Jack (Decker),
Thanks for continuing with the newsgroup. I want to add a tidbit that Verizon announced last Friday, but that seems to have been lost in the shuffle of merger speculation. Verizon reportedly plans to unbundled DSL for over 80% of their customers, potentially this year. That would allow Verizon customers to replace their POTS lines with DSL and VoIP if they want.
"Verizon expects "that in the not-too-distant future that you will be able to get Verizon DSL without getting Verizon phone service," said Tom Tauke, Verizon executive vice president for public affairs and communications. "It's a technological issue, it's not a marketing issue." "From a very practical perspective, we would like to be able to offer the DSL service on a stand-alone basis and the effort is being made to bring that about as rapidly as possible," he said.
"Verizon spokesman Eric Rabe said so-called "naked DSL" could be offered potentially later this year but noted that subscribers to its service via fiber-optic lines, FiOS, could get stand-alone broadband now. Almost 1 million homes are now served by Verizon's fiber network but the company has targeted reaching 3 million homes by the end of the year. Roughly 80 percent of Verizon's 53 million traditional lines are capable of offering DSL."
Bob
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It would be very interesting if SBC decided to go the same way: DSL with no phone service requirements, but it is very unlikely; they just can't get their act together to accomplish that. PAT]