Stampede From Copper Phone Lines

Recently, the overwhelming customer service response I received from Verizon practically forced me to dump my phone company, and replace them with the local cable company, Optimum. While trading one giant provider for another is hardly that different, at least they were nicer, and communicated better. Apparently I'm not the only customer that "cut the copper:"

With features like unlimited domestic phone calls, cable companies have continued to take business away from rivals such as Verizon Communications Inc., which lost 3 million residential lines for traditional phone service in the first quarter, with total home lines down 11 percent from 2007. Verizon added 263,000 net new FiOS TV and 262,000 FiOS Internet subscribers.

Sure, they get a higher monthly fee from the Fios customers, but they lost ten times as many copper phone line customers. I'm sure my copper phone line account was quite profitable for Verizon as with cell phones, they get used less and less. It doesn't make any business sense to me to lose customers ten times faster than they can find new ones, and this while they're deploying Fios faster than they can run the cables.

While Verizon may have the better product from a technical standpoint, at the rate they're going, it's not going to matter. In the meantime, Optimum Voice, with all the features they throw in was a significant upgrade from my New York Telephone/ Nynex Verizon phone service that hadn't changed in the last three decades. Verizon is facing an uphill battle with their user base eroding, but they just haven't figured it out yet.

Jonas

NudgeCast 2/4/08

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Talk on the Microsoft/Yahoo deal. A thought on alternative digitalTV's. Fios vs. cable. Incredibly useful site: Lifehacker.