said by Karl Bode :

Verizon doesn't want it.

What Verizon does want is to come back over the top with LTE services five years later and leech back the customers they DO want by selling them ubiquitous wireless service that can compete with aging DSL service.

Verizon offloads the infrastructure (much of it subsidized by taxpayers) they didn't want to upgrade, offloads the union workers they didn't want to deal with, offloads debt, gets tax credits, then comes back later and gets those customers back anyway.

said by Karl Bode :

I didn't really see the LTE angle myself until somebody involved in their LTE deployments pointed it out to me last week. It's kind of genius in an obnoxious and unethical way...Especially if you start to think about how many billions Verizon, NYNEX, Bell Atlantic got in subsidies and taxpayer funds over the years to fund those networks. Luckily for Verizon, neither politicians or the press will ask those kinds of pesky questions of these transactions...