Government AND private industry can be inefficient and bureaucratic

As a California State University professor, I see a lot of waste and bureaucracy -- government organizations can be very inefficient. But so can private companies. Consider my experience with my ISP, Verizon.

Last week I ordered 7 Mbps service from Verizon, but, after they switched it on, I was only getting about 1.5 Mbps. I assume there were tons of re-transmission errors due to an overly aggressive modulation scheme.

When I called to complain, a Verizon "technician" kept me on the phone trying one thing and another for nearly an hour before he gave up and got his bosses permission to schedule a "truck roll" to come to my house and fix the problem.

The minute the driver arrived, he told me that, at 9,000 feet from my central office, there was no way I was going to get 7 Mbps. He checked the line, and concluded that I could reliably run at 4.2 Mbps, but, unfortunately, Verizon only offers 3 and 7, so I could only get 3 Mbps.

They could have easily told me at the time of the order that 7 Mbps was not available at my house, saving an expensive truck roll. The technician who scheduled the truck roll when I called customer service to complain could have done the same.

The driver told me he does about five calls per day and three are typically fruitless. He added that he was happy with the system because it gave him job security. What a guy.

When he left, I had to make yet another 30-minutes-on-hold call to Verizon to change my order to 3 Mbps. The driver could not change the order automatically.

Verizon information is walled off in "silos." The truck driver can determine the distance of my house from my central office, but cannot change my service order. The ordering system can sign me up for a service, but cannot determine my distance to the central office to see if it is feasible. The customer support technician cannot do anything except, eventually, order a truck roll.

In chatting with the driver, he also confirmed the Internet rumors and leaked memos saying that Verizon was not installing new FIOS fiber, but focusing on increasing the take rate on what they have installed already. So much for me getting fiber from them any time soon.

(I wonder how much Verizon has extracted from the California Public Utilities Commission in return for "promises" to install fiber. For more on Verizon's broken promises, see this book by Bruce Kushnick.)

What has been your experience with customer service from your phone company or ISP?

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Addendum:

I continued limping along with 3 Mbps service, hoping for FIOS, when my bandwidth dropped to just over 1 Mbps. When I called to complain, I was told that I was so far from the central office that I could not get 3 Mbps service, so my rate was lowered. I explained that it was working fine at close to 3 Mbps, but that did not sway them.

I gave up on FIOS and switched to Time Warner cable. FIOS is still not available in my neighborhood.

Fiber is the future

In the long run, most of us will have fiber to our homes and other fixed locations. The cost of installing fiber is generally estimated at about $1,000 per home or building. You can see why it is so costly in this description of a Verizon fiber installation. (Incidentally, it is at the home of spreadsheet co-inventor Dan Bricklin).

While retrofitting old construction is expensive, the cost of installing fiber in a new housing tract or other new construction is relatively low and the maintenance cost is less than that for copper infrastructure.

The OECD reports that, as of June 2006, over 37% of broadband connections in the Czech Republic used fiber, 26% used fiber in Japan and 7% in the United States. (Of course the US and Japan have many more broadband connections than the Czech Republic). Many feel the deployment of communication infrastructure will impact the quality of life and economy in a nation.

While installing fiber is a daunting task in the United States, critics argue that the telephone and cable companies are slowing progress in order to maximize profit and minimize investment. Critics like Bruce Kushnick argue that US phone companies have already been given over $200 billion ($2,000 per household) in rate increases and tax breaks in return for commitments to install fiber which they reneged on. Kushnick recently stated his case in a PBS documentary on The Net at Risk.

We paid $200 billion for broadband connectivity -- where is it? (Make that $400 billion).

Bruce Kushnick just published The $200 Billion Broadband Scandal in which he shows that in return for promising to install fiber for high-speed connectivity to US homes, the Bell companies received $200 billion in higher phone rates and tax perks -- about $2,000 per household. The promise was not kept. Today we are the 19th ranked nation in household broadband connectivity rate, just ahead of Slovenia.

In the latest (2009) edition of his book, Kushnick has upped the title to "$300 billion".

The total is now up to $400 billion -- see Kushnick's latest The Book of Broken Promises.