Prepare to Hang Up the Phone, Forever

[unhappycamper]

5. After working 21 years for

Last edited Sun Mar 30, 2014, 09:08 AM - Edit history (1)

New England Telephone / NYNEX / Bell Atlantic / Bell Atlantic / Verizon, I've watched the telephone industry experience wrenching changes since 1984 (Judge Harold Green).

A little background: The Justice Department needed to breakup a monopoly and the two candidates were IBM and the phone company. At the time we were in the Cold War and needed computers so the other guys took one for the team.

Verizon's first downsizing occurred in 1990 - I remember the redundants wearing Mary Alice masks walking out of the buidling. (Mary Alice was a news person who was dating the Vz Chairman at the time.) Downsizings became a regular event at Verizon; sometimes two or three times a year.

I found "the crumbling POTS" comment interesting. Did you know that it costs telephone companies $0.008 a minute to provide a long distance connection anywhere in the continental United States?

And the last time I looked, your POTS telephone bill still has a small charge for the Spanish-American war.

THE REASON THEY WANT TO DUMP POTS? UNIONS.