David Lazarus in the Los Angeles Times relays southern California consumer horror stories regularly in his twice-weekly column, but this week’s news that Verizon provides a 50% discount for past due balances owed by those who have passed away represents a whole new level in customer service failure.

It seems Betty Howard forgot to include disconnecting her Verizon Internet service as part of putting her affairs in order before passing away after a valiant battle against breast cancer.  Verizon ended up billing Howard’s survivors $110.80 for three months of broadband service she was unable to use… because she was dead.

Lazarus reports Verizon considered that an insufficient excuse to waive the charges:

This was the final insult for Howard’s daughter-in-law, Marilynn Loveless, who’d been battling with the phone giant for months over what she termed broken promises and questionable bills, not to mention an inability to grasp that its former customer was no longer among the living.

“I don’t like bullies,” Loveless told me. “That’s what this seemed to be. They bully you and bully you until they get what they want.”

Verizon cut Howard’s bill to $54.82 but then turned it over to a debt-collection firm. Loveless started getting calls from debt collectors trying to recover the cash from her dead mother-in-law.

As the collection calls started coming, Loveless reached out to Lazarus in hopes of giving the story enough exposure to get Verizon to pay attention.  Lazarus quickly uncovered the fact Howard was being double-billed for Internet service — once as part of a standalone account and a second time as part of a bundle Loveless herself pays for.  Neither account worked for even a single day.

No matter, Verizon would now only pony up a credit to reduce the bill to $42.75, even after understanding a reporter from the Times was witnessing this publicity train wreck in the making.

Shortly thereafter, Verizon finally relented and issued a full credit and a brief statement:

“Mistakes were made,” a Verizon spokesman said. “We apologize.”

Lazarus ponders whether Verizon will learn from any of this:

A good first step would be to empower its service reps — many of whom are overseas — to actually deal with specific issues, rather than follow scripts and hope a problem goes away.

Like I say, there’s a reason many consumers view big companies as heartless and unbending. It’s not because these businesses are misunderstood.

It’s because their actions speak for themselves.

Eugene Mirman, a Brooklyn comedian trying to relocate his cable service, had the last laugh at Time Warner Cable’s expense when the cable company failed to show for his scheduled appointments (twice).  It turns out Time Warner technicians like to call customers before arriving — a problem for Mirman because he never received the call.  As Time Warner employees debated amongst themselves over whether his appointment was scheduled for May 4th or 12th, they evidently tried to resolve the issue with a compromise, showing up May 6th to finally install his service.

Not content with any of this, Mirman spent $1,100 to take out full page ads in two weekly New York-area newspapers to register his displeasure:

Dear Time Warner Cable,

On April 23rd I moved and had an appointment with Time Warner Cable to come and install cable, Internet and phone service and no one showed up. When I called, I was told my appointment was entered wrong and moved to May 4th, without anyone calling me. No big deal, why would a company check with someone to see if they are home on a Wednesday afternoon? Of course they are. Everyone is. Name one person who isn’t home on a Wednesday afternoon? You can’t. It’s impossible, because everyone is home. It would be a waste of recourses to call and talk to him. Did Stalin ever call people before he arrested them and sent them to die in Siberian work camps? No! Why should Time Warner Cable have a policy that is any different from Stalin’s?

Did you know that on Yelp, Time Warner Cable has one and a half stars? That’s less stars than Jeffery Dahmer — who killed and ate people, maybe even had sex with their skulls (I don’t really know). Obviously what I’m saying is untrue, because Yelp does not review serial killers, but if they did, his babaganoush would be better than yours, if you both made babaganoush, even if his drugged and murdered people. Sorry that got weird. F**k you. I just made you read that confusing thing.

To give you an idea of how much I dislike your company, I have come up with plagues I hope God smites your board of directors with. I know He’ll only do this if you enslave the Jews, but considering you might have a monopoly in NYC, you sort of already have:

1. Awkward. Every board member’s cell phone ring loudly announces their weight and also the day they’ll die.
2. Bathroom. The constant feeling that you have to go number two, but completely forgetting how.
3. Improv. Your first-born will want to be a short form improviser.
4. Popcorn. Your second born will smell like hot buttered popcorn. It’s not that bad at first, but eventually I bet it will be maddening.

Sincerely,

Eugene Mirman and probably every one of your customers.

