> Cities using TV franchises to block competition and extract tithes is a huge part of the problem
I can't speak to Baltimore, but in NYC, it's the landlord that's responsible for this, not the city.
> The economics of FiOS don't really work out without TV service
I can sort of buy that argument in areas where they have to do all the buildout themselves, but in New York, Verizon was handed the existing fiber network that already ran past people's doors. Then Verizon has the gall to claim that they've fulfilled their obligations of wiring the city because 'everyone has fiber running past their door', even where they did literally no work and simply sat on the fiber that others had already built for them.
Do you enjoy Verizon press releases? "Miles ran", "houses passed". Industry doublespeak. NYC residents invested those billions via rate hikes the PUC granted to Verizon!! It was subsidized even though Verizon claims otherwise. And they didn't deliver.
I trust public company press releases that commit to concrete numbers: there is a cottage industry of plaintiffs' lawyers that bring securities class actions for material misstatements of financial information.
NY residents didn't invest anything in fiber. Verizon got rate hikes because it has been losing billions of dollars a year in NY. Nationwide, Verizon's wireline profit margin is in the low single digits--it's utterly ridiculous to say they're receiving a "subsidy" in the form of above-market monopoly prices.
As I mentioned in my original comment, New York already had fiber networks covering large parts of the city. Verizon was able to access these, which already "ran past" many buildings in the city (including mine), and still never bothered to hook up those buildings as they had already agreed to.
I can't speak to Baltimore, but in NYC, it's the landlord that's responsible for this, not the city.
> The economics of FiOS don't really work out without TV service
I can sort of buy that argument in areas where they have to do all the buildout themselves, but in New York, Verizon was handed the existing fiber network that already ran past people's doors. Then Verizon has the gall to claim that they've fulfilled their obligations of wiring the city because 'everyone has fiber running past their door', even where they did literally no work and simply sat on the fiber that others had already built for them.