First Coffee

The Associated Press is reporting that Verizon Communications Inc. is turning off the free wireless Internet access it beams from New York City telephone booths for DSL subscribers who use laptops away from home or the office.

The company revealed the decision on Wednesday as its Verizon Wireless unit announced plans to accelerate the deployment of a fee-based cellular Internet service in the New York area.

The free service, which will be phased out over the next two months, was provided by installing short-range Wi-Fi transmitters in hundreds of telephone booths starting in May 2003.

Back then, Wi-Fi was exploding in popularity and Verizon was trying to jump-start its DSL business in a bid to catch up with rival providers of high-speed broadband service, particularly cable TV companies.

This reporter’s been covering the Qwest-MCI-Verizon saga for months now.� It can get pretty complicated, but USA Today has printed an excellent Q&A on the basics:

For two months, Qwest has been in relentless pursuit of MCI, hoping to break up Verizon's own deal to acquire MCI.

MCI's board has declared Qwest's latest bid for MCI of $30 a share to be "superior" to Verizon's $23.10 bid. Verizon has until May 3 to raise its offer.

USA TODAY reporter Leslie Cauley explains the tug of war.

I’ve excerpted this e-mail on the Friday mailbags, here’s the whole thing. Readers like Mr. Davis are one of the upsides of this columnist gig, his perspective on the cost of doing business of unsolicited e-mails and faxes, not only in time and aggravation but the accompanying cost in quality of customer service, is provocative.

Hello David:

I really enjoyed your article...

I personally feel that this sort of issue is a difficult thing to deal with but would love to see the unsolicited FAX and call scenario go away.

I am a "small business owner" in Palm Springs, CA, and I find that both are real drains on resources for a small company. I must get 250 unsolicited FAXes a week; no way to determine how many unsolicited sales calls. I have always hated having to talk to an unattended answering system but in all honesty, it does eliminate much of the unsolicited calling.

While I would far rather have a live person answering my phones, I have given in and moved in that direction instead of having a pleasant, reasonably intelligent human being answer the phone just because of the quantity of unsolicited calls.

Floyd Norris of the New York Times offers his take on why, even at the lower price, Verizon is still the better option for MCI than Qwest, which is punching far above its weight class:

MAJOR institutional investors are up in arms over the way MCIhas conducted itself in finding a buyer. Its board so far has backed the lower bid from the company that can best afford it, Verizon, rather than the higher bid from Qwest, a company that is, to put it gently, financially challenged.

"The question is not whether Verizon is a larger, more financially sound company that possesses assets, such as wireless, that Qwest lacks," Bill Miller, the chief investment officer at Legg Mason, wrote in an angry letter to MCI. "It is and it does.

As Congress decides what it wants to do about the telecom industry, we here at Telecom and CRM Blog warn them not to protect obsolete industries out of short-term thinking.

James Carlini’s great article on the historical dangers of protecting obsolete industries gives a sobering lesson from history:

"Restricting options and closing down innovation in order to protect obsolete infrastructures and business models is as dangerous as demanding rickety bridges to be kept open because of their quaint reflection of the past.

"A better comparison (and one that really happened) is the last big infrastructure issue facing Chicago and St. Louis back in the late 1800s after the Civil War. See below: