Annotated Version
NOTE: This was written in 2001 by New Networks Institute with a team of lawers and analysts and was used as a frameworkd for a proposed legislation by Congressmen Nadler in 2002. It never made it out of committee but it is the foundation of what Net Neutrality rules are trying to accomplish. In 2004-2005, the FCC closed the networks to direct competition. It is time to reopen them---If your ISP blocks or slows down your service, or raises your rates, you should have a choice to go some somewhere else
For a complete history see the new book:
"The Book of Broken Promises: $400 Billion Broadband Scandal & Free the Net"
The Original Text:
On this fifth Anniversary of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, it is clear that the dream of its creators - to deliver lower prices for local phone services, and speed up the deployment of advanced networks - is still a mirage for the overwhelming majority of America's phone customers. And recent events all point to a serious crisis in telecommunications and broadband deployment.
The facts are clear - The Baby Bells are still monopolies, and they are unfairly using their market dominance and control of the local phone networks to close out DSL and local telecom competition. Also, their longstanding promises to deploy advanced network services and facilities remain unfulfilled, even though the Bells were able to leverage these promises to hold onto high retail rates from the inflationary '70s and '80s, resulting in massive Bell profits over the last decade - and continuing today.
We believe the Bells' practices are harming America's economic growth, not to mention phone and DSL customers. It is time to enforce the Telecom Act - and amend it if need be - and not let the Bells kill America's Broadband Future.
This document sets out the "Broadband Bill of Rights" - statements of law and policy that are to some extent already inherent in state and federal telecommunications law, but which seem to have been lost in the shuffle of Bell mega-mergers and unceasing Bell efforts to stonewall local competition. These rights should be reaffirmed by state and federal legislators and regulators, and should be implemented immediately. This statement of rights was created with the help of Joe Bruce Kushnick, Executive Director of New Networks Institute, Joe Plotkin, Director of Marketing/DSL, Bwaynet, two respected Washington lawyers who shall remain nameless, George Mason, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine.
Telephone users - consumers and businesses - have the inalienable and unencumbered right to broadband access via the local phone networks to all areas of the public Internet, including the World Wide Web.
ANNOTATION: From the customer perspective, the roll out of DSL has been a nightmare. Imagine going into a store to order a toaster and you are told "We are not sure that the toaster is in stock. We don't know if we can order it for you. It may take months before we can tell you whether we will ever have the model you want available." In short, there are NO guarantees that the service is available in your area, or that the service will be available anytime soon.
The major problem is that DSL goes over the old copper wiring and, for the most part, it is not being sufficiently upgraded. Many customers are told there are "NO Facilities", meaning that even in prime New York City areas, including Silicon Alley, in the epicenter of New York's High Tech area, the phone company has not upgraded its networks properly to supply adequate services.
There are also distance problems. If you live over 15,000 feet from a central office, (which is a network aggregator of phone services in a neighborhood) today, you cannot get ADSL.
The irony of this situation is that in many states the Bells had promised to deploy "fiber-optic" services to the entire state --- including customers homes, offices, schools and libraries. Though there has been some fiber added to the network, DSL is not compatible with fiber-optics--- and the Bells never fulfilled their plans to rewire homes or offices with fiber, which would have given America an entirely higher standard of broadband.
Telephone users have the right to a competitive environment which gives them real choices as to the provider of broadband access and the technical means used to provide such access, including:
- Choice of speed and product (SDSL, ADSL, T-1, etc.)
- Choice of vendor (Local ISP, National ISP, CLEC, Building-CLEC, ILEC, Cable MSO, etc.)
- Choice of technology or platform (cable modem, DSL, wireless)
ANNOTATION: Today, the competitors are the only companies offering DSL that is essentially two-way. The Bell companies offer "ADSL": the "A" stands for Asymmetric, meaning one-way---i.e.; the speed to from the customer to the network is much slower. Therefore, if competitors have trouble in delivering service, then the only choice in an area may be the Bell's ADSL service.
Telephone users have the right to a rapid, trouble free installation of physical infrastructure for broadband access, and the right to substantial monetary compensation from any provider who imposes on the user's time and patience by failing to provide such an installation.
