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Customer Loss to Internet Continues to Hurt Phone Carriers

Verizon and Qwest reported yesterday that the defection of their residential phone customers to cheaper Internet-based services picked up speed in the second quarter. But they said that strong sales of wireless and broadband services, as well as cost-cutting efforts, offset some of the losses.

Verizon Communications, the nation’s No. 2 local phone carrier behind AT&T, earned $1.6 billion, or 55 cents a share, in the second quarter, a decline of 24 percent compared with $2.1 billion, or 75 cents a share, earned in the 2005 period. Revenue increased 26 percent, to $22.7 billion, partly because of revenue from MCI, which Verizon absorbed in January. If MCI’s revenue had been included in last year’s quarterly figures, the increase would have been 2.3 percent.

Qwest Communications International, the fourth-largest carrier, earned $117 million, or 6 cents a quarter, in contrast to a $164 million loss a year earlier. It was the company’s second consecutive profit. Revenue was unchanged at $3.47 billion.

It is not something that most of us question, but this article rises a question for me. Why is it that for the most part only the companies financial status is reported and how share holders are doing? How is the average worker at those companies doing? If there are pension plans, are they fully funded? How are worker wages doing in comparison to executive wages? Why does the top down pyramid business culture still exist in an age when quick market response and individual innovation are more important then penthouse corner offices?

Since we’re on the subject of phones, I drove up to a payphone the other day and as usual the past few years there was no phone in the little clam shell. Payphones have become a symbol of years gone by. Times change, hard to believe but at one time there was no internet, there was no MySpace, e-mail, or YouTube, History of Old-Time Radio   

There was a time, not so long ago, when there was no internet, no CD players, and no television.

There were books, newspapers, movies; and there was Radio. Radio at that time was not radio as we know it today. Radio today is mostly in the background, playing music, announcing time and weather, and occasionally providing a newscast. Radio between 1925 and 1955 was completely different.

These thirty years are considered by many to be the “Golden Age of Radio”. Before 1925, radio was considered to be a one-way “wireless telephone”, providing current news, information, and live musical entertainment. After 1955 radio began to change into something else. By 1960 “Old Time Radio” had disappeared completely.

I built a few tree-houses in my day. Well a wood floor and sides with holes for all natural air-conditioning anyway. Nothing that even approaches this,  Tree House Moves in Wind to Generate Electricity to Power Itself!