P.S. On May 4th I called you and got an automated message saying my appointment was moved to May 10th, but spoke to two representatives who assured me it was still on May 4th. Twenty minutes later, I got a call saying the technician called and couldn’t reach me and my new appointment would be on May 12th. An hour later I got a call apologizing and saying my appointment was moved to May 6th. Why does your company act like a controlling, abusive husband on an episode of Law and Order?

P.P.S. On May 6th a very nice, professional man came, rang my doorbell and installed everything. I would feel remiss to not mention that a handful of other employees were also very helpful. However, overall your company is run like an ill managed Soviet factory. I bet if Ayn Rand was still alive, she’d write a fun to read, but poorly argued book about how appalling and inefficient your company is. Please cut it out. Thank you.

On this Memorial Day, we thought it might be a good time to look back to years past when legislators were forced to deal with a deregulated cable industry that immediately went on a rate hike spree that was unprecedented even for oil companies.

In 1984, cable television companies won the right of complete rate deregulation, arguing government involvement in the cable business was retarding investment, harming innovation, and killing jobs.  By keeping the cable industry free of government regulation, the industry promised improved service, more innovation, and even the potential for more competition.  The importance of this drive to deregulation was underlined with a flood of campaign contributions from some of the biggest players in the industry.

In the mid-1980s, that lineup included the National Cable Television Association (NCTA), the cable industry lobbying group led by James Mooney.  Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI)’s John Malone — dubbed Darth Vadar of a Cable Cosa Nostra by then Sen. Albert Gore, Jr., and an assortment of cable industry executives from companies like Warner-Amex, Sammons Cable, Cablevision, and a variety of other operators large and small.

TCI would later become AT&T Cable and then eventually evolve into today’s Comcast.  Warner-Amex is today Time Warner Cable.  Sammons joined dozens of other medium-sized multiple cable system operators in selling out to larger players — in this case TCI.  Cablevision sold off most of its systems outside of the metropolitan New York City region to companies like Time Warner Cable.

After winning near-complete deregulation, Americans saw the start of a relentless series of rate increases Tony Soprano would not have attempted.  Called “price adjustments” or a benign “pricing reset” by cable lobbyists, what used to be an average rate for basic cable amounting to just over $11 per month rapidly increased to $16, $19, $25, $29, $35, $45, $50, $55, and now today’s frequently seen $60 threshold for a basic cable package.

What used to be an exciting new product in the late 1970s and early 1980s was now rapidly becoming a highly consolidated handful of corporate empires that promised to be money machines for shareholders.  At one point, adding up the number of corporate entities that were parented under TCI, including local and regional cable systems, programming distributors, cable networks, and other entities generated a printout more than six feet in length.

The mid-to-late 1980s were the cable industry’s glory years, with unfettered rate increases sometimes resulting in more than doubling customer bills.  Members of Congress got an earful from irate consumers who noticed even with the higher prices, the quality of service received deteriorated markedly.  Many cable systems simply left an answering machine on their service and support line.  Others left local cable offices locked and closed for business.

There were many reasons for the deterioration:

• Investors saw the best possible returns buying and selling existing cable systems, not investing -in- them;
• Some cable systems changed hands 3-4 times in just a few years, leading to staffing shortages, billing chaos, and confusion;
• Some small operators saw no need to invest in aging cable systems when their value was skyrocketing during the consolidation era.  They waited for a buyout offer and cashed out of the business;
• There was no enforcement agency capable of stopping the abusive business practices;
• There was almost no competition.

Competition in the cable industry was a rarity in the 1980s, but a handful of communities did have more than one cable operator, with lower rates and better service the result.  But pressure from investors forced most of these competitive anomalies to either divide into respective monopoly service territories, or forced one company to sell their business to the other.  Competition and rate wars were bad for business.

The satellite dish industry was the only national competitor to cable television at this time.  Before DirecTV and DISH, rural and suburban homeowners erected often enormous backyard satellite dishes of up to 12 feet in diameter.  Capable of receiving hundreds of channels with better picture quality, home satellite offered an experience somewhat familiar to those with large rooftop antennas.  Rotate the dish slightly and enjoy two dozen or more channels on each respective satellite.  More than three million Americans eventually installed satellite dishes, even with the entry cost of installation and assembly, which could run several thousand dollars.  For rural Americans, it often meant the difference between some television and none at all.

