A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers

We were the survey firm and did the analysis for multiple ISP associations, and we worked with the indie ISPs and CLECs, as well as with Small Business Administration's Office of Adovcacy. In the 1990's, at least, there was no triple play. the cable companies had not offered voice, or even broadband with any seriousness. AT&T was an indie and started bundling local and long distance, and wireless wasn't even on the radar as a broadband service.

And we filed complaints with the FCC, AG and state commissions because about 40% of the orders placed by an independent didn't go through -- harming the ISP but also pissing off their customers https://newnetworks.com/baadslscrewisp.htm

And in 2001, we wrote an impact study, quoted by SBA about the lack of FCC enforcement, and the fact that the wired companies were stealing the ISP customers, that the orders weren't going through, that it took weeks to get orders, that there was preferential (illegal) treatment of the companies' own ISP,

https://newnetworks.com/smallbusinessimpactstudy.html

(these links still work....) And how bad was it for those seeking justice from the regulators? Dave Robertson, the head of the Texas ISP Association, recounted his recent meeting with Chairman Powell and senior staffers at the FCC Enforcement Bureau.

"The meeting was Tuesday May 8th. In a nutshell, all the "bad acts" submitted to them to date have resulted in exactly "ZERO" dollars in fines, and little delay in their 271 approvals for the Bells to jump into the long distance market. We asked for something blatant as handwriting on a wall as to the future of the complaint process as we are approaching it. We got it. WE SHOULD EXPECT NOTHING FROM THE INFORMAL COMPLAINT PROCESS. We should expect nothing from any complaints we have submitted to date.

"A couple of weeks ago we met with a senior person in the ENFORCEMENT BUREAU. After a one-hour meeting and receiving some heartfelt empathy for the plight of ISPs and the consumers who are being victimized by the illegal, anti-competitive behavior, I suggested that our best move might be to just jump out a window. He suggested we might want to consider throwing a chair out of the window first, so we wouldn't get cut on the glass as we jumped."

So, yeah, wireless and the triple play? -- had the networks been open, would the independent ISPs used the networks to offer these other services? AT&T and MCI at the time were large enough, as was AOL and other ISPs like Earthlink could have, probably would have.

I agree there was consolidation -- but, when the FCC got rid of line sharing and refused to address the litany of charges against the telcos who controlled the wires, -- but worse, the companies lied about deployments and took the money --didn't upgrade their networks to fiber as paid for by local phone customers --- we were put on a path where those who control the wires killed off most of the competition.

>Second, while the additional detail you've provided here is interesting, you really haven't engaged Rayiner's >central argument, which is that however many billions of dollars you're saying telcos were "given" to build >fiber, you're just counting dollars in their prices that you think are unreasonable. Which is not what people >people on HN typically mean when they cite this "200 billion dollar scandal".

Arrgh. While we did track price increases, which shouldn’t have happened as they were based on supposedly using the extra cash to upgrade their aging copper infrastructure --- we didn’t use price increases for our overall calculations

We examined multiple states' plans as well as the data that the FCC collected, as well as other groups that since stopped including NARUC, BEllCORE, and state and federal filings by the companies.

but-- I'll play... The incumbent utilities are regulated, because they control critical infrastructure, get use of the rights of way, and had requirements to deploy fiber--based on their own filings and commitments made.

READ THESE: we quoted other analysts Here’s testimony by ETI about Verizon PA fiber plans and monies collected – (ironically funded by AT&T against Verizon,-- before the networks were closed and AT&T and MCI were put up for sale and AT&T was taken over by SBC http://www.teletruth.org/docs/LLS%20PA%20Senate%20Testimony%... This is a scathing review of the first 5 years of the Verizon NJ ( Bell Atlantic – 1997) by the New Jersey consumer advocate. https://web.archive.org/web/20160429003841/http://www.rpa.st...

It’s clear no one has read the original source materials – We covered a) depreciation, b) return on equity, c) dividends paid d) extraneus deductions charged to the state, e) growth in lines, minutes, revenues, expenses, corporate operations expenses, marketing, employees, etc –

So, as a group the telcos took $25 billion in tax deductions when they claimed that they were replacing the copper… didn’t do it. The state freed their profits so nationwide it went from 12-14% Return on Equity to 29% on average—but they were still monopolies and no direct wireline or wireless competition. And again, this was supposed to be used for fiber. The overcharging, then was comparing the commitments against the excess billions the companies-state utilities- got from the changes in state laws was supposed to be used for construction, not buying companies overseas.

And when $200 billion was written, no telco had done the work but all got billions. FiOS and U-Verse were announced in 2004 specifically to close the networks—claiming it was harming investments – when, we, the people, were the investors, which the FCC, etc never recognized.