ALEC VOIP Legislation - Screws the USA

As you read this - think of the new TV show "Revolution"
'cause that is what is going to happen
     - when ALEC corporations control all the infrastructure
        in the United States through ALEC legislation.
When the TV's, radios, lights and phones finally go out and the US is filled with decaying and rotting infrastructure - you can thank the American Legislative Exchange Council for the fate of the US.

"Revolution" is what an ALEC Corporate Profit Sector United States looks like.  It is not fiction - it is our ALEC future - what the ALEC States of America WILL look like.
The United States of America burned and pillaged by US and multinational corporations - cause ALEC legislation/legislators protected the corporations, instead of the the nation.

(Comment up front  – I hate VOIP.  The transmission sucks compared to copper based systems.  Voice clarity sucks on VOIP.  VOIP is crappy technology that we are now –being FORCED to accept – because ALEC legislators are passing laws that take away our choices as consumers – because the ALEC telecomm corporations wined them, dined them at an ALEC meeting.  The telecomm companies also paid for ALEC legislators to fly to the ALEC meeting. The telecomm companies also paid for the ALEC legislators hotel room at the ALEC meeting usually  held at a luxurious hotel or posh resort.  They call it scholarships - I call it payola.)

Found an article this morning that is very easy to read

makes sense

and gets across CLEARLY the danger of the ALEC /AT&T/Verizon VOIP legislation.

If this legislation has not come to your state yet – it will – probably this session.

This ALEC legislation has flown under the radar and has been passed in many states already  – because most legislators and almost all citizens – don’t understand what VOIP is –

That new fangled technology – VOI-what?  ...  of course we have to support it by doing whatever the telecoms want – VOIP what??????????

Hurricane Sandy has accentuated why this is BAD legislation and this article articulated it fabulously.

For example, suppose the City of Los Angeles (which has had phone outages triggered by torrential rains before) looks at what happened in Hurricane Sandy and says “crap, we better get some safety standards in place that would let us make sure providers get phone service working again after a disaster.” They are – to use a highly technical term – “screwed.” S.B. 1161 prevents them. as a “political subdivision” of the State of California, from making any kind of regulation — including a public safety or emergency preparedness regulation — for any kind of IP or IP-enabled service.

Sure, Los Angeles (or California generally) can continue to regulate legacy telephone service.  But because Verizon and AT&T, California’s largest providers of traditional telephone service, are converting to all IP networks,  Californians are not going to have any kind of plain old telecom service (aka “POTS”) back up. In other words, California, all your current telecom-based emergency preparedness and coordinated disaster response is going to “bye bye!” What you will have in its place is whatever the private sector chooses to do, supplemented by whatever the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adds to it.

You, California, the largest state by population, the third largest by geography, the home of Silicon Valley, the sixth largest economy in the world, will have absolutely zero control over one of the core functions of government – making sure people can communicate in a crisis and restoring communications after the crisis is over. You cannot set response time standards. You cannot mandate that your network providers inform consumers when service will be restored. You cannot even make these guys develop any actual emergency plans. And why? Because your good buddies at ALEC   … 

Oh Senator Padilla, when will you ever learn that ALEC is not your friend? Well, maybe ALEC is your friend, but it is not really the friend of the People of California.

Every one

Every state

PLEASE

PLEASE

PLEASE

Read >>>>>THIS ARTICLE<<<<<<

and fight ALEC VOIP legislation!!!!

(BTW – The real purpose of this legislation is to save telecoms money.  They will no longer have to maintain copper based systems – systems that many people still rely on to communicate with others!  Many rural and poor people can’t have / don’t have VOIP availability.  People get screwed and the telecoms are allowed to let their infrastructures decay  - just walk away  from their landline systems – just leave it where it is –the unmaintained infrastructure becomes someone else’s problem – taxpayer expense to clean up corporate trash.)

(Again, BTW – I hate VOIP.  The transmission sucks compared to copper based systems.  Voice clarity sucks on VOIP.  Crappy technology that we are now – all being forced to accept – because ALEC legislators are passing laws taking away our choices as consumers – to save corporations money.)