Customers like you paid Verizon, SBC, Qwest and BellSouth for a
fiber optics broadband service you never received and it caused serious
economic harm to the American economy, as well as our pocketbooks.
in the World Wide Web.
service you paid for but never received. The actual amount varies by state.
customer-funded infrastructure is being ‘held hostage’ and should be freed.
—
networks is a ‘customer-takings’ — customers became defacto investors when
they were charged for fiber based network upgades and ISDN — the networks
customers paid for, based on state laws like NJ, were
ALL for ‘open common carrier based’ competition.
The Bells are utilities. They control essentialinfrastructure and the sweatheart deal and customer subsidies guarantee their
earnings. They are under "Public Utility Commission" jurisdictions.
Like roads and bridges, electricity and water, telecommunications is
essential for the American economy. The networks were NOT simply free-market
companies, especially for local service and the control of the wires. They were
given rights to the networks based on customer/public obligations.
new highway system. The sole contractor gets the job, and collects millions
daily. However, after 10 years we find that instead of a new road we have parts
of the old road refurbished, and the on-off-ramps aren’t finished. And the
contractor has taken control of the roads. Wouldn’t the state haul the
contractor into court?
now offer 100 Mbps services for about $40 as a standard — 100 times faster
than you can get.from your phone company.
engineers as ALL of the U.S.. Also, America would have cable competition, since
these networks required over 500 channels. Instead, Korea is number 1 in
Broadband, we’re 16th.
or specs they contractually agreed to when the deals were created. And this
problem was systemic and therefore it is questionable whether there is also
collusion, NOT ONE STATE fullfilled their obligations over multiple telephone
companies.
doesn’t matter what the PUC’s final rules or enforcements are. What matters is
that the statements made were beyond simple ‘puffery’, but constitute deceptive
speech, which is NOT protected under the first amendment. The state laws would
not have changed based on ‘truthful speech". Would the state agreed if they knew
that they were going to have you pay for fiber but would get DSL over copper?
customers and thus the economy.
acts.
- Municipalities offering fiber or wifi — The Bells are
attempting to block cities from doing a workaround. The book shows that instead
municipalities should be questioning all of the money that was collected and
they should use that money to finally do what was promised in 1993.
- Net Neutrality. The networks paid for by customers were
OPEN with a freedom to connect to whom ever they pleased, without controls or
restrictions. - Franchises and FIOS:: In the state of NJ, we argue that
the FIOS is not what was promised under state law. It is a crippled network that
is too slow, not open to competition, and will not be competitive globally. We
also contend that the services committed to were "universal" in that the
"entire" state of New jersey was to be wired — rural, urban and suburban, rich
and poor areas. Customer paid for it. FIOS cost $199 and has top speed of
30 Mbps. Korea and Japan have 100 Mbps for $40. - VOIP and other services — The Bells have illegally tied
together their local,. long distance and broadband products in pricing. Also,
there are now discussions of giving their own services preferential treatment.
Our data shows that any current or future networks need to be "open" for all
applications. This was part of the customer-funding agreements. The customer,
not the phone company, should decide which products they want, without being
penalized to use the incumbent. - AUDITS: Get the money back.
collect for networks they never delivered? The reports by the NJ Ratepayer
Advocate, or Economics & Technology show billions per state.
investors, were in a large part, the de-facto investors of the Bell companies’
profits, including funding the Bells other products, like long distance,
wireless and DSL deployments.
The FCC got
rid of virtually every competitive offering, from line sharing to stopping
wholesale (UNE-P) pricing, which helped the Bell companies erase competition and
hijack the public switched networks. They were mostly based on a "takings", that
the phone companies’ property was being taken below cost The problem is —
these laws were not based on the actual costs (read unaudited) of the phone
companies networks nor dealt with the role of the customer as defacto investor,
nor cross-referenced the state obligations for ‘open networks’ based on
customer-funding.
One thing is certain — today
America’s Bell companies do not have a plan for competiing globally, and
current plans are inferior services to what was promised in 1993. Solving this
is of paramount importance for America’s economic growth.
