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http://www.newnetworks.com/broadbandscandals.htm
http://www.newnetworks.com/ShortSCANDALSummary.htm

http://www.newnetworks.com/broadbandscandals.htm
http://www.newnetworks.com/ShortSCANDALSummary.htm

How about a boatload of telco execs and isp bosses sitting in front of a senate hearing explaining what they did with the 200 billion dollars they got in upped usage fees and so on during the last decade to build out the infrastructure? Where'd all that money go? From that link "In exchange for building these networks, the Bell companies ALL received changes in state laws that gave these them excessive profits, tax savings, and other perks to be used in building these networks."

Let's stop dumping on ourselves for trying to use what was promised and never built. We got GOUGED and ripped off and they bribed off enough people in government to make the whole thing just disappear, just like the two TRILLION dollars that disappeared in the defense budget that hit the news on September TENTH 2001, never to be heard from again since that amazingly coincidental "terrorist attack" that happened on the eleventh, the next frikkin day.. 200 billion is not chump change, and 2 trillion is simply an astounding figure, that pays for a lot of improved infrastructure that could handle much higher demand. Two trillion could pay for a huge national alternative energy infrastructure roll out. We got outright blatantly stolen from by a small handful of very wealthy people, and for some reason the media and government seem to just ignore it for the most part. Nope, their fault for being greedy crooks, their fault we have rank internet connections compared to many other nations, and that we are still the perpetual debt servitude for life chattel of the oil and defense (really is offense any more, slimy blood profiteers) armaments industries. They flat out stole our modern communications and energy infrastructure to pay off already wealthy wall street globalists.

This is a little problem with your example. It doesn't fit the situation.

Say UPS has to move its product through a tunnel built with public funds through which every truck has to move but every truck has opportunity for access. Further more, the trucks have to move slow because the roadbed wasn't made to take heavy traffic. But, if traffic slows down for one it slows down for all. All trucks are equal.

Then, with the appropriate "campaign contributions" by RICHER trucks, laws and/or regulations are passed which make RICH trucks MORE EQUAL than others. Everyone else stands in line why THEY are given priority to use the tunnel. Everyone else, including poorer competitors, have to wait our use other means of transportation. Poorer competitors go out of business and their employees become unemployed. The RICH truckers began enjoying their "monopoly" on fast access to the tunnel.

Those denied access decided to build another tunnel, one which was a LOT wider and through which EVERYONE could travel at very HIGH speed. It would make all TRUCKS equal again and require that they compete on something else other than access privileges. Using their tried and true methods of "campaign contributions" the RICH truckers lobbied the politicians to get laws passed which made it illegal for communities of trucks to build better tunnels. The RICH trucks told the politicians that if they were reimbursed in advance they'd build the bigger tunnel. The politicians agreed and paid them $200B, which the RICH truckers took. But they never built the bigger tunnel. They had no intent on building the bigger tunnel. They know that price is based on rarity, and a making bigger tunnel was going to lower the profits.

Traffic continued to increase to the point that in order to keep the RICH trucks moving as fast as possible they needed to slice the access time to the tunnel up so that RICH truckers could take larger amounts of time when ever they needed it, irrespective of the amount of traffic in the tunnel. In addition they want to charge the poor trucks a fee for entering the tunnel and a fee for leaving the tunnel. That's what they are now lobbying the politicians for.
http://www.newnetworks.com/scandalquotes.html

We have the best Congress money can buy, because most of them are payed off. It doesn't matter which party the politicians belongs to. They are all out to get their own nests feathered. Why else would they give themselves independent retirement plans instead of eating the Social Security dog food they've forced us to eat? Their retirement plan includes benefits at the FULL salary they were earning when they retired, plus 10% annual "cost of living" raises, FULL health care insurance with NO deductibles and NO exclusions or restrictions. And, their spouse get the FULL package when they die. They increased the copay on Medicare and created a Medicade swamp that forces retirees to buy health insurance to cover the donut gap. A couple can be forced to enter partial poverty to pay 1/4th of their Social security to avoid total poverty if the get sick during retirement.

Show me a presidential candidate who will get laws pass that guarantee FREE UNIVERSAL HEALTH COVERAGE FOR ALL passed and I will vote for him or her. It's time to take the profit out of the health care industry. Profits made on the misfortunes of others.

"I was saddened (though not surprised) to read that the Justice Department opposes net neutrality saying that it could "hamper development of the internet." While it may seem counter-intuitive to me, they argue that allowing ISPs to provide different levels of service/speed for different content will benefit consumers.

I don't see service/speed benefiting consumers. In fact I'm hearing more people are complaining of being terminated by a certain Internet provider. It does nobody any good and America is turning into the caveman of the Internet with super slow speeds.