ANNOTATION: The installation of DSL has proven to be a nightmare. Many of the installations can take weeks-or even months. On the competitive side, the problems that the Internet provider or Competitive DSL provider face when placing an order are even more severe. Surveys of ISPS have revealed that the Bell rarely fulfills orders on a timely basis. Worse, about 50% of all orders in New York can go into the 'ozone', where the installation can take months. A common problem is a "NO Show", where the Bell misses the appointment without contacting anyone they will not show up. Sometimes the installer is not prepared to do the installation on the date. In short, an order can have multiple incidences that delay their installation for months, not days. To read about the problems Internet Providers face See: http://www.newnetworks.com/isptexasnysruvey.html
Today, there are no laws that fully protect customers or competitors from this type of monopoly abuse --- the abuse being that the monopoly can not fulfill its obligations to do an installation in a timely and reasonable manner.
Telephone users have the right to expect facilities to be available for broadband access, even where the telephone company has to build new wiring to meet their needs.
ANNOTATION: We believe that customers should have a guaranteed right to broadband services, regardless of whether they live in an urban or rural area.
Telephone users have the right to receive accurate and timely information from their broadband supplier, including:
- A transparent system and user-friendly system to determine service availability so consumer can make reasonable choices about what services to order.
- Easy and user-friendly access to accurate information regarding the state of the particular supplier's physical infrastructure that will be used to provide service.
ANNOTATION: Today, there are no available databases to tell either the customer or the competitor whether the Bell can supply service. In New York, the current status is that only 16% of all lines have adequate information about their condition and availability… and this situation seems to be identical to other regions of the USA.
Every telephone user has the right to high-speed connections with a 99% reliability rate. Barring extreme circumstances such as floods or ice storms, broadband service outages should be extremely rare, and extremely brief when they occur. Every telephone user has the right to rely on broadband service for essential and time-sensitive personal communications, 24x7x365.
ANNOTATION: Today, there are no guarantees that that once the service has been installed it will not go out for hours… days, or even weeks.
Every telephone user has the right to have broadband services repaired in full no later than the day after the outage is reported. Providers of broadband services have the obligation to have enough people ready and able to make repairs that meet this requirement, and the obligation to have the automated systems in place to rapidly pinpoint problems so that repair people can be quickly and properly deployed. Where a repair requires a visit to the customer's home or business, the customer has a right to a firm commitment from the provider that the repair people will arrive and complete their work within an agreed four-hour window - seven days a week - and a right to real monetary compensation from the provider if this obligation is not met.
ANNOTATION: Today, there are no guarantees that a customer service representative from the phone company will get back to a DSL customer in a timely manner. DSL does not have equivalent rights. Also, today a customer can wait home all day without an installer coming.
We are proposing that the standard for regular phone services also applies to Broadband. Also, we believe that new standards need to be implemented for all services. We believe the Bell should be required to come to an installation or repair within a four hour window of the appointment, seven days a week… i.e., a customer can set a four hour timeframe for the Bell company to show up and do the repairs or installation… on a seven day a week basis.
Also, we believe that ALL phone customers should have the right to reach a live customer service rep on a 24-hour, seven-day a week basis. Believe it or not, in many states the Bells are still allowed to run their customer services only on 9AM-5PM schedules, with no Saturday or Sunday services. This is because the monopoly does not have rigorous competition to change this.
Every telephone user has the right to receive the broadband speed contracted for at least 95% of the time. "Network congestion" is not an explanation for why contracted-for speeds are not delivered: it is, and should always be treated as, an admission by the provider that it has failed to meet its obligation to deploy the facilities needed to deliver the services for which the customer has paid and that the provider has agreed to deliver.
ANNOTATION: When the Telecom Act was created, the Bell companies had stated they would deploy "broadband" services with a service speed of "45 megabits per second". In 1998, the FCC decided that broadband was only 200Kilobytes per second" in both directions --- about 225 times slower that the definitions that were in place and used to help shape the Telecom Act and numerous state laws. ADSL, in many versions, does not even qualify for even the lowest form of broadband because the return speed (from the customer to the network) is less than 200K
We believe that the FCC's snail's version of broadband needs to be examined in light of the previous promises, as well as expanded so that new technologies can be designed that will take advantage of usable faster speeds. By allowing the Bell companies to claim they are deploying broadband with a speed that was considered 'fast' in the 1980's, an entire generation of exciting new services is stifled and put on hold.
