Why do the local telephone companies not build their own broadband?
Local telephone companies, such as Verizon, SBC and Bells South, have not built any truly broadband systems. They provide DSL, a very low speed network using their existing copper wires. Many of these wires are over a hundred years old. They have very limited capability and are not truly broadband, as is fiber. The local telephone companies have no money to do these builds. For example Verizon had to cut back its capital budget from almost $20 billion to less than $5 billion for 2003. Even this may be a problem. Verizon has almost $65 billion in debt and may not be able to service that debt. All of these companies, especially in todays market, cannot find any means to finance this effort.