Besides, if we already paid for high speed internet then why don't we have it?

Starting in the early 1990's, the Clinton-Gore Administration had aggressive plans to create the "National Infrastructure Initiative" to rewire ALL of America with fiber optic wiring, replacing the 100 year old copper wire. The Bell companies - SBC, Verizon, BellSouth and Qwest, claimed that they would step up to the plate and rewire homes, schools, libraries, government agencies, businesses and hospitals, etc. if they received financial incentives.

- By 2006, 86 million households should have already been wired with a fiber (and coax), wire, capable of at least 45 Mbps in both directions, and could handle 500+ channels.
- Universal Broadband: This wiring was to be done in rich and poor neighborhoods, in rural, urban and suburban areas equally.
- Open to ALL Competition: These networks were to be open to ALL competitors, not a closed-in network or deployed only where the phone company desired.
- This is not Verizon's FIOS or SBC's Lightspeed fiber optics, which are slower, can't handle 500 channels, are not open to competition, and are not being deployed equitably.
- This was NOT fiber somewhere in the network ether, but directly to homes.

You are correct, but the telco's squandered the money on upgrading their cellular networks (and general profits) instead then later said they couldn't afford the upgrades but still raised rates. Not to mention forcing local communities to not deploy their own network, but then they [the telcos] did not bother deploying one either. Also, the constant mergers have also nullified most promised fiber contracts.

http://www.newnetworks.com/broadbandscandals.htm

Telecom companies were given $200 billion by US tax payers over 10 years ago to give us 45mbps both ways fiber optic wiring.

They took the money to invest in the profitable long distance market while still laying down old copper. They invented the barely faster than dialup technology we all know as DSL.

This was to trick the government into thinking people were getting the faster speeds they were supposed to without having to remove those old copper wires.

Educate yourselves, spread the news, and call your local representative.

http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction =Ask_this.view&askthisid=186
http://www.newnetworks.com/broadbandscandals.htm

The US lags because we set up our telcom infrastructure the first, and thus have the most primitive last-mile connections. Throw in some wide distances between communities and you have the situation we have today.

This is Bell Bullshit. The US is a dense urban nation now and the vast majority of people live in cities. The long haul network has lots of dark fiber because our cities are still using copper networks. Ma Bell wants to sell you each bit of data and we are falling further behind despite big promisses and big spending - in short you have paid for a world class network but don't have it. That the US is not first in the world despite having invented the technology and having the money for networks is a true scandal. Most people still use dial up - that's pathetic.

How bad is it? Socialist countries like France, Finland and Sweden are kicking our ass. Germany is right behind us, and half of it's network was made by Stalin. Want to bet on how long it will take Poland, Hungry or freaking Kahzakistan to catch up? You would think the US would be growing faster than other nations but we are not and what little growth we've got is grinding to a halt.

http://www.newnetworks.com/broadbandscandals.htm

When communities started deploying their own fiber optic cable systems the communications industry was alarmed, even though they had plenty of opportunity to begin laying FOC themselves. They went to congress (lobbied and bribed congressmen) and got a law which forbid local governments from "competing" with free enterprise and paid the companies an advanced "reinbursement" to lay the FOC themselves. The communications companies, including Verizon, took the money but never laid the FOC. By ignoring the companies lack of compliance, even though they took the cash to do so, Congress has given defacto approval to the theft.

What does one expect when "campaign contributions" can be so easily converted to personal use?

Population Density is horse shit.

Here is why...

Broadband is really only targeted at cities, the density formula is
including some cow pasture in Kansas.

Giant blank empty damn spaces with no people, should not factor
into the equation.

Broadband is truly only needed in population centers, and rural
areas can go Wifi/WiMAX or equivalent.

DSL is over copper for up to approx. 4 miles from Local Office.

Any place there is a cell tower there is fiber 90+% of the time.

80+% of fiber in the ground is dark fiber:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_fiber

The cost of sending a pulse of light down the line cycling 10 mil times
a second vs. 100 million times a second does not cost them 10 times as much.

Their profits point to this.