Also, in many cases, customers have found that the advertised speed is not being delivered, and we believe the companies should be held accountable for this their misleading advertisements. It is like ordering a SUV and getting a Yugo.
Every telephone user has a right to have all laws and requirements on the telephone company actively enforced. The telephone company should be required to make substantial monetary compensation to the customer for failures to perform as promised; for provider failures to arrive for installation or repair during the promised 4-hour window; and for any lack of network resources leading to customer services below the promised levels.
ANNOTATION: Today, if the Bell does not show up for an appointment, if they deliver inferior services, if they haven't upgraded their networks as necessary, or they if they harm competition, -- order by order -- there are virtually no penalties, fees, or any form of compensation paid to customers or competitors. Numerous lawsuits have had to be initiated. However, the overwhelming number of customers harmed do not have the resources to do anything about their problems. Worse, the state public service agencies, as well as the FCC, have done virtually nothing to fix the problems with DSL deployments, nor the harm to competition.
There are some standards for service that have been applied on a state by state basis. In many states, the Bell has been fined for overall poor performance of the current standards. However, this in no way helps the customer or competitor that has been harmed.
Therefore, we believe that customers and competitors should be compensated for the problems caused by the Bell companies. ALL customers and competitors are beholden to the monopoly to provide and receive services, and without compensation, there are no incentives to fix the problems in a timely or reasonable manner.
Telephone users collectively - the public - has the right to an immediate review of all previous Bell promises to deliver an "upgraded," "high-speed," "advanced," or "digital" network over the last decade. The public has a right to know why the Bells are still whining to Congress and regulators about still more hand-outs and special benefits they are demanding in exchange for providing "advanced" services and networks that should have been provided years ago under special regulatory and legislative deals struck in the late 1980s and 1990s. These immediate reviews of Bell failures to deliver on past promises must include an explanation of:
a. Why the Bells have failed to deploy advanced networks in a timely and reasonable fashion.b. How many billions of dollars the Bells have collected under "alternative regulation" and "incentive regulation" plans that were implemented in reliance on unfulfilled Bell promises to deploy optical fiber and offer high-speed services to consumers and small businesses.
c. Precisely how much money has been spent providing advanced facilities such as optical fiber for schools, libraries, hospitals, prisons, government agencies, residential customers, and business customers; how many actual customers in those categories have truly received any benefits from those expenditures; and how those expenditures and plant placements have supposedly benefited those customers.
d. The total network equipment write-offs the Bells have enjoyed for their copper and other telecom plant; a strict accounting of the tax benefits those write-offs have created; and an explanation of how and whether those tax benefits have been flowed through to the benefit of customers.
e. A detailed review of the Bells' actual telephone network plant in service and a true-up of that review with the FCC's audits finding that billions of dollars of plant - that for years was used to justify higher rates to customers, higher rates that persist today in the guise of "price regulation" based ultimately on inflated costs - simply does not exist.
f. A strict accounting of the tax benefits that the Bells have enjoyed by virtue of taking year of depreciation expenses on the non-existent plant revealed in the FCC's audits.
g. A detailed accounting to assure that Bell DSL services are not being cross-subsidized - to the detriment of entrepreneurial competitors - with inflated revenues received from consumers of basic services.
ANNOTATION: Most phone customers do not know that the Bells received massive financial incentives to roll out fiber-optic, advanced networks in the 1990's. The Bells' promised to wire literally half of American households by 2000, in exchange for "Deregulation" of its prices to customers. Unfortunately, they not only failed to deliver, be we estimate they already collected over $50 billion dollars in excess payments to date. These payments also included promises to wire schools and libraries, and in many states, separate funds were collected to pay for these activities. See: http://www.netaction.org/broadband/bells/
In most states there has never been a full audit of the monies already collected for advanced networks, and we believe the public is owed considerable rebates--- or the networks need to be deployed as promised.