Never tolerant of competition, the satellite industry came under a withering attack on all fronts:

• Cable programming was scrambled and either unavailable to satellite dishowners at any price, or sold at prices similar to what cable subscribers would pay, even though home dishowners owned and maintained their own equipment;
• Most cable networks at that time were either owned outright or tacitly subject to cable industry pressure not to sell programming at steep discounts;
• Premium cable channels often sold programming to satellite dishowners at prices higher than those paid by cable subscribers;
• Home dishowners were required to purchase their own decoder box outright, at a cost exceeding $300 — an enormous price at a time when most people paid less than $20 a month for basic cable service;
• Cable companies encouraged or defended town zoning laws which required would-be dishowners to purchase expensive permits, hide their dishes from view (and sometimes viewable signals in the process), or ban their use outright;
• In the case of networks owned by TCI, consumers with satellite dishes often had to buy the programming from their nearest TCI cable system and be billed by them.  So much for avoiding the cable company.

The worst abuses, and corresponding distortions from the cable industry, occurred from 1987-1992.  More than a dozen pieces of legislation attempted to correct the over-deregulation of the industry, but campaign contributions to both parties meant years of failed attempts.  Some of the worst anti-consumer officials included Sen. Tim Wirth (D-Colorado) who happened to represent the state where the vast majority of large cable companies were headquartered at that time, Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), who read industry talking points and was skeptical about stories of cable abuse, and Sens. Bob Packwood (R-Washington) and Bob Dole (R-Kansas) who didn’t like government regulation and thought the abuses would be self-correcting if consumers cancelled service.

Many of the heroes of the cable fight of the last generation remain familiar names.  Sen. Albert Gore, Jr. (D-Tennessee) was perhaps the industry’s greatest foe.  He began the fight as a congressman in the mid-1980s and carried the battle all the way through 1993, when he became vice president under the Clinton Administration.  Other notables included Sen. Wendell Ford (D-Kentucky), who is a far cry from today’s two senators in Kentucky.  Ford heard complaints about Kentucky cable companies almost daily.  Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), who wasted no time calling the cable industry an outrageous unregulated monopoly. Sen. John Danforth (R-Missouri) railed against the cable industry and was instrumental in helping pass legislation in 1992 that finally ended the worst abuses.

What the cable industry promoted and defended in 1987 for cable television will haunt you when you consider they are appealing for the same types of “hands-off” policies for broadband today.  Only now they are joined by the nation’s largest phone companies.  In the early 1990s, the telephone companies were threatening to compete with the cable industry and the two were considered foes.  But once an industry player becomes well-established, they defend their right to raise rates, restrict service, and retard any additional competition.

To give you a taste of what the abuses were like, and the industry’s efforts to excuse them, we present coverage of a Senate hearing held in November, 1989 pitting cable industry titans against would-be competitors and government officials from towns and cities trying to deal with a cable “bad actor” in their midst.  Some of the most interesting parallels come in the very last video as you watch Chuck Dawson, representing consumers and independent satellite dealers, detailing the schemes by the cable industry to kill off any threats.  Pay particular attention as he discusses the lies the industry will tell to predict the imminent failure of its then-newest competitor — the home satellite dish industry.  It’s a game plan they’ve used again fighting off community broadband.

The New York Times today published an editorial blasting Verizon’s lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission for requiring the wireless carrier to offer data roaming on commercially reasonable terms:

With text messages, e-mail and other forms of data overtaking voice as the main form of wireless communication, the rule issued in April will preserve competition in a vital communications network.

There are more than 100 wireless providers around the country, mostly tiny carriers with a network limited to a small area. They depend on roaming agreements to stitch together a bigger footprint, which is essential to compete successfully. If Verizon were to prevail — AT&T has, so far, not joined the lawsuit but has criticized the rule — the two dominant players could refuse to deal.

In fact, there is evidence Verizon and AT&T have spent years foot-dragging their way to roaming agreements for data, an increasingly vital service for the handful of independent cellular service providers, almost all operating with limited local service areas.  Although roaming agreements cover voice phone calls, such agreements for data roaming have traditionally been much rarer.  When the FCC threatened to regulate, the pressure was on and both AT&T and Verizon quickly reached agreements with many carriers, some of whom complained about outrageous roaming prices up to $1 per megabyte.

The Times argues that with wireless marketplace concentration accelerating with the impending merger of T-Mobile and AT&T, fair data roaming rules are essential.