We already paid for a nation wide broadband upgrade to the tune of $200 billion USD.

http://www.newnetworks.com/broadbandscandals.htm

But we're supposed to have better infrastructure than Europe. Remember all the fees that were added to your phone bills since the 90's? They were supposed to go to building better infrastructure. What happened to them? The phone companies gave the money to the CEO's and shareholders. Thats what happened.

http://www.newnetworks.com/ShortSCANDALSummary.htm

You have NO IDEA what the costs of running a broadband network are! You left out
-My $1.4 million salary
-$2 - $7 million/yr in campaign contributions
-Dozens of attorneys to sue Vonage out of existence
...and a bunch of things I'm not allowed to talk about
Mateo LeFou, CEO, Verizon/AT&T

According to this guy, the US consumer has already paid for a lot more bandwith than what we are collectively getting, and the implication is, hold the telcos feet to the fire until they provide it-then maybe we can revisit network neutrality. A contract is a contract, a public commitment should be followed through on.

http://www.newnetworks.com/ShortSCANDALSummary.htm

Because they promised they would and we paid them $200 billion for it.

As someone who has worked in Telecom for Cisco Systems I know that the
number one road block is poor infrastruture, and 90%+ of all fiber in
the ground in most areas is dark fiber.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_fiber

The capacity is more than there, and eurpoe and japan already have
bi-directional 100Mb connections, and here is the REAL kicker.

The US tax payer already paid to upgrade the internet to the tune of $200 billion,
and it was SQUANDERED !

http://www.newnetworks.com/broadbandscandals.htm
http://www.muniwireless.com/community/1023

My uncle worked for Southwestern Bell for over 20 yrs, they are greed driven
cold hearted bastards of the worst kind.

We are 16th in the world in broadband and falling rapidly, 3rd world countries
are even passing us up, its fricking pathetic and SOLELY due to corporate greed and fear.

They KNOW that if broadband is cheap and ubiquitous it is the end of
their long distance phone call money train due to VoIP, and piracy will
skyrocket in terms of video, audio, and other.

So when the Telcos bemoan how it can't be done, they know they can DWDN multiple
SONET lines down fiber, and hit 200+ channels of SONET DWDM, but they won't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DWDM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_optical_n etworking

NONE of this is very new, its been around for a fairly long while,
in fact.... SONET FAQ...Last updated January 24, 1998 .....

So again, when they decry it can't be done, do not hesitate to SCREAM "BULLSHIT"
at the top of your lungs.

Still on 56k here and many of my neighbors stuck with 28.8k and there is some major fiber pipes within six miles of me connecting Dallas hub to points east. The Bells have been ripping us off, we been paying for fiber to the home for years. Though many yankees may well consider Texas 3rd world, this area is not alone in the US for being without broadband and I am not even sure you can say yet that even the majority in the US have broadband access and no I don't count satellite. Not to mention what we do have is slow relative to most broadband worldwide. For that matter, even before Katrina, there was a few cities in Louisiana that don't have phone access.

It seems you forgot that we did pay for faster service, via our taxes, to the tune of $200 Billion. Not that we got the promised performance, but we did pay for it.

It is Fraud.

And it was greasing state legislators that got them out of their promises with quite a bit of $$ in their pockets...at least in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania...

This wasn't like some great unkown like "geee I hope we can someday do this theoretically possible wonder..." they made a promise to deliver existing technology and DIDN'T...Lay cables, install switching equipment, connect customers. And literally millions of $$ in tax incentives and PUC (public utility commision) allowed markups on consumers bills just went into Telcos pockets....poof!! The state let them out of it.

http://www.newnetworks.com/PennUpdatedComplaint.ht m

Great, a very few very dense cherry-picked communities have gotten (and quite recently) FIOS, but this has nothing to do with what happened before and isn't even close to delivering the state/commonwealth-wide service promised.

But AT&T said standalone DSL, sometimes called naked DSL, will cost $44.99 a month, about a dollar less than the cheapest regular bundle of DSL and phone service.

http://muniwireless.com/community/1023
http://saveaccess.org/node/288
http://www.newnetworks.com/scandalquotes.htm
http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000267073488 /
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060131/2021240_ F.shtml

Because its very expensive to do that.

Yeah, it's not like the government didn't give them money to do it already.

The CEO is more important than the janitor precisely because he or
she decides what to pay employees

The CEO doesn't decide what to pay, the market economics do that,
and you can bet it is someone in accounting that looks it up.

They pay as little as they can to not lose their ppl to the nearby
competition, so all they do is float the going rate either a little
over or a little under.

Some CEO's at some of the largest corporations in the US "fail" at their
jobs and are rewarded for it "handsomely".

Government tax dollars paid to bail out failed corporate billion dollar blunders.

Huge Scandals of tax payer money to telecom companies:

http://www.newnetworks.com/ShortSCANDALSummary.htm

Global Crossing's CEO running off with 100's of millions before
he knowingly bankrupted it and took the money and run.

It's like legal bank robbery, with nice clothes.

These corporate types write off vacations as "entertainment" expenses.

They write off their breakrooms, their gyms, and numerous other items.

The rest of the population cannot do this.