Another point that is needs examination is the actual costs of the copper networks. The original plans for the advanced networks were to use "fiber-optic" wiring to the home. DSL goes over the existing phone networks and requires no rewiring. However, according to the Bell's annual reports, the Bells copper networks may have been already 'retired'--- thus the costs to customers should have been lower for ALL services, including DSL.
Also, audits of the Bell companies Commercial Property Records, conducted by the FCC found that the $5 billion dollars of equipment that was supposed to be in these networks was missing and an additional $14 billion was 'unverifiable' --- Thus the price of ALL phone and DSL services has been inflated.
And finally, DSL is supposed to be a 'competitive product" and customers are not supposed to be funding this product through higher phone rates. It is called "cross-subsidization" if the Bell is improperly charging customers so that they can offer their DSL or Internet products:
In short, America is owed a true-up -- an audit of All of the monies collected by the Bells for their advanced network promises, including schools and libraries, as well as an audit of the actual costs of the current copper networks. We believe this analysis will yield lower prices for all phone services, rebates to customers, as well as holding the Bells to obligations that they have never fulfilled.
Every telephone customer has the right to fair and competitive options for DSL service from multiple ISPs and CLECs, along with services from the ILEC. To secure this right, ILECs shall not enter into discriminatory sweetheart DSL deals - whether hidden behind "volume commitments," "preferential marketing arrangements," or otherwise - with affiliated ISPs or favored third parties.
ANNOTATION: Surveys of ISPs by New Networks Institute has revealed that services to the ISPs and CLECs are discriminatory, to the point of harming all competitive offerings. For example, in the case of ADSL, the wholesale prices to ISPs are predatory, meaning that the Bell's wholesale price leaves virtually no profits for the companies to offer the service. This same problem runs throughout the pricing to competitive CLECs as well. See:
Secondly, the Bell, because it controls the networks, can give its own customer better service, or sell them their own services before anyone else. A recent decision by the Kentucky Public Service commission found that BellSouth had harmed small ISPs. (Iglou Internet Services, Vs. BellSouth Telecommunications, Inc. Case No 99-484, 11/30/00 Page 11)
"… in regard to provision of DSL service in Kentucky, BellSouth has provided preferential and discriminatory service to itself to the detriment of other customers, specifically the small ISPs, in violation of KRS 278.170."
Without proper enforcement, there is little hope of a competitive market.
Telephone users have the right to prompt vindication of all of the rights enumerated here. They have not been fully secured even though it is five years from the passage of the Telecom Act of 1996. If these rights have not been fully secured one year from now - whether by reason of Bell dithering, litigation, lobbying or otherwise - then telephone users can fairly presume that monopoly control of local loops cannot safely be in the same hands of a company offering switching, long distance, or other services. Consequently, at that time state and federal regulators should promptly force the Bells to divest themselves of their local loop plant to a firm that should be jointly owned by all providers of local telephone service and jointly administered for the benefit of all customers, irrespective of their chosen service provider.
ANNOTATION: There is enough evidence to show that the Bells' monopoly of local services is stifling competition and the deployment out advanced network services. Divestiture II would require the Bell companies to be separated from the local phone monopoly--- the wiring and infrastructure would be either spun off as a separate company, or put in care by a third party, thus giving all competitors equal access--- as is mandated by the Telecom Act.
There have been numerous plans for this act discussed over the last decade, from New Networks Institute proposal in 1992, or those of Probe Research, MCI, or industry pundit, Dr. Robert Metcalfe.
"It's time to take matters into hand and sue the telcos for unfair practices", Infoworld, July 14, 1997
All of the above rights shall apply to residential and business customers, as well as their suppliers including: any Competitive Local phone companies (CLEC), Internet Service Providers, (ISPs) Network resellers, or other competitors to the local phone companies.
ANNOTATION: There is as 'chain-of pain' today--- the customer, the ISP and the CLEC must all get services from the Bell company. So, if a competitor has a problem, ultimately, the customer of that company is the loser because it is the customer's service that is being harmed or delayed. Therefore, all laws need to be 'inclusive' and make sure that the entire chain of customer, ISP and CLECs all have safeguards as dictated by the Telecom Act.
(c) 2001 New Networks Institute