Teletruth News Alert: October 6th, 2008.
To read the Complaint: http://www.teletruth.org/docs/Teletruthforbearance.doc
Information about the Regulatory Flexibility Laws by SBA's Office of Advocacy
http://www.sba.gov/advo/laws/law_lib.html
More about the Data Quality Act:
http://www.fcc.gov/omd/dataquality/
Copy of the FCC's Forbearance Decision http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-08-203A1.doc
Should The FCC Be Allowed to Use Data from 1992, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, or 2002 for a Current Market Small Business Impact Study in 2008?
Teletruth Files a Data Quality Act Complaint, a Regulatory Flexibility Act Complaint and a Section 257 Complaint. --- The FCC's Bad Data Harmed Small Competitors in Every Aspect of Telecom, Broadband and Internet, Wireless, Spectrum, etc.
Every FCC Ruling Needs to be Re-Opened.
To read the backup materials and actual Complaints: (Pertaining to Dockets:
Dockets WC Docket No. 08-190, WC Docket No. 07-139, WC Docket No. 07-204,
WC Docket No. 07-273, WC Docket No. 07-21)
http://www.teletruth.org/forbearance.html
New York - Imagine reading the details of a new ruling by the FCC that
removes the requirements on AT&T, Verizon, Qwest and the other phone
companies for supplying data on customer quality of service or infrastructure
build outs among other items, and then you see this identical sentence
in 13 different paragraphs:
"…the majority of these firms are small entities that may be affected by our action."
But it gets worse. The FCC is required under the Regulatory Flexibility Act to essentially do a market impact study on how their current rulings will harm small competitors. Then imagine seeing this paragraph with information from 1997 to show that the current market is competitive:
"Wireless Communications Services: This service can be used for fixed, mobile, radiolocation, and digital audio broadcasting satellite uses... The Commission auctioned geographic area licenses in the WCS service. In the auction, held in April 1997, there were seven winning bidders that qualified as "very small business" entities, and one that qualified as a 'small business' entity."
You then go and examine each of these companies and find that most are no longer in business and these "small entities' were sold to large companies or went bankrupt --- some in 2000-2002. And the FCC has published information about these companies on their web site back then.
And as you go through this document you realize that virtually every paragraph is boilerplate - used in hundreds of FCC decisions and all a decade old --- and it impacts 54 different small business areas (or more.) Here's just a few of the market areas that will be impacted by the FCC's decision:
Markets Harmed: Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs), Competitive Access Providers , Shared-Tenant Service Providers and Other Local Service Providers, Local Resellers, Toll Resellers, Operator Service Providers (OSPs), Wireless Carriers and Service Providers, Wireless Telecommunications Carriers (except Satellite), Common Carrier Paging, Wireless Communications Services, Wireless Telephony, Broadband Personal Communications Service, Narrowband Personal Communications Services, 220 MHz Radio Service - Phase I Licensees, 220 MHz Radio Service - Phase II Licensees, Rural Radiotelephone Service, Wireless Cable Systems, 218-219 MHz Service, 24 GHz - Incumbent Licensees, 24 GHz - Future Licensees, Satellite Service Providers, Satellite Telecommunications, Cable and OVS Operators, Cable and Other Program Distribution, Open Video Services, Internet Service Providers, Web Portals and Other Information Services, Data Processing, Hosting, and Related Services, All Other Information Services, Internet Publishing and Broadcasting.
Teletruth today filed a Data Quality Act Complaint, a Regulatory Flexibility Act Complaint, a complaint alleging Section 257 of the Telecom Act violations, and comments for Dockets Docket No. 08-190, Docket No. 07-139, Docket No. 07-204, Docket No. 07-273, Docket No. 07-21
- The FCC should never have strip-mined any of the obligations of AT&T, Verizon, Qwest et al to supply data because the FCC has no clue about the current marketplace. We can say this because after going through the materials presented by the FCC in its "Initial Regulatory Flexibility Act" analysis, it is using data from 1992, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, and the latest appears to be 2006, even though, as we will show, the FCC has data that is much more current.
- Teletruth has filed repeatedly about the FCC's data quality and exactly how it has impacted the entire competitive markets in the US. It has allowed the FCC to create fictional, harmful regulations that are essentially biased towards the incumbent players.
- We believe that the FCC's decision using this flawed data has led to seriously flawed public policy that was both harmful to competitors, but also harmful to every residential and business telecommunications and broadband user in the form of higher prices, less choice and even a total lack of high-speed broadband that harmed the economy.
- This pattern of bad data permeates every current and past docket at the FCC for over a decade.
- The FCC violated the Regulatory Flexibility Act's basic tenet, which requires the FCC properly examine the impacts their rulings will have on small competitors.
- The FCC violates section 257 of the Telecom Act, which requires the FCC to make sure that the agency eliminates "market entry barriers for entrepreneurs and other small businesses in the provision and ownership of telecommunications services and information services, or in the provision of parts or services to providers of telecommunications services and information services."
- The FCC violates every tenet of the Data Quality Act. - The agencies' data is supposed to 'accurate'. Using data from 1992, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2005 for a marketplace that has dramatically changed is illegal and needs to be stopped. \
- The use of bad data is so pronounced and has created such harms that we recommend reopening many dockets for reexamination that follows the legal mandates of the Regulatory Flexibility Act, Data Quality Act and Section 257 of the Telecom Act.
Bruce Kushnick, Teletruth
bruce@teletruth.org
Tom Allibone, Teletruth
tom@teletruth.org
Kate Lynch, Teletruth board member
Kate@bway.net