Corporations have more rights under the law than the citizens.

A lot of the ppl on here and elsewhere that defend this Corporate idiocy
are doing so because they benefit from it and are biased accordingly.

Honest mistakes I understand, but that is not what I am talking about.

I am talking about abhorrent rampant greed and falsified records,
and offshore dummy accounts, and then having the gall to pay ppl
so little they cannot buy coats for their children and organizations
like "coats for kids" has to be formed just so kids dont show up
at the free clinic with frost bite.

The state of humanity in the richest nation of the world is pathetic.

Greed and Selfishness and self indulgence are at a all new high.

If the worker sucks, fire them, if they do their job and the ppl
at the top are obscenely wealthy then it is time to stop treating them
like the share croppers of the great depression era.

If your workers beneath you made you a millionaire or billionaire, reward
them with profit sharing, stock options, or something.

Don't just string them along for as little as possible or rotate
through hordes of temp workers to maximize your profits even more.

M$ for one was sued over the temp issue .

In this country we could build a nation of good and caring ppl, but
when their examples as leaders are blood sucking leeches of unending
stupifying greed and selfishness.

You are not going to get a good end result with that kind of role model.

Lead by example, not by lies, corruption, graft, and fear.

Ex-MislTech

You mean this?

Actually, the Clinton/Gore era gave the American telcos $200 BILLION in tax breaks so that we would have fiber and coax to our homes, at speeds of around 45Mbps. A decade later, we are still stuck on copper, paying insane amounts for abysmal performance. See the new networks site for more.

Because I have already payed for it and the phone companies have not held up their end.

Anyone read about this scandal here through Teletruth ? This is both shocking and makes me sick. Why hasnt the government done ANYTHING for high speed internet at a relatively fair price? Why is it that we lack innovation in this area? In most places that either have DSL or cable you usually have a few DSL providers but hardly ever if any, but one choice if you go the cable route. I have Comcast and there isnt any cable company within 25 miles of here I get 5 mbps down and 386k up for $42.95 a month. Either i want the 45 mbps or i want a check for $2,000 US as stated from a low estimate of how much we have paid in but have got nothing in return..

and they made promises of fibre to the home. Read all about it at http://www.newnetworks.com/scandals.htm Get it straight it's another something for nothing deal for big business...

Just a littie summary...

This book documents the largest fraud case in American history The case is simple: Do you have a 45 Mbps, bi-directional service to your home, paying around $40? Do you have 500+ channels and can choose any competitive service? You paid an estimated $2000 for this product even though you did not receive it and it may never be available. Do you want your money back and the companies held accountable? Background: Starting in the early 1990's, the Clinton-Gore Administration had aggressive plans to create the "National Infrastructure Initiative" to rewire ALL of America with fiber optic wiring, replacing the 100 year old copper wire. The Bell companies -- SBC, Verizon, BellSouth and Qwest, claimed that they would step up to the plate and rewire homes, schools, libraries, government agencies, businesses and hospitals, etc. if they received financial incentives. The Commitment: * By 2006, 86 million households should have already been wired with a fiber (and coax), wire, capable of at least 45 Mbps in both directions, and could handle 500+ channels. * Universal Broadband: This wiring was to be done in rich and poor neighborhoods, in rural, urban and suburban areas equally. * Open to ALL Competition: These networks were to be open to ALL competitors, not a closed-in network or deployed only where the phone company desired. * Each State: By 2006, 75% of the state of New Jersey was to be wired, Pennsylvania was to have 50% of households by 2004, California to have 5 million households by 2000, Texas claimed all schools, libraries, hospitals....Virtually every state had commitments. * Massive Financial Incentives: In exchange for building these networks, the Bell companies ALL received changes in state laws that gave these them excessive profits, tax savings, and other perks to be used in building these networks. * This was not DSL, which travels over the old copper wiring and did not require new regulations. * This is not Verizon's FIOS or SBC's Lightspeed fiber optics, which are slower, can't handle 500 channels, are not open to competition, and are not being deployed equitably. * This was NOT fiber somewhere in the network ether, but directly to homes. The Harms and Outcome * Costs to Customers -- We estimate that $206 billion dollars in excess profits and tax deductions were collected -- over $2000 per household. (This is the low estimate.) * Cost to the Country -- About $5 trillion dollars to the economy. America lost a decade of technological innovation and economic growth, about $500 billion annually. * Cost to the Country -- America is now 16th in the world in broadband. While Korea and Japan have 40-100 Mbps at cheap prices, America is still at kilobyte speeds. * The New Digital Divide -- The phone companies current plans are to pick and choose where and when they want to deploy fiber services, if at all. * Competitor Close Out -- SBC, BellSouth and Verizon now claim that they can control who uses the networks and at what price, impacting everything from VOIP and municipality roll outs to new services from Ebay and Google. The Truth: This is a Fraud Case * Fraud: There is a dark secret -- the networks couldn't be built at the time the commitments were made and are still not available. If someone pays thousands of dollars for a service and doesn't get it, isn't that fraud? * Collusion and Cover-up: TELE-TV and Americast, the Bell companies' fiber optic front groups, spent about $1 billion and were designed to make America believe these deployments were real in order to pass the Telecom Act of 1996 and enter long distance. How did every major phone company in America not know that these fiber-based services couldn't be built and were able to defraud over 40 states? * The mergers killed fiber optic deployments in over 26 states and harmed competition.