 

New Zealand’s forthcoming transformation to fiber-based telecommunications infrastructure has some important lessons to teach those interested in improving broadband in North America.

While Ottawa and Washington depend on the private sector to deliver 21st century broadband, other countries are recognizing private providers alone may not be able to deliver the essential networks of the 21st century, especially in smaller communities and rural areas still bypassed by even 20th century broadband.  For Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and beyond — government and the private sector are working together to deliver advanced fiber-optic-based networks that will likely power broadband for at least the next decade or more.  More importantly, they are doing so on terms that best serve the interests of the public, not just a handful of shareholders and investment bankers.

Priority number one is getting advanced networks built.  Marketplace realities, particularly in North America, constrain private companies from taking risks on fiber networks that will take more than a few years to realize a healthy return on investment.  Without that essentially-guaranteed payback, many providers refuse to think in terms of “revolutionary” broadband, relying on incremental “evolutionary” upgrades instead.  That formula has also allowed many providers to ignore rural America, deemed too costly to wire.

In a country like New Zealand, these rules also apply, but in spades.  Not only do Kiwis face a broadband experience that resembles service offered in the U.S. a decade ago, they are also punished by a lack of international capacity.  With just one international provider delivering nearly all of New Zealand’s connectivity with the United States and beyond, prices are high and data caps are low.

Domestically, many Kiwis have traditionally had just one realistic choice for broadband service — Telecom New Zealand’s DSL technology.  Although competitors have been allowed to resell DSL service over Telecom’s network, the limitations of the technology remain a constant problem for every provider on that network.

New Zealand has decided the best way to handle these challenges is to transform the telecommunications foundation across the country, starting with a new public-private fiber broadband network.  NZ’s National Broadband Plan, dubbed “Ultra Fast Broadband,” establishes as its foundation the principle that broadband is too important to allow the country to languish waiting for private providers to step up.

Rosalie Nelson from IDC – the independent market intelligence advisory service, explores the pro’s and con’s of a nationwide fiber network for New Zealand.  But it’s a lesson not just applicable to broadband in the South Pacific.  Stop the Cap! is sharing this video seminar with our own Viewer’s Guide to help draw parallels to broadband closer to home. As an added bonus, you will come to understand different broadband technologies we regularly discuss.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/IDC Ultra Fast Broadband.flv[/flv]

IDC analyzes New Zealand’s new Ultra Fast Broadband — National Fiber Network in this seminar with Rosalie Nelson.  It’s definitely a long view, but you will gain enormous insight into the challenges of delivering the next generation of broadband, not only in New Zealand, but in other countries around the world.  (39 minutes)

Stop the Cap! Viewer’s Guide

To help draw comparisons with broadband in the South Pacific with that in the United States and Canada, we bring you this viewer’s guide to follow as you watch.

Part One

In part one, Nelson explores the recent history of telecommunications in New Zealand, particularly focused on Telecom New Zealand, created from the former state monopoly for landlines and data circuits.  Although the company began to open its network to competitors several years ago, the biggest transformation came in the last few years.  New Zealand experienced its own version of the Bell System breakup, only this time that transformation came from the New Zealand government, not the courts.

When complete, what was once a single company became three — one for wholesale access, namely by independent competitors reselling service over Telecom lines, retail — the public face of the company that continues to market service under the Telecom brand to consumers and businesses, and Chorus, the entity that maintains Telecom’s infrastructure.

In North America, the equivalent would be the breakup of AT&T or Bell, with competitors allowed to lease access to their respective networks at prices and terms that could not favor either parent company.

While the debate rages over whether broadband expansion came as a result of Telecom’s breakup, or in spite of it, one thing everyone agrees on: New Zealand is one of the fastest growing broadband markets in the OECD, with a growth rate of nearly 35 percent every two years.

New Zealand’s telecom market is perhaps five or more years behind the United States and Canada.  The rapid erosion of landlines for mobile or Voice Over IP service is only just starting in New Zealand.  Telecom, like many phone companies in North America, still depends on the enormous pool of revenue landline service provides.  Even as landlines decline domestically, phone companies like AT&T, Bell, Telus, Verizon, Frontier, and CenturyLink still treat this revenue as the critical foundation on which other products and services can be offered.  It will be years before this base revenue erodes to the point of irrelevance.

