Tauzin-Dingell
is Evil Homepage
EIGHT REASONS WHY THE
TAUZIN-DINGELL BILL IS BAD
FOR AMERICA'S TELEPHONE
CUSTOMERS.
SUMMARY: "This bill gives the
Bells more money, more power, less scrutiny, and even
provides protection from investigations. The proposed bill
would block competitors from using the networks, will raise
customer Internet rates, and it doesn't address or fix any
of the current DSL or competitor issues. Congress should not
even consider this bill until the current problems, caused
by the Bell companies, have been fixed." - Bruce Kushnick,
Executive Director, NNI
1) The "Internet Freedom and
Broadband Deployment Act." gives all the Freedoms to the
Bells. The Bells are still monopolies. They control the
wire into customer's homes and offices and because of this
they control even competitive offerings of DSL, Broadband
and other services. However:
- The bill prohibits the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) and the state commissions
from regulating high-speed access,
- It stops the Bell from having to
resell the services to competitors,
- It allows the phone companies into
data long distance before there is local
competition.
In short, this means that the Bell
companies can block competitors from reselling the services,
can enter into new business without any competitor
safeguards, and the bill stops regulators from fixing
anti-competitive practices.
2) The Bell companies are harming
competitors, Internet Providers (ISPs) and Competitive
Local phone companies CLECs), and this bill does nothing to
fix those problems. Today, competition is on life-support in
a large part because of the Bells.
- In surveys by the USISPA and CIX,
ISPs stated that they were receiving sub-standard
customer services - with over 50% of Bell installations
having serious problems.
- In Kentucky, the Public Service
Commission found that BellSouth was using discriminatory
practices and predatory pricing against Iglou Internet, a
small ISP.
- These problems are documented and
are happening hourly, across America to thousands of
competitive ISPs.
3) Harm to DSL Customers - Today,
there is a DSL "Chain of Pain." Horror stories and
lawsuits abound about the Bells' handling of current DSL.
The claims include that the Bells' services are faulty, the
advertised speeds rarely show up, and there are continuous
problems. To read hundreds of complaints see
http://www.newnetworks.com/alliance/signatures.php?view=1
4) History shows that the Bells
already received massive financial incentives to roll out
Broadband and failed to do so.
- Over half of America was supposed
to have a fiber-optic line to their home and office by
2000, replacing the older copper wiring. Also, in many
states, schools, libraries, and government agencies were
also supposed to have very high-speed broadband -
virtually none of these services exist.
- Over $53 billion dollars were
collected to do these network upgrades - that's billions
of extra pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters on
customers' phone bills in the form of excess charges.
5) The Bells have become some of
the richest companies in America through failing to deliver
Broadband. This bill does nothing to curb the Bells
excessive charges to customers.
- According to Business Week's
Corporate Scoreboard, the Bell's profits are 200% above
most American companies.
- Bell profits on some services,
such as Call Waiting, is 48,000%, according to the
Florida Commission.
- The Bell companies have taken
massive write-offs of the copper networks, stating they
were replacing them... but they are still in use.
6) This Bill is sponsored by
representatives that seem to have serious conflict of
interests with the Bell companies. NNI has called on
Rep. Billy Tauzin, one of the bill's sponsors, and Chairman
of the Commerce Committee, to recuse himself on regulating
telecom.
- His current counsel to the
Commerce Committee worked for Bell clients
- Many of his staffers have come to
him from Bell/ telecom lobbying jobs.
- Tauzin has raised millions of
dollars from the Bells through events he organized, for
himself and for the GOP. Most recently, BellSouth and
others Bells helped to sponsor Tauzin's Mardi Gras party
at Dodger Stadium, cost: $400,000.
7) By eliminating competition,
this bill destroys any hope of lower prices or better
Broadband services, and it destroys a generation of new
technology advances.
- Higher Prices to customers --
Without competition, there cannot be lower prices. By
giving the Bell companies exclusive rights to the
networks, they effectively shut down
competition,
- By requesting that the FCC and
states be left out of the plan, the Bells have carte
blanche to continue customer harm,
- When the only choice is the Bell
companies' inferior ADSL services, it will close out
capital markets to innovators and competitors, and
therefore, slow down, if not stop next generation
services from reaching the markets,
- It can be argued that the entire
economy would not have hit this recession snag had the
Bell companies really delivered on their broadband
promises. The tech sector would have kept designing more
advanced products and services, and so the fall of
companies like Lucent and Cisco, among others, would
never have taken the market to new lows.
8) PUNCHLINE: What should happen
next ---- Tauzin-Dingell is a bad bill and should not
even be considered before the current broadband problems are
addressed.
- Congress should be investigating
how the Bells have continually failed to deliver on their
other Broadband promises, and have cost the American
public over $58 billion in extra phone
charges,
- Congress should explain why Bell
profits are 250% above most American
companies,
- Congress needs to enact The
Broadband Bill of Rights to fix DSL and competitive
issues,
- Rep. Billy Tauzin, should recuse
himself from regulating telecom.
For a decade, NNI has been doing
telecom and broadband research in the Public Interest. To
read more about Tauzin-Dingell (with links) see:
http://newnetworks.com/TauzinDingellisevil.htm
To learn more about New Networks
Institute, see: http://www.newnetworks.com
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