What A Propaganda Article Brought To You By Qwest

An article appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune today (8-21-2006) trying to scare the hell out of anyone who doesn’t have a landline telephone or is contemplating dropping the one they have.  It appears that someone over at Qwest got to the Tribune and convinced them that the issue has merit enough for an article.  The bottom line of the article is that everyone needs to maintain a landline telephone for emergency and safety reasons.  If this is such a concern of Qwest why the $25.00 a month charge for a copper wire coming into your home or apartment?  As part of that $25.00 a month charge why does Qwest continue to collect (they give you no choice) access charges to their network and extended area calling charges to places you never call?  They can’t give you a good reason why a residential line costing $11.00 a month suddenly balloons to $25.00.  Must be the charges that still pay for the Spanish-American War of 1898 (which Congress has ordered removed by-the-way).  Qwest tries to explain the necessity of a landline telephone this way:

 

The landline is necessary because the battery in a cell phone can’t be charged during a power outage while a landline telephone will continue to work even with the power out.

 

Emergency calls to 911 can’t be traced back to an exact location using a cell phone while landline telephones give 911 operators exact locations of the emergency.

 

First, doesn’t Qwest know that cell phone batteries can be charged in an automobile?  Da!  Besides that, most homes and apartments have more than one cell phone user today.  What is the chance that all the cell phones in one place have batteries that need to be charged during a power outage?

 

Second, hasn’t Qwest heard of enhanced 911?  Unbelievable!  After the guy in Provo died in his apartment about two years ago because he didn’t have a landline telephone and called 911 on his cell phone and the 911 operator screwed up by not getting the right address from the guy so he died!  The family sued Provo City and the City as well as every other 911 call center in the State has moved over to enhanced 911 service that now automatically picks up the location from the cell phone call.  Of course there was no mention of this in the Tribune article.

 

It is amazing how stupid Qwest is and how desperate they are to maintain their landlines by scaring people.  I am extremely disappointed that the Tribune would fall for this garbage and actually print it.  –Garth-