and they made promises of fibre to the home. Read all about it at http://www.newnetworks.com/scandals.htm Get it straight it's another something for nothing deal for big business...

...the monopolist plumbers have already received lotsa billions of dollars to rollout high speed networks all over, to the premises, and apparently failed to do so adequately. Now they want more money..for what again? Both ends of the internet are paid for with the model we have now, they want some additional middleman fees..just because they can and can threaten to choke off traffic. Screw that! Instead of them getting more money, how about they get sued to provide what they already got paid to build?

Well, I'd rather see them sued (class action or federal prosecutor, I don't care, but I like the idea of class action under RICO, and yes, this is possible now, there are a couple of cases out that that used RICO in private suits) into actually providing what they ALREADY got paid to do in the 90s, universal good quality high speed access with fiber. This was covered before on slashdot not too long ago. The telcos got over 200 BILLION dollars in price rate hikes, tax relief "deregulation" and so on in order for them to beef up the infrastructure-which they only did 1/4 ass at best and only in some areas. Where did the loot go? We already PAID for them to have it beefed up enough to provide this sort of service. This is bigger in terms of dollars than the Enron scam.

refresh memory

http://www.newnetworks.com/broadbandscandals.htm

Fiber Optics has been around for quite some time, after the DOT COM bust
it became relatively cheap . And the majority of fiber in the ground
is not even lit . It is known as dark fiber .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_fiber

What would be best is for the ppl to do an end around the greed matrix .

Make a Internet Cooperative, some already exist now and are doing well .

http://www.coop.net/ and http://www.ncic.net/

As tax payers we paid $200 billion USD in taxes to the major telcos to deploy
fiber to every major US city, we were defrauded, the details are here :

http://www.newnetworks.com/ShortSCANDALSummary.htm

If we want internet access like a regulated utility, but without the the government
screwing it up, our best option is a Coop .

A good example of this banking and insurance wise is USAA for military ppl .

When power was deregulated in california it just ended up a giant mess .

The FCC has been manipulated by companies like sprint that tried their best to
keep the GSM cellular system used by the rest of the world out of the US
so their proprietary version could maintain a monoply .

This is common knowledge among those that worked in Telecom, and there
are other examples of the corporations using strong arm tactics and
lobbyists to get what is best for their bottom lines .

When lobbyists and corporate greed mold the policy for our telecom
system nationwide it will not be in the best interest of the ppl at large,
just the largess of a corrupt few, like the piece of crap CEO from global crossing .

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/2/11 /184102.shtml

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/2/11 /161838.shtml

http://www.newsmax.com/scripts/showinside.pl?a=200 2/2/12/92546

Millions and billions of dollars just pissed away due to greed, corruption,
and poor management of resources . The status quo is not getting it done right .

Ex-MislTech

Take it a step further, the American ppl had their tax money stolen to
the tune of 200 billion of which the broadband providers did not deliver
on their promise ON TOP OF the higher bills we pay for it than
other places of the world .

http://www.newnetworks.com/ShortSCANDALSummary.htm

Either party may have a grand idea, but when the corporate vultures
are circling its your carcass they want .

Greed knows no morality or ethics, and it does not have your best
interest in mind either .

Ex-MislTech

We not only have a RIGHT, there needs to be a serious flock of fatcat TELCO GOONS go to jail over this. This makes Enron look like a lemonade stand stickup.

SCREW you corporate shills and apologists! We are SICK of you freaking thieves and liars!

Then the "owners" of that infrastructure start yelling, "It's mine, mine, all mine. I'm a greedy little miser."

Wow, I couldn't have said it better . It all about the money .

This proves the Telcos motives => http://www.newnetworks.com/Scandalreslease13006.ht m

I think a Co-op is needed, basically all ppl that want internet services get together and
start funding locally controlled metro LAN's .

It could be part Fiber, part Wireless, and part Ethernet .

