The Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, two unions representing employees at Verizon and Frontier, are skeptical about the benefits of Frontier acquiring telephone lines from Verizon.

In a joint statement, the two unions suggest the debt load from the deal will mean less money for broadband service deployment, not more.

The sale would move 4.8 million lines serving residential and business customers in 14 states to Frontier. The deal calls for Frontier to take on $3.3 billion in debt; Verizon gets that amount in debt relief. That leaves Frontier saddled with debt that will lessen the potential amount available for investment in high speed broadband deployment.

Similar tax-free transactions by Verizon, especially those involving the Reverse Morris Trust tax provisions, haven’t worked out so well, especially for consumers in New England now served by FairPoint Communications.

Traditionally, data plans from wireless phone providers, whether they call them “unlimited” or not, usually carry a fine print “5GB monthly usage limit” somewhere in the terms and conditions.  Some providers do nothing if you happen to exceed it, others will threaten to terminate your service, or charge you overlimit fees that quietly accumulate until the phone bill arrives in the mail.  Wireless data providers limit consumption primarily because they don’t have the capacity to provide you with limitless access, at least not yet.  But the paltry limits most providers set, with nasty overlimit fees for exceeding them, aren’t justified either.  Most providers do everything but come out and admit you are only supposed to use their services for web browsing and e-mail reading, so control yourself.

Verizon Wireless has a complication, however.  In the coming week, they are expected to unveil an HP 115NR Netbook with built-in wireless broadband capability designed to work on Verizon’s network.  The Netbook will cost $199 after mail-in rebate, and your commitment to a two year service contract with a data plan priced $40-60 a month.

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