Verizon Paid $5.4 Billion in Dividends in 2010

Why is Verizon Not Investing More Money Into Their Infrastructure? 

Verizon (VZ) & AT&T (T) are paying out 85% to 72% of their respective earnings as dividends. If you think Verizon's dividend was big, have a look at AT&T dividend which was almost double at $10B in 2010.  What does this tell you about a company that is falling behind the rest of the world?  Do telecom companies like Verizon and AT&T have progress and technology innovation as a priority to improve our lives?  Or are they simply Government protected Ponzi schemes that simply pay off their shareholders with huge dividends?  Does it concern you that one of the highest dividend-paying companies on Wall Street is actually far behind the rest of the world in delivering broadband and wireless speeds?  Does it concern you that US customers are paying double and sometimes triple the rate for data and voice access compared to the rest of the World?  Should you be concerned that this is the same company that wants to filter information that comes over its dumb pipe to you?

Are you one of the suckers willing to pay $1000 per year for high-speed wireless access (LTE) when WiFi is free?  Fewer Verizon and & AT&T customers are buying the iPad 3G data plans and one of the reasons why Apple's (AAPL) stock is getting crushed.  iPads should be subsidized by the carriers if they want to continue tricking consumers into spending hundreds of dollars extra for mobile data outside of their WiFi home networks.

All of these issues creating the perfect storm for industry disruption and WiFi could just be the vehicle that brings this house of cards tumbling down.  It would only take a few million people to open up internet access on their home and business WiFi networks similar to the Fonera business model in France.  See Fon.com.  One of the only companies that is capable of executing this disruption to scale is Google because of their advertising footprint and I can't wait until it happens.  Its only a matter of time before the AT&T and Verizon dividend ponzi scheme house of cards comes tumbling down.