Telecom is also highly involved in the mobile market.  Just as in North America, when we talk about industry investment in  networks, wireless is usually the largest recipient, sometimes at the expense of the landline network.

IDC, which is independently analyzing New Zealand’s forthcoming transformation to a fiber-based network, is excited about the transformational aspects of such a network, and recognizes public investment may be the only way to execute its rollout in a world where short term results and recouped investment can make all the difference between a green light and a red one among private providers.

Part Two (begins at 7:30)

In the second part of the video, Nelson succinctly explains some of the different technologies we talk about regularly on Stop the Cap!

For instance, most telephone and cable companies both use fiber cables for at least part of their network.  Telephone companies like Frontier use fiber between their headquarters, local exchanges (a/k/a central offices), and occasionally even to remote exchanges, used to reduce the amount of copper wire between your home or office and their exchange.  Many phone companies, including AT&T, use what Nelson calls “cabinets” to contain the interface between fiber and copper networks.

These are often dubbed lawn refrigerators — big four foot metal boxes installed on top of a concrete slab or attached to the side of a telephone pole.  On one end, fiber optic cable from the central office arrives.  On the other, individual copper wire lines exit, connecting to every customer up and down the street throughout the neighborhood.  With additional fiber, phone companies selling DSL Internet access can increase speeds and offer service where it was not available before.  AT&T can use a more advanced form of DSL as a platform for its U-verse service.  Bell’s Fibe service in Canada is another example of this technology in use.  CenturyLink is also deploying it for some of their service areas.

Cable companies use fiber to deliver their signals out to individual towns and parts of cities.  From there, coaxial cable travels to homes and offices, on which we receive television, telephone, and broadband service.  In large parts of Asia and Europe, cable television is much less common than it is in North America, so it’s a technology more unique to North America than to Europe or the Pacific.

Nelson also reminds us fiber is increasingly important for cell phone companies too, which use the technology to support the increasing amount of traffic that passes through cell towers.  Fiber can help keep mobile broadband speeds at a reasonable level during peak usage periods.  Where fiber isn’t available, the maximum amount of data that can travel between the cell tower back to the cell phone company’s data center can be significantly lower.

Nelson’s larger point is that there is a very real cost-benefit analysis to explore when considering whether the next generation broadband network should be 100% fiber-based, such as Verizon’s FiOS network, or a combination of fiber and more economical, already installed copper wire, such as AT&T’s U-verse.  The initial expense of providing 100% fiber, direct to the home, is greater than repurposing part of our existing landline network.  But with current technology, fiber can deliver a faster and more reliable level of service, and is future-proof.  It also requires less maintenance once installed.

Part Three (begins at 16:20)

In the third part of the video, Nelson explores the political landscape in New Zealand, and with some minor differences here and there, the gap between the telecommunications market in Canada and New Zealand is not too different.

While the United States broke up the Bell System in the mid-1980s, Canada still relies heavily on behemoth Bell/BCE to deliver broadband access throughout the Atlantic provinces, Quebec, and Ontario.  SaskTel and Telus deliver service to central and western Canada.  Cable companies, primarily owned by Rogers, Shaw, and Videotron deliver service in major Canadian cities and nearby suburbs.

In New Zealand, Telecom was the former state-controlled monopoly telephone company.  In recent years, that monopoly has been broken up, but broadband still relies heavily on Telecom’s landline network to deliver Internet access, primarily by DSL.  In the past, Telecom was -the- Internet Service Provider.  But now the company must sell access to their last mile network to all-comers at a regulated wholesale access rate.  Canadians will recognize this kind of wholesale access policy — Bell has one for independent service providers to this day.

In the United States, things are a bit different.  While there are instances of competitors providing DSL through landlines owned by familiar phone companies like AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink, Frontier, and Windstream, very few customers know about them.  Instead, cable television is the more familiar competitor, and the two players regularly beat each other up in marketing campaigns.  If you ask an ordinary American consumer what companies sell broadband service, they will typically answer with the name of the telephone company and the cable company, if one serves their area.  They are unlikely to answer Earthlink, which sells service over some telephone company and cable lines.

Some of Nelson’s anaysis about the changes in policy relating to the Ultra Fast Broadband network are no longer in effect with last week’s decision to abandon the “regulatory holiday” concept.  The government’s original fiber network proposal has been modified repeatedly to fit into the business realities of the New Zealand ISP market.  Some examples include recognizing the value and importance of the existing copper wire network, which will remain relevant in some rural areas not scheduled for wireless or fiber access — and will of course also be in operation as the fiber network is built.  The government is also trying to promote private investment, and under pressure from large telecom companies, the government in power is looking for ways to assure investors of a return on their investment.  Critics have charged the government leaned too far towards providers in effectively handing them at least eight years of monopoly service under a “regulatory holiday,” without oversight by the all-important Commerce Commission.  A revised proposal seeks to guarantee investors a certain level of return, even if prices drop in the future, but retains regulatory oversight.

This policy is unique to New Zealand, and has not been tried in North America.  Canada’s national broadband plan is long overdue and the one in the United States relies on some government stimulus money to incrementally expand broadband in unprofitable rural areas, but relies mostly on private providers for the bulk of the expansion.  The Federal Communications Commission is exploring revamping its rural subsidy currently charged to every telephone line in the United States with the hope of diverting money to broadband development in rural areas.  Private providers are expected to upgrade their networks through private investment for most of the rest.

New Zealand is proposing a totally new way of delivering broadband service with the establishment of an independent company responsible for the fiber network — a company not affiliated with any Internet Service Provider.  That would make Telecom New Zealand no more or less important than any independent provider.  Each ISP will succeed or fail based on price and value-added services, because the basic network experience is likely to be the same regardless of the provider selected.  Some may deliver speed boosting features or sell content to customers.  Others may deliver cheaper, slower speed plans for budget-minded customers.  Some might even bundle free tablets or computers in return for fixed-length contracts.

But Nelson explains there is a risk.  Once a fiber network is in place, it effectively becomes a utility, and it may or may not be able to earn sufficient revenue to embark on innovative new technologies that venture capital might otherwise afford.  Because of market dynamics, for the same reason very few North Americans cities have more than one cable and one phone company, investors are unlikely to pour money into a competing technology if a fiber network is dominant.

For a legacy phone company like Telecom, past regulatory requirements are also under review at the request of the telephone company.  Telecom argues if a national fiber network is to be established, Telecom should be freed of its regulated responsibility to continue investing in its copper network, and the facilities used to support it.

This is similar to arguments AT&T and other phone companies have been making in their efforts to secure deregulation at the state level, for but different reasons.  AT&T, as an example, argues that their aging copper wire network and its upkeep is a responsibility it agreed to in a different era, when landline service was ubiquitous and virtually everyone had a traditional phone line.  Phone companies argue that as landline disconnections accelerate, the regulatory responsibilities assigned to it are no longer fair, and requires the company to continue investing capital in a network fewer and fewer customers are using.  They argue investments would be more appropriately spent building next generation broadband and wireless networks.

AT&T might have a point, except for the collateral damage impacting rural customers, which AT&T may decide to abandon for the same reasons the company uses when it won’t provide broadband in rural areas — return on investment considerations.  Those investments AT&T seeks to make would disproportionately benefit urban customers, at the expense of rural ones.

Part Four (begins at 29:15)

In the fourth part, Nelson explores the impact of the fiber project on Telecom, which is considering restructuring itself to compete under the new broadband model.

Nelson argues the company’s revenues are expected to be flat in the near future and predicts Telecom will be forced to begin a cost-cutting program, simplify its business, and target growth areas.  Nelson ignores the most common strategies providers have used in this arena, however.  In addition to job cuts, the other common way to increase revenue is to raise prices. Chorus, which administers Telecom’s broadband network, is the only real money maker inside Telecom these days, and that comes from broadband demand.

Nelson, like investors, opposes anything resembling a price war in New Zealand, one that could come as copper-based DSL providers slash prices to remain competitive with service on the much faster (but likely more expensive) fiber network.  She sees such competition as a “war of attrition” where shareholder value is lost, along with incentives for further private investment.

Nelson’s final question ponders whether Telecom, still a dominant player in the New Zealand market, has the ability to change and adapt fast enough to the country’s fiber network.

Conversely, we wonder if Telecom will attempt to throw up roadblocks in an effort to curtail the new network as a defense strategy against those required changes to its business model.

We also wonder how much return on investment will be sufficient for investors.  For some, anything short of “the sky is the limit” may fuel investment of a different kind — into special interest campaigns and lobbying to ensure there is no limit on the money they can earn from a network that could have a monopoly position in the marketplace.