It would not be controlled by any government, but instead by the community of users
with online voting on issues as to its deployment .

Ppl that have expertise in the field could donate their time for credits of usage .

Cost of implementing and maintaining and growing would be public knowledge, and it
would be a zero profit entity except for any ppl that actually became employees of it .

Offer internships to college students to work on it, and help make it happen .

A grass roots effort, but with over sight by experts that work in the are of expertise .

I have setup ppl with Wifi that share it with their neighbors securely .

I have setup ethernet in dorm rooms and apartments .

I worked for a company that implemented the first stages of Internet2 in public schools .

The dark fiber between cities could be purchased by the Co-op and thus cities start to
bridge the cost of long haul carriers .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_fiber

Ex-MislTech

I'm sorry, but no one has the right to have broadband.

While your statement has some truth, it is also like saying why don't we do away with
municipal libraries . If people want books they can buy them !!!

You may be thinking I have taken this too far as a case and point, but here is why
you may have that perception, your own personal usage of the Internet .

Some people do their homework via the web, some do business via the web, some do research and our send e-mail instead of letters . The internet is slowly replacing the way we do a lot of things .

We can print thousands of text books for school, or we can make it a torrent on the net .

We can print millions of voting cards, or we can make it an encrypted multi-point user
verified voting system that works much better than the current corporate model .

We can pay per minute voice charges, or we can use VoIP .

We can pay postage on each e-mail we send , or we can mass e-mail all our family members photos of our newborn child, wedding, or graduation .

We can choose to realize its fiber with light pulses being turned on and off and using
VERY little electricity, or we can say it costs TWICE as much to send 2 meg as it does 1 meg .

We should all easily realize the cost of sending 2 meg of data vs. 1 meg of data is not simply double all expenses .

Why did an OC-3 from chicago to washington cost 3 million per month in the late 90's ???

I understand recouping the cost of implementation, but that OC-3 was but one virtual channel
of many signals being sent down a DWDM fiber line that was a OC-192 as a single strand
of fiber that had been laid for long distance phone calls over a decade before .

The glass and putting it in the ground had long been paid for .

$36 million USD a year for less than 2% of the pipe means that the pipe would make them over 50 times that a month at that rate, roughly 1.8 billion .

They never laid just single strands, they laid bundles of multiple strands .

But we must recognize one pricing scheme of long haul fiber, quadruple the bandwidth, half the price per Mbit cost .

But then you come to the consumer, the more you want the more we are going to charge .

Also consider the dark fiber situation ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_fiber

Some areas have 30 times the fiber they need , and it just sits dark and has for years .

With better and better DWDM and other compression technologies this just becomes even more pronounced .

US taxpayers shelled out $200 Billion, yes billion, not million , to the major Telcos
for a deployment of fiber to all homes in the US .

This is what we got => http://www.newnetworks.com/Scandalreslease13006.ht m

The telcos much like bernie ebers of WCOM are nothing but a bunch of corrupt , crooked
scam artists , and my uncle worked as a union steward for one for 30 years, so
I have heard ALL the inside dirt from SBC .

I got one word for the corporate whoring of the internet ..."scum"

Other countries who were further behind us are now far ahead of us, and citizens have 100 Mega-bit fiber to their homes for reasonable prices .

In the country that made the internet possible our corporate pimps are too wrapped in
greed, and our politicians take 200 billion of tax payer dollars from us to give to the
corporate pricks to just screw us all and want more money thru .... "Tiered Internet"

Excuse me but this is Horseshit ... Once again greed wins .

Ex-MislTech

Starting in the early 1990's, with a push from the Clinton-Gore Administration's "Information Superhighway", every Bell company -- SBC, Verizon, BellSouth and Qwest -- made commitments to rewire America, state by state. Fiber optic wires would replace the 100-year old copper wiring. The push caused techno-frenzy of major proportions. By 2006, 86 million households should have had a service capable of 45 Mbps in both directions, (to and from the customer) could handle over 500 channels of high quality video and be deployed in rural, urban and suburban areas equally. And these networks were open to ALL competition.

In order to pay for these upgrades, in state after state, the public service commissions and state legislatures acquiesced to the Bells' promises by removing the constraints on the Bells' profits as well as gave other financial perks. They were able to print money -- billions of dollars per state -- all collected in the form of higher phone rates and tax perks. (Note: each state is different.)

Screw AT&T and all the other so-called bandwidth providers if they think I'm going to fork over any more money then I am currently paying.

Ya see, here in the Great White (as in snow) North Canada, I pay a premium price for unlimited downloads. Regular and basic plans have capped monthly limits.

