{"id":178383,"date":"2018-12-16T20:19:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-17T01:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2018\/12\/16\/f-the-phone-company\/"},"modified":"2018-12-16T20:19:00","modified_gmt":"2018-12-17T01:19:00","slug":"f-the-phone-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2018\/12\/16\/f-the-phone-company\/","title":{"rendered":"F%$# the Phone Company"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After billions in subsidies, <a href=\"https:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/pa5x4z\/verizon-trims-10000-employees-despite-billions-in-tax-cuts-and-government-favors\">Verizon is engaging in massive layoffs, and studiously avoiding building up its fiber<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p> <span style=\"color: blue;\">Verizon this week announced it would be trimming its workforce by  more than 10,000 employees\u2014despite repeatedly claiming the bevy of tax  breaks and regulatory favors it has received in recent years would boost  job creation and network investment.<\/p>\n<p> According to a Verizon <a href=\"https:\/\/www.verizon.com\/about\/news\/verizon-announces-results-voluntary-separation-offer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">blog post<\/a>,  the company will be eliminating roughly 10,400 workers, or around 7  percent of its workforce, as part of what the telecom giant is calling a  \u201cvoluntary separation program.\u201d Under said program, Verizon says  volunteers will receive \u201cup to\u201d 60 weeks\u2019 salary, bonus and benefits  \u201cdepending on length of service.\u201d <\/p>\n<p> Verizon insists the staff reductions are necessary to \u201coptimize growth opportunities\u201d related to next-gen <a href=\"https:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/59j7v8\/the-race-to-5g-is-just-mindless-marketing-bullshit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">5G wireless<\/a>, and to \u201cbetter serve customers with more agility, speed and flexibility.\u201d<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"> But the workforce reduction comes after repeated claims by the telecom  giant that a rotating crop of regulatory favors and handouts\u2014from last  year\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/qvz3vd\/the-fcc-just-killed-net-neutralitynow-what\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">attack on net neutrality<\/a> to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/vbp45a\/the-trump-tax-cut-isnt-trickling-down-to-workers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Trump tax cut<\/a>\u2014would buoy both job creation and broadband investment, neither of which has actually happened. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The slowest and most expensive broadband in the developed world.<\/p>\n<p>The solution is publicly owned and operated broadband.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After billions in subsidies, Verizon is engaging in massive layoffs, and studiously avoiding building up its fiber: Verizon this week announced it would be trimming its workforce by more than 10,000 employees\u2014despite repeatedly claiming the bevy of tax breaks and regulatory favors it has received in recent years would boost job creation and network investment. &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[365,470,364,367,437],"class_list":["post-178383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-business","tag-communications","tag-evil","tag-internet","tag-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178383"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}