Broadband Scandals, Broken Telecomm Promises, and Stolen Taxpayer Dollars
Up until recently I was pretty apolitical. But this whole RAPE of the US Taxpayer by the Telecomms has me so majorly pissed off that I’ve started watching what my legislators are doing (basically they’ve been up to no good, definitely voting for what’s best for the CORPORATIONS and not for what’s best for the PEOPLE.) I’ve been reading, I’ve been following a lot of different sources, and the bottom line just gets worse and worse.
The American people have been LIED TO for years by the Telecommunications Industry. Now we’re being lied to again. Even worse, our tax dollars, that were meant to build out that broadband network that the Telecomms are whining about, are now being spent on LYING TO US VIA MULTIMEDIA. And on LYING to our legislators via PAC funding.
Cory Doctorow said it best; “Internet companies already are paying for bandwidth from their providers, often the same companies that want to charge them yet again under their new proposals. And for these providers to be screaming for the protection of the free market is sheer hypocrisy–they themselves are creatures of government regulation, basing their business on government-granted extraordinary privileges . . . It’s a dumb idea to put the plumbers who laid a pipe in charge of who gets to use it . . . There are few industries that owe their existence to regulation as much as the carriers. These companies are gigantic corporate welfare bums, having received the invaluable boon of a set of rights-of-way leading into every basement in America. Phone companies have a legal right to force you to provide access to your home for their pipes. Try calculating what it would cost to get into every U.S. home without a regulator clearing your path, and you quickly realize that the carriers should be the last people complaining about the distorting effect of regulation on their business . . . The Bells and cable companies owe their existence to governmental largesse, and, while they’re profit-making private firms, they are, in effect, quasigovernmental organizations. A Bell that wants to get rid of regulation is about as practical as a cotton-candy cone that wants to get rid of sugar. Bells are nothing but a thin veneer of arrogance wrapped around a regulatory monopoly.”
Read the stories on Past and Present Telecomm lies:
Don’t let the service providers discriminate on the Internet
Common Cause Offers Astroturf Lobbying Hall of Shame
Telecom front groups and astroturf organizations unmasked by Common Cause
And, most importantly, Write to your Representatives and tell them to do the right thing. Save the internet.
Technorati Tags: Telecommunications Act of 1996, Broadband, Municipal Wifi, Network Neutrality, AT&T, Verizon, SBC, Bell South, QWest