I just can't see how the US government or more importantly the rest of the planet would allow these modern day robber barrons to create this tiered system. That would be like my cable company charging me $10 a month because I watched 100 more reruns last month.

And speaking of my cable company, how would local telcos charge for this "extra" bandwidth? Their pipe isn't going to get any bigger so its not a quantity issue or are they simply going to be tollgates for "priority traffic". Which is probably the case which means its NOT a bandwidth issue, its a money grab.

I think its rather timely that the $200 Billion Broadband Scandel is being released.

http://www.newnetworks.com/broadbandscandals.htm

$200 Billion Dollar Broadband Scandal, is a powerful critique that outlines a truly massive case of fraud. The Bell Companies (Verizon, SBC, Qwest, and BellSouth) used trickery and deceit to swindle the U.S. out of a promised 45mbps internet connection. They collected billions of dollars in regulatory fees, and now they are attempting to commoditize the Internet. Kushnick's book uses stunning detail to expose this treachery with accuracy and thoroughness.

You silly Murickans....

As a resident of the Commonwealth, I once again take my shoes off to our elected officials willingness to tax us directly and indirectly to subsidize Verizon. Remeber the sweetheart, multi-billion dolar tax breaks they got to roll out high-speed (10's og Mbit/s) broadband, then stuck us with DSL?

http://www.newnetworks.com/Libertybellstolen.htm

Sheesh! Pennsylvania (aka Pennsyltucky) is Philly and Pittsburg with Alabama in between. If you've ever seen our legislature in session, the bib overalls might clue you in as to how technically savvy those guys are.

Even my own rep. LOVES Verizon. I attended a breakfast Q&A he held, and asked about the Broadband deal and why the legislature amended the requirements for Verizon at MY expense. He got pissed and started bitching to the masses about how he gets all sorts of mail critical of Verizon, but he thinks they are just great. He also "explained" that it would have cost Verizon huge amounts of money to roll out fiber to rural and mountainous areas that don't need it.

So, I asked what the taxpayers got for all that money because Verizon just provided DSL over existing copper. Next question, please!

it makes it easy for big corporations with deep pockets to keep the little guy from being a nuisance/competitor

It's much more than that. Often, "big corporations" aren't the licensees of the data; smaller entities are (such as is the case in many state data distribution contracts, e.g. DMV databases which are auctioned off like radio spectrum in an irresponsible manner). Subsequently, the "evil big corporation" matter is a red herring. We need to keep the eye on the fundamental - the government's aspiration to implement a Stationer's register system that requires the authority of the crown in order to access public information. Imagine the absolute power politicians will have in defining who can and cannot see public records.

Per the original post's critique link:

H.R. 3261 ...would create a new federal property right in online and offline databases (collections of information), and give the federal courts power to police the use of information in databases.

This is much more than a theft of public information (again, mirroring the FCC's approach to spectrum auctions). Much of this government information is necessary for ensuring compliance. Imagine, for instance, if driving laws were maintained in a Federal database, but access to that database required a $25,000 annual fee.

Failure to have access to this database would result in recurring noncompliance; e.g. making normal citizens recurring lawbreakers.

Certainly many politicians aspire to extend a political system that ensures all citizens are lawbreakers and subsequently dependents upon the system. Concealing public information which is necessary for legal compliance is a terrible move towards tyranny.

H.R. 3261 would allow federal courts to impose stiff penalties if someone uses information from a database that a corporation claims to own.

Almost sounds like it was written by Kafka:

"I'm sorry sir, but to divulge what crime you have been charged with, absent proper licensing and permitting of your access to the Federal crimes database, would be a crime of itself. Certainly you wouldn't wish to compound matters, would you?"

Incidentally, I see that Rep. Billy Tauzin, known as the loyal Representative from BellSouth, is a cosponsor of this bill. Good rule of thumb: if Billy's involved, it's probably not on the level.

*scoove*

You can read about many of the other scams the teleco's are in at TeleTruth. Some quotes from their front page:

"Teletruth estimates that customers paid Verizon Pennsylvania $785 per household for a fiber-optic service they will never receive."

"50% of All Small Business phonebills have mistakes. ---And that's why we have announced our "Send Us Your Phone Bill" campaign in the Verizon territory to help business and residential customers recover overcharges on their Verizon telephone bills."

Also if you have a lot more time than I do you can read "The Unauthorized Bio of the Baby Bells" and How The Bells Stole America's Digital Future. Excerpt from the latter:

"New Networks Institute (NNI) estimates that consumers have already paid over $45 billion in extra telephone charges, and continue to pay over $8 billion annually. As monopoly providers of local phone service, the Bells are still subject to some regulation, yet they are among the most profitable companies in America today. Bell profit margins are more than double that of the major competitive long distance companies and other regulated utilities and literally 167% above the profit margins of some of America's best-known companies. Much of this excess profit is a result of the financial incentives that were supposed to build the infrastructure for America's digital future."

