----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Thomas" <mike@mtcc.com>
VZ wants to get rid of their copper plant. It's expensive to maintain, and it requires that they sell service to competitors. Once they've disconnected their customers from it, they can just eliminate the copper plant. POTS service which ILECs provide, is basically copper service. So once the copper is gone, they are no longer in the heavily regulated POTS business. The result being, they can do whatever they want.
I can understand their motivation if what Jay writes is incorrect. My guess is that Jay may be correct technically, but VZ does it anyway because they figure they can get away with it.
Someone tells me off list that indeed, if the plant isn't *there*, VZN isn't required to build it. Now, if that's the case, then they can't adminstratively block *someone else* from building it, either... Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274