The ALEC Destructive ProCorporate TeleCom Agenda

If you don't watch "Revolution" on NBC Monday nights - you should at least one night - to see what happens when there is no power available to the 99% for daily living.  Along with the issue of lack of power the show also demonstrates what happens in a world without available communication lines. Think about being totally cutoff for a week, a month, a year, a decade because electricity is not available to run the internet and cell phones don't work.  Wouldn't it be nice to have an optional communication technology available - such as landline phones, which don't depend on electricity or the internet.

Awhile ago I wrote about how ALEC legislation was going to leave those in the far reaches of Kentucky without phone service.  I stressed in that entry that people are ignoring the issue of landlines - cause they don't have a landline or know what a landline is - which is so short-sighted and myopic (as you will see if you watch Revolution).

For those of you who don’t have a landline phone,  please be aware that in some places in the US there is no cell coverage so landline coverage is needed and also some people can’t afford the outrageous costs of cell phones – land lines being the more economical option for them.  That being said – don’t’ write this off – just cause you don’t’ have a landline phone – cause there are a lot of people who depend on landline phones – so this IS important.

(My emphasis throughout)

“This is part of a national strategy by ALEC to advance a pro-corporate agenda at the expense of consumers,” James Browning, regional director of state operations for Common Cause, said in a statement. “We’ve seen the destructive impact these measures have had in other states. AT&T should not be allowed to get away with it here in Connecticut.”

Browning said the three bills — SB888, HB6401 and HB6402 — closely resemble model legislation ALEC’s legislative template used in 20 other states where telecommunications regulatory overhaul has occurred. In 17 of those 20 states, telecommunications rates have increase, and in some cases, the cost of service has doubled.

Coalition members contend that the bills would allow AT&T to eliminate local landline service in unprofitable areas on short notice. The groups say that 1.34 million Connecticut residents still rely on landline service.

“If AT&T is allowed to drop service in unprofitable areas at their sole discretion, if they’re allowed to let service outages drag on for weeks with no consequences, if they’re allowed to jack up rates — of course they will,” Daniel Ravizza of Connecticut Citizen Action Group said in a statement. “‘Trust me’ is not a good enough guarantee for Connecticut consumers.”

Trust me is not good enough!

Lindsay Farrell the executive director of Connecticut Working Families, said that "whether it's because of the storms or the deregulation of energy rates, we know that we can't just trust the utilities to take care of us on their own."

Corporations are interested ONLY in generating profit - they are NOT interested in customer needs or customer service.
    Corporations are interested ONLY in generating profit
    - they are NOT interested in customer needs or customer service.
   In fact - most of them are now charging you an additional fee
   - just to talk to customer service - think about that - really, really
    think about that!!!  
   They are charging you to provide YOU with  plain old customer service
    - that is outrageous!
Corporations are interested ONLY in generating profit - they are NOT interested in customer needs or customer service.

This press release concided with a new report on ALEC's destructive anti-consumer policies
Read it >>>>HERE<<<<

Think about this,

From Hurricane Sandy

For several days after Hurricane Sandy, Donna Cardillo struggled to make contact with the outside world.

At her home in Wall Township, N.J., which was hit hard by the storm, wireless service failed, rendering her cellphone useless. She also lost power, causing her Internet-based landline to go dead.

But just a few miles away, her parents, who are in their 80s, had no problems communicating. They could make and receive calls during the power outage because they still rely on an old form of technology: a corded telephone that runs on copper wires.

"It was really a lifeline for my parents," Cardillo said.

The divide between Cardillo and her parents after the storm illustrates one of the major concerns with the reliability of the new telecommunications infrastructure, consumer advocates say. Phone companies are phasing out their aging copper-line networks and moving customers to either wireless service or landline phones that run over the Internet.

The title of the article says it all - "AT&T, Verizon Phase Out Copper Networks, 'A Lifeline' After Sandy"

Wireless and internet – for some, not economically possible
But it gets even better - or I should say worse!

Four months after Hurricane Sandy flooded the streets of lower Manhattan, 94 businesses in the area are still lacking phone and Internