Criticism of Verizon FIOS deployment in New York City, my thoughts.

There's been a lot of criticism of FIOS in Austin as they have not fulfilled their obligations to wire the entire city.

The only way to get a franchise agreement, was to agree to wire just about all of the city. They certainly knew this was impossible, but what many pundits do not understand is that MANY MANY BUILDING OWNERS make it IMPOSSIBLE to wire their buildings!

I discussed this briefly at dslreports.com, and thought it was worth reposting here.

I am not a Verizon cheerleader. At the same time, some people just like to complain about big corporations for the sake of complaining about big corporations, and I'm not a fan of that either.

Right or wrong, many landlords simply can't understand why they can't just get existing services repaired. Others don't want the added disruption of gutting and installing new fiber hardware.

MEANS

We don't feel like leaving our homes if we do not have to. We do not wish to lift a finger for our buildings if we don't have to, and hell, if a building were on fire and I had a full bladdar - I wouldn't even pass by to piss on it, and you expect me to drive over to my property to unlock the door to INSTALL FASTER INTERNET? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Austin landlords are the scum of the earth, and I do not expect people like Karl to understand this unless you have had the experience of dealing with at least one dozen of them over a long time period, from commercial to residential.

Unless you are dealing with a large development, they do not care. Austin landlords know that they do not have to do JACK SHIT to create demand for their properties. Every day, hundreds upon thousands of people move to this already overcrowded shithole MORE THAN HAPPY to pay $2200/mo for a 400 sq ft studio apartment in a dilapidated, unmaintained building with nothing but 3 mbps DSL.

So, why should the landlord care? Why should they get off their ass to do ANY WORK when they are used to raking in money without having to care?

Austin is littered with buildings that only house 4-12 units. These are NOT owned nor managed by people who care about anything. They want to

a) receive a check at the end of the month
b) do the BARE MINIMUM REQUIRED to ensure the space is habitable to a 19th century factory worker's standard of living.

I lived in a low income high rise in Staten Island. Apartments were $800something/month, which is dirt cheap for a decent apartment in Austin that's 1 bedroom. I had FIOS.

Bigger developments play nice with telecoms. Verizon doesn't feel like chasing down apathetic slumlords of 3-4 unit buildings any more than the three-letter system they have in place, and I don't blame them.