Redlining has been an issue that has emerged in the Statewide Cable Franchising hearings (mentioned earlier in this blog). According to The Nation (Broadband Redlining Targets Rural America) rural areas are right to be concerned about redlining. They recently featured a story on Verizon and their plan to sell off (some might say sell out) “low-value” landline customers to focus on FiOS, Verizon’s branded FTTH service.

(Just ‘cause it rarely comes up I’ll mention that Fios comes from the Irish word for knowledge and, in Irish, is pronounced [Fees] with a slightly aspirated s. It’s not every day you get a telecommunications blogger that knows a little Irish!)

In rural New England, Verizon is looking at selling its services to a small company called FairPoint, which would not be able to provide broadband services. There are huge tax incentives for Verizon to sell to FairPoint as opposed to a larger company that might be better poised to provide better service – and meetings are being held in local communities, where consumers can voice their opinion.

On their web site, FairPoint provides infromation on the merger and mention that they are committed to providing broadband service to rural and small urban customers.

From the Minnesota perspective I think it’s interesting to learn about these loopholes that can allow for such skewed levels of service, to see how and who is bringing the issue to light, and it will be interesting to see how it is resolved.