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Roaming data use makes customers unprofitable, so Verizon will cut them off.
Verizon is disconnecting another 8,500 rural customers from its wireless network, saying that roaming charges have made certain customer accounts unprofitable for the carrier.
The 8,500 customers have 19,000 lines and live in 13 states (Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wisconsin), a Verizon Wireless spokesperson told Ars today. They received notices of disconnection this month and will lose access to Verizon service on October 17.
"These customers live outside of areas where Verizon operates our own network," Verizon said. "Many of the affected consumer lines use a substantial amount of data while roaming on other providers' networks and the roaming costs generated by these lines exceed what these consumers pay us each month."
"We sent these notices in advance so customers have plenty of time to choose another wireless provider," Verizon also said.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Grishnakh on Monday September 18 2017, @02:42PM
Not funny for some folks. Out here in the country where your steaks come from, the only other provieder (Mid-Rivers Communications) is not taking any new customers (due to capacity maybe). Loss of Verizon service may affect safety.
Yes, and that's fine. Remember, the people who live out in the country where some of our steaks come from (we can get steaks from other countries, remember) consistently vote for politicians who want to abolish all regulation, and that's how we got Ajit Pai. I say let Verizon cut off emergency communications in the rural areas.
In earlier days we resolved the same problem in rural America with electric and phone coops. Maybe we should somehow invent cellular service coops?
No, we shouldn't, because that would compete with incumbents like Verizon, so it should be banned. Again, these rural people consistently vote for politicians, this time at the state level, who pass laws forbidding municipalities from building their own telecom services. Back in the "old days", we had a Federal agency called the Rural Electrification Administration that worked to electrify parts of the country that just weren't profitable for the utility companies to do on their own. But these rural dwellers now are staunchly against any such Federal aid, and their favorite politicians don't want them doing anything that would compete with large companies like Verizon, so they shouldn't.