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Jack, what type of "choice" is this bill going to bring to consumers, exactly? You have no idea what you're talking about. There was never any law or restriction against cable and telephone companies coming in and competing against each other...the reason no one came along and overbuilt was because it was too expensive to build the infrastructure and get a good rate-of-return on that investment when the incumbent already had all of the market share. Even if the newcomer did real well and stole half the incumbent's customers, they would have less than half the homes passed subscribing to their service (remember, perhaps 15% of households subscribe to satellite and some just use an antenna, leaving less than 85% to split).

In 2006, the Legislature passed a 'system-wide' (really statewide) franchising law. This is what allowed Verizon to start offering its FiOS service. Verizon was the only company that could afford to do this because a) it was part owner of the poles; b) it already had plant on the poles; and c) it needed to upgrade its facilities anyway. As a result of that bill, Verizon invested over $1B (that's right, one Billion with a "B") dollars in its network in NJ. The bill also allows any existing cable company to convert to a system-wide franchise, to get out from under what they consider to be a burdensome and time-consuming local franchising process. The investments and jobs that came out of 'deregulation' in other states (none of which went as far as this bill does) came about here because we've already done it - in 2006!

The investments and jobs that come with this bill (to the extent there are any) will come in the form of Verizon investing in its cellular wireless network in NJ, using the proceeds from selling its copper infrastructure, which it wants to get away from. Tell me, if you lived in one of the 175 towns in Verizon's territory that are not scheduled to ever get FiOS, would you be happy with that great Triple-Play service from your cellular provider, or your satellite provider? No? Of course not - they DON'T OFFER IT. In the towns where Verizon does not offer FiOS and where CenturyLink operates (217 total), there is no real competition for your landline telephone business. And no amount of deregulation is going to attract anyone to provide a state-of-the-art fiber network like FiOS where it's rural or semi-rural - it's just not lucrative enough. The only company with the resources is going to put it into wireless ("Can you hear me now?")