that said, can I get FIOS w/o any other Verizon crap? I just want the fiber transport to an exchange... want my own ISP/peering, not theirs. They wont sell it.
Yup. They got what they wanted. They got concessions to build Clinton's (stupidly named) Information Superhighway, including what some believe to be two HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS in incentives, which the telcos happily took and gave us ... darn near nothing ... in return. Certainly not what was promised. http://www.newnetworks.com/ShortSCANDALSummary.htm Obviously this has its own axe to grind, but anyone who doesn't understand the fundamental truth, that the telcos greedily accepted this, took the money, and then ended up complaining and lobbying until they were allowed to provide much less, virtually noncompetitively, on terms extremely favorable to their own interests, well, if you don't get that, you're blind. The problem with the free market is that it doesn't work in the public's best interest, but rather in the best interest of the companies involved. This is both a blessing and a curse. Had things developed in the way that was intended, there would have been a virtual decimation of the existing communications companies, and the Internet might have suffered a good bit as well. I think we'd have gotten over it, though, and certainly we'd be much better connected now. The challenges would be very interesting. Imagine being faced with the prospect of having customers wanting to use 45 megabits of bidirectional capacity. You'd have to find some interesting new technologies. Like the InterneTiVo I was talking about a while back. ;-) ... JG -- Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net "We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN) With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.