Net Neutrality is a Phony Issue

From the author of $200 Billion Broadband Scandal, Bruce Kushnick:

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This entire series of scare tactics should simply be another indication that the Bells will come up with more ways to screw the public.

Instead of allowing them to 'please sir may I have another', why is anyone taking these new demands as if they have any validity.

What should be on everyone's mind is --- Investigate the Bell companies for their  failure to deploy fiber optic networks over the last decade and for charging customers about $200 billion in excessive phone charges and tax perks for networks they never received!

1. Customers funded OPEN fiber optic networks. The fact  is that it took
   a decade for any Bell fiber service  to show up and still isn't here in any
   meaninful way. However:
2. The Bells companies collected money for these networks over the last
   decade ---It could be argued that they should be required to sell off their
   other assets to pay for these networks that didn't show up
3. $200 billion is the low number. This entire issue is a customer-takings. Customers, not the Bell companies have become defacto investors.For example the audits of the continuing property records showed that 20% of the equipment in the networks was missing. --over $80 billion in equipment that is missing was added to phone rates, starting the 1980's.-- We have an  active IRS investigation going. The fact that every service was based on inflated expenses, including our current fees, is what should have been investigated. We estimate this alone cost customers $600 per household!
4. Why are we not investigating all of the money collected and never put into the ground, as well as the cross-subisization of the DSL, Long disrtance and wireless roll outs, which inadvertently was charged to customers. Customers have been illegally funding the rollouts of these services. In California alone the Bells got over $190 million out of customers. (Based on California audits.)
5. This argument has nothing to do with the actual cost of service. The real issue --- examine the Bell's capital expenditures.

Since Ivan Seidenberg feels so strongly that Verizon needs relief, let's look at the record.  In 2000,  Verizon's domestic telecom expenditures were $12.1 billion NOW, in 2005, Verizon is claiming to be spending all of this money on FIOS, its latest fiber to the home plan.  Yet its total domestic telecom expenditure in 2005 was $8.3 billion.

                                    2000           2005          2004
Revenue                   $64,707        $ 75,112     $71,283
Cap spending  total   (17,633)      15,324 $       $13,259
Telecom                    $12,100        $ 8,267     $ 7,118
Depreciation     `                           $ 8,801

And they wrote off more than they put into the ground. In fact, overall, the Bell companies spent
$18 billion in 1984, and in 2004 spent $17 billion, even though revenues went up 128%.

Who's paying for this stuff? We are. We are being overcharged for networks that we may never get.

We PAID FOR THE NETWORKS! That's the real bait-and-switch. AT&T (SBC) now says that whatever they built, the money is coming out of the budgets for local phone service.

"SBC now expects that three-year deployment costs for Project Lightspeed
will be approximately $4 billion, at the low end of its previously announced
range of $4 billion to $6 billion. In addition, there will be customer-activation capital expenditures of approximately $1 billion spread over 2006 and 2007. Because a significant portion of capital expenditures for Project Lightspeed will replace and refocus ongoing spending for its current network, SBC expects incremental capital investment for this project to be relatively small."

Since when is it legal to charge customers for services they may never get? As we argue, the changes in state laws that gave these companies more money was based on promises they didn't keep.

The Big, Deep Dark Secret ----FRAUD AND COLLUSION --- INVESTIGATE.

Teletruth filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission to investigate
this fraud case...
 

Fraud?  The Bell companies made committments to have over 50 million households wired with fiber by 2000. Virtually none of it was ever done. and

THE BIG SECRET? -- It couldn't be built when these companies signed the deal even though they collected billions per state. Collusion? We tracked that the same promise was played  in the majority of the US, by ALL of the phone companies.--- Promise to rewire in exchange for more money --- then pocket the subsidies.

Is it legal for companies to make false and misleading statements to the public so that laws will be changed? And we are not talking about a few statements in a few states. We are talking about a campaign that lasted until the phone companies got the Telecom Act passed and the mergers to go
through. We documented how SBC and Verizon, after every merger, closed down the fiber optic deployments in every state that they controlled.

Check out the timelines of SBC yourself and the promises made, then broken:

Net Neutrality should be the tipping point to get everyone pissed off and call for an investigation into the failed fiber optic deployments. Teletruth believes this is one of the largest scandals in American history. The Bells have O rights to have exclusive use of the networks ---  the only reason they can claim everything is the sweetheart deal the FCC made to give them exclusive rights. These exclusives need to be overturned because:

• The Telecom Act of 1996 opened these very networks.
• Every state law demanded open, competitive network
• Every merger was based on open competitive networks.

But most importantly -- customers have been funding open networks, and anything the Bells build, even a decade late, is being funded out of excessive rates.

Net Neutrality?

Forget that. Investigate and get the billions back and require every networks customers fund to remain OPEN on all levels -- We paid for the networks. We have rights.