon lines."

Ironically, this comes just as Governor Strickland's "Connect Ohio" initiative is FINALLY just barely starting to get off of the ground. The first meeting for my county was this morning and was by invitation only and well, I wasn't invited.

This is a CRITICAL consumer issue, both in terms of phone service AND for 'Net access. Hopefully, other denizens of the 'sphere will jump in here and try to pressure Ohio to prevent another nightmare like what has happened to the citizens of Vermont where activists are now trying to launch a "switch off Verizon" campaign.

I have long argued that is the sort of down to earth, consumer oriented "kitchen table" issue that Democrats/progressives can use to defeat wingnuts and their "wedgies."