A List of Possible Violations by the FCC of the Regulatory Flexibility Act. Violation: The FCC has failed to include Customers (including Small Business Customers) in these telecom and broadband discussions.   Regulatory Capture is Rampant ---The TeleTruth analysis of the filings with the FCC, shows that in all of these dockets, the overwhelming respondents (over 90%) were telephone companies and their lawyers, or commentors who were paid by a phone companies.. The Customer is missing from the discussion, and the FCC is making decisions based on phone company filings. Violation: The FCC has failed to provide "Common Sense" language for customers.   For the average customer, the FCC documents might as well be in Aramaic, or Urdic, languages long forgotten except for obscure scholars. They were written by lawyers, using archaic descriptions of telecom legalese minutia and so, like the phone bill (the other unique telecom artifact that customers can't understand), the customer is left without a voice in any of these FCC proceedings. Violation: The FCC has failed to be proactive for Small Business Competitor Comments on the IRFA (the required small business impact analysis)   The FCC is required by the Flexibility Act to be proactive and make sure that those harmed are part of the process. To date, NO ISP knew about this Act and the implications or have ever been solicited to send in comments. Staffers at the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy confirmed that they never received Comments for the IRPA. Violation: IRFA The FCC has failed to be proactive for Small Business Customer Comments on the IRFA   The FCC has never done outreach to small businesses for the IRFA. Violation: In ALL cases the FCC has delivered a "Boilerplate" analysis which does not satisfy the law or protect the public interest.   Approximately 90% of the FCC analysis is the exact same material they have been using since the mid-1990's. Identical sections could be found in dockets from 1998 through 2002. Violation: The FCC has ignored or left out some "Classes" of small businesses that will be harmed in a number of these dockets.-- This includes ISPs and CLECs.   In one Docket, O1-337, which could stop the Bells from being required to resell their networks to CLEC competitors for broadband, the ISPs are NOT mentioned as a class that would be harmed. Likewise, in the Cable Modem NOI, which would declare Cable service an information service and therefore they do not have to resell their networks, the FCC once again left out the ISPs. Violation: The FCC has failed to accurately assess the number of small business entities that depend on these companies, from the small business users to the small business suppliers.   There is no data supplied by the FCC on the number of small businesses that depend on the independent ISP and CLEC. According to ISP World "Of course, 54.2 percent of American's accessing the Internet and the World Wide Web do so through thousands of independent ISPs scattered across the country, which totals some 77.5 million subscribers nationwide." Violation: The analysis of the number of companies provided by the FCC that could be impacted is useless and worthless, including using out of date and inaccurate data.   The FCC starts it's analysis with data about the market from 1992, and utilizes information for ISPs from Census data -- compiled in 1996. And in most of the FCC's analysis you can read ""Although it seems certain that some of these carriers are not independently owned and operated, or have more than 1,500 employees, we are unable at this time to estimate with greater precision the number of these carriers that would qualify as small business concerns under SBA's definition." Violation: The FCC failed to perform the proper analysis of the cost impacts on these companies.   The FCC offers no information about the impacts on these companies, including ISPs and CLECs. They conclude that their law is good because it will 'avoids placing restrictions on their operations."--- "The Commission believes that this would have a positive economic impact on small entities to the extent that it avoids placing restrictions on their operations." However, they may be put out of business if these laws go through -- which is not mentioned. Violation: The FCC failed to offer useful alternatives to the proposed rulings.   The FCC is thinking of 'eliminating' or modifying the agreements that give ISPs the rights to use the phone networks' and the only alternative would be to have a "negotiated contact.' The FCC doesn't mention that there have been and currently are law suits and filings against the Bells for their current contracts. Violation: The FCC is in violation of not providing an impact to the small business customers of these companies. --- "The Chain-of-Choice"   In all of these proceedings, the FCC is making statements about 'the public good" yet it does not have any comments from the companies who use the small competitors that may be eliminated. --- The Chain of Choice is the links between an independent ISP, CLEC and their customer who all must depend on using the monopoly networks. Violation: The FCC is in Violation of the IFRA for not examining the unique services the competitors offer that the Bells do not.   The FCC does not acknowledge anywhere the role the small ISP and CLEC have had on the growth of the Internet or Broadband., including numerous services, such as SDSL or Voice over IP that are unique to the small competitor. Also, the FCC does not acknowledge that many independent ISPs and CLECs have brought the Internet to rural communities where the phone companies have not showed up. Violation: The FCC is in violation of the IRFA for not providing an analysis about the harm to investment, revenues, jobs, and other tangible and intangible impacts to the ISP and CLEC market segment, as well as the number of small business customer issues.   TeleTruth estimates that 1,500 companies are in jeopardy if these laws goes through, and this will cause problems for 10-15 million customers. The FCC has not offered any impact analysis.