The guy behind all this is Bruce Kushnick. I've yet to find any one claiming he's anything but on the level. If you have please email me.

My blog post about this

Have you looked at Teletruth's filings which explicitely point out how Verizon specifically got taxpayers to pay for upgrades which haven't even happened, yet are still being paid for? Read the rest of the stuff on that site, too... it's very educational.

Besides, why would you say the ILECs is doing so poorly right now? They're certainly not tanking like some industries, and although the general telecom isn't doing so well, that's also counting in things like the paging market (flying downward) and all the third-party DSL providers.

Yes, they're laying people off... they're also paying huge bonuses to their CEOs.

Have you looked at Teletruth's filings which explicitely point out how Verizon specifically got taxpayers to pay for upgrades which haven't even happened, yet are still being paid for? Read the rest of the stuff on that site, too... it's very educational.

Besides, why would you say the ILECs is doing so poorly right now? They're certainly not tanking like some industries, and although the general telecom isn't doing so well, that's also counting in things like the paging market (flying downward) and all the third-party DSL providers.

Yes, they're laying people off... they're also paying huge bonuses to their CEOs.

Can these companies be held liable under the RICOH act? In essensce, what they are doing is extorting the people of these states? They are demanding huge sums of money in order to provide broadband service.

I don't think it's really extortion, since it's unlikely they would build out broadband if they _did_ have exclusivity on their lines. Here's why:

The bells have copper going everywhere. It's very expensive to run new cables places, even without right-of-way considerations. That huge expense is the reason that it took so long for many cable companies to offer broadband in many areas (Cablevision still doesn't offer it in all their areas, I think). If you don't already have right-of-way, it's extremely unfeasible to run new cables. That's why the telecomm act required the bells to share their lines in the first place.

So, assuming for the moment this passed... why would the bells bother developing a new broadband network? Once they have exclusive use of those lines, what competition is forcing them to invest the money... rather than just jacking up the prices?

As Teletruth shows bells have defaulted on their promises in the past, choosing to rake in profits from their existing infrastructure rather than invest in new (expensive) work, even when they're allowed to charge for the infrastructure work!

You might say that cable modems are the competition that would drive them to invest, but so far the only response I've seen from Verizon is a bunch of ads telling how much worse cable modems are, while their service is the same price but slower, and not even available for my apartment. (6-year old construction, too... not like we were in an old neighborhood or something.)

Either way the legislation goes for the bells, I doubt their customers have to worry about seeing broadband any time soon.

Kevin J. Martin was sworn in as an FCC commissioner on July 3, 2001. He was a Bush aide, serving as Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and also worked on the Bush campaign as Deputy General Counsel. He has an extensive legal background and is seen as the swing vote on the FCC

His recent comments ("Priority I: A Regulatory Environment that Encourages New Investment") imply that the deregulating the incumbents is largely a matter of degree: not "if" but "how much."

In the short term there will certainly be fallout as a result of this decision, as the marginal players benefiting from mandated low network access rates are squeezed out. In the longer term, I believe that this will spur innovation and create jobs at equipment suppliers (Alcatel, Lucent, ...) -- as the incumbents' capital expenditures begin to increase because they're confident of reaping the benefits of their investments.

Yeah, that's it. That's the ticket. Coincidence.
Billy boy has nothing but good intentions
for the telco user. Really. He's as pure as dial-tone.

Natural monopolies, as long as there's oversight and consumer protection, can work.

In that case, you should ask your Congressperson to oppose Tauzin-Dingell. One of its provisions is that neither the FCC nor state governments would be allowed to regulate broadband -- Verizon and friends would be answerable solely to Congress.

At least, that's according to a few of their opponents.

http://www.newnetworks.com

It has all kinds of links to good stories on Broadband Issues, each of which would be worthy submissions to SlashDot.

enjoy!

Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip

How the Bells stole America's Digital Future

and

The Bell's Broadband Failures

Its far too simplistic to blame the CLECs, since the only thing that the old Bell companies have done since the deregulation act of '96 is consolidate in the hopes to buy back their old monopolies.

Also, for clarification, the RBOCs didn't buy those facilities. We, the customer and CAPTIVE ratepayers bought those facilities lock, stock and barrel. The RBOCs haven't spent dime one on those facilities for ages. Did we have a CHOICE when we bought our phone lines or T1s? No, we didn't. If you ask me, I think it'd be damn funny to make the ILECs and the RBOCs pay for those facilities now.