ALEC's - Screw the Broadband Consumer Legislation

Background.

From InsideALEC November 2009

In furtherance of these principles, the Telecommunications Regulatory Modernization Act model legislation preserves intact state public utility commission jurisdiction over areas where continued public interest oversight remains appropriate— such as 911, universal service, deaf relay services, dialing parity and codes, and subjects delegated by federal law—while permitting regulated carriers to choose to opt into an alternative regulatory structure wherein they:

SNIP

• Are permitted to offer all other services (including other wireline telecommunications, wireless, VoIP, broadband, Internet, advanced, or other services) without state public utility commission oversight;

Well folks - they are hard at work getting this legislation passed to help the ALEC Profit/Private Sector members of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and as always - screw the consumer.

From the Progressive Network.

Excellent report with lots of excellent links in their story that help you to understand the whole issue and the disastrous affect of ALEC “model” legislation – my emphasis in the snips below.

States Fight ALEC-Inspired Deregulation of Internet Services

As has been reported in a few key places, including by Progressive States Network, a spate of destructive broadband bills has been sweeping across the country, spurred on by the corporate-backed American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Unbelievably, just as broadband Internet becomes an essential tool for millions of Americans, these states, following the pattern of the model ALEC bill, are making moves toward depriving states of any power to ensure reliable, competitive, and affordable service that serves all state residents — from small businesses to those on the other side of the digital divide. The companies behind these bills want the ability to choose to serve only the locations and the individuals that yield the greatest profits. It is simply not smart governance to leave state authorities without the power to ensure everyone can use such a critical asset.

Without data, states will not know about emerging problems or be able to evaluate whether needs are being met.

Many of these bills take the approach that any service which uses "internet protocol" (called "IP") should be deregulated. Such a proposal sounds like it might only impact a handful of the most cutting edge services. The problem? Pretty much every communications service you can imagine uses IP — including emergency services, video services, and even telephone service.

These sweeping actions that deprive states of oversight also raise serious questions about states' ability to ensure that all of their residents will benefit from broadband. At the same time that broadband is emerging as the key method by which states deliver benefits to their residents, we face dramatically lower broadband usage among low-income communities and communities of color.

And in addition to the article above – you have the following statement that shows how these bills can hurt you and workers.

CWA disagrees and feels that the bill would hurt both consumers and workers.

“The three main things that current telephone regulation covers are affordability, access and consumer quality. Under this legislation, if your VoIP phone breaks, good luck with that. If there is a long storm and lots of outages, there won't be any consequences if they don't fix the network,” Sikora says. “Better quality means more work for CWA members fixing telephones. If you can’t regulate VoIP, it’s a very big deal for CWA members' interests, which aligned with our customer’s interest.”

Another example of the "more for corps" legislation that ALEC legislastors are passing.

ALEC legislators think the needs of the Corporations are more important than people.

PLEASE DO NOT re-elect or elect ALEC legislators in November.