Big Business gets its way again

Folks in West Virginia thought they'd scored a victory when state regulators split the state's area code instead of instituting a cumbersome, inconvenient overlay.

But when Big Business yelps, good ideas don't last very long.

Regulators had made the area code change in probably the best way they could: by splitting the existing area code and giving the new code to the area that had seen the most growth in cell phones. If an area's growth causes a split, the growing area should bear the costs of the new code. Fair is fair.

But the phone industry griped about this, because it would have cost them to change the existing numbers. So regulators reversed their initial ruling and decided to implement the overlay instead.

Nice. Instead of costing the phone company, they're costing consumers.

Because of this rubber-stamping of phone company complaints, West Virginians now have to dial 10 digits to make a local call in the same area code.

Overlays serve nobody except phone companies and other large businesses.

Evidently, phone companies are already allowed to block YouTube with no consequences. A certain phone company high-speed ISP in the Midwest has blocked YouTube all day, as a matter of fact. (As proof that YouTube is blocked by this ISP, one can access YouTube as well as ever through proxy servers.) So what more can the phone industry ask for? Does it want each of its customers to kiss its feet?

Big Business needs to shut its damn gizzard tight. If there's enough new customers for a new area code, then the phone company obviously isn't hurting for money. So it can afford to foot the bill for splitting the state.

(Source: http://www.newsandsentinel.com/page/content.detail/id/502197.html)