Report: Verizon Claimed Public Utility Status To Get Government Perks

An anonymous reader writes "Research for the Public Utility Law Project (PULP) has been released which details 'how Verizon deliberately moves back and forth between regulatory regimes, classifying its infrastructure either like a heavily regulated telephone network or a deregulated information service depending on its needs. The chicanery has allowed Verizon to raise telephone rates, all the while missing commitments for high-speed internet deployment' (PDF). In short, Verizon pushed for the government to give it common carrier privileges under Title II in order to build out its fiber network with tax-payer money. Result: increased service rates on telephone users to subsidize Verizon's 'infrastructure investment.' When it comes to regulations on Verizon's fiber network, however, Verizon has been pushing the government to classify its services as that of information only — i.e., beyond Title II. Verizon has made about $4.4 billion in additional revenue in New York City alone, 'money that's funneled directly from a Title II service to an array of services that currently lie beyond Title II's reach.' And it's all legal. An attorney at advocacy group Public Knowledge said it best: 'To expect that you can come in and use public infrastructure and funds to build a network and then be free of any regulation is absurd....When Verizon itself is describing these activities as a Title II common carrier, how can the FCC look at broadband internet and continue acting as though it's not a telecommunication network?'"

Comments

Corruption

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, all these articles assume that the US government isn't run solely for the benefit of a handful of corporations. If there's evidence that it's not then I'd like to see it.

Re:Corruption

[postbigbang]

You ignore the public utility regulatory agencies of the 43 states that have them. This entire morass came after the TCA of 1998 and subsequent revisions of the FCC rules and regs brought on in the post Judge Greene rulings that initially broke up the Bell System.

Public utilities had to deal with all of these regulatory authorities, and then calculatedly lobbied to create US Federal control so that they'd only have to bribe-- I mean lobby and render campaign contributions-- to one target instead of so many. In-state vs Intrastate vs Interstate issues helped hold them to the floor.

NYC is not a regulatory authority. NY State is, as is the FCC, and to a smaller extent, the NTIA.

Decentralization was good for several reasons: rights of way and easements are local, even personal issues. These are last-mile issues. State issues concern everything from keeping infrastructure support fair and even (including low-profit/sparsely populated areas) to zoning policy, and so forth.

The FCC has evolved what was once called "data communications" as a separate classification, away from telephony. Now these things are the same, but the public's needs have evolved. Decentralization isn't so much meaningless as it's the ability to tailor historical infrastructure to locally evolving needs, and is better democracy.

  It's time to conflate consumer communications into a single mandate, IMHO. It has to service we consumers, whether in urban, suburban, or rural areas. Whether it's a text, phone call via wire or cell, or a browser session, it ought to have to meet a set of basic standards, where consumers have well-known and flexible rights.

Re:Corruption

[Karmashock]

This community is too smart not understand the virtues of decentralization in management systems.

Understand... I'm not trying to patronize you or slight you... just express my opinion here and hope you at least give it a look before rendering a judgement.

Here we go:

Think back to the old city states in Europe. Look at them in your mind on a map. Notice how at the center of each is a large capital city from which everything is run. Okay, note the history where in each of those powers going into nation states continually tried to expand. They'd eat far flung islands and various powers all over europe only to lose them again if they were too far from their base of power.

Note the continuing failure of those powers to hold on to anything that was more then about 500 miles from their capital city.

Then consider the great exceptions in this pattern... the colonial empires of Spain and England. Note that they had to employ a decentralized power structure because employing a centralized power structure was obviously impossible at that range. Notice how powers that previously were unable to hold on to things at more then 500 miles suddenly can hold on to things thousands and thousands of miles away.

Why? Decentralization. Limited autonomy.

Now consider the United States. The US is one of the largest countries in the world both by geography and population. Yet it holds together better then many powers a great deal smaller. Why is that?

There is a general lack of insurrection due to democratic and republican governmental forms. However, just as important is the state system where in local populations have a greater say in local administration then does the national system or people that don't actually live there. This ensures that government is more responsive to local issues, attentive to local sentiments, and that if there are conflicts of interest they tend to favor local interests rather then national interests. This helps bind the country together because there is less downside/cost to the union.

What breaks apart big countries is ultimately that the people in those countries decide it is in their interest to break up rather then stay together.

To help hold a union together, you want as much as possible for there to be few if any downsides to the union and as many upsides as possible. The instant it is more in the interest of a given portion of the country to break away then stay together you will have to hold a gun to their head to hold them there.

Holding that gun there is both expensive and unstable because the instant the gun comes off they'll likely slit your throat or equivalent.

Police states are very aware of this which is why they make a point of never putting the gun down. Examples of what happens when the gun gets put down would be the French revolution... bodies in the street, corpses hanging from rafters, and other fun stuff. A general explosion of violence against the authorities.

I'm going through all this just to explain my understanding of the basic political forces that hold large numbers of people together.

Now if you look at the US government, we have a federated system rather then a unitary government. That is, unlike France or England, the US has 50 states with limited autonomy as well as various territories that are afforded something of the same interdependence.

This is a hierarchical command structure. With lower and more localized elements given authority to make certain types of decisions independently while other nominally higher authorities are given responsibility over different decisions.

Ideally, you want the more localized systems to handle all problems that they reasonably can handle while those at the higher and more generalized level are left with either managing the interrelationships of these powers or dealing with miscellaneous problems that impact all the various states.

In effect, you want the localized systems to handle nearly everything themselves... really as much as you can pos

Law & Money

[Thanshin]

To expect that you can come in and use public infrastructure and funds to build a network and then be free of any regulation is absurd

To expect a government to take decisions based on reason, morality or legality is naive. In what regards corporations, the only law is money, the only lawyers are lobbyists and the only judges are (corrupt) politicians.

If Verizon has made about $4.4 billion in additional revenue in New York City alone, they clearly had enough to pay for a lot of campaigning, lobbying and bribery.

Re:blame Republicans for Robber Barons

[some old guy]

Bullshit. Money knows no party affiliation, and your sainted Democrats are equally as corrupt.

The only difference between the two faces of the Oligarch Party is the range of hot-button issues they use to create an illusion of real choice.

Re:Who has senators/congressmen on the committee?

[ALeavitt]

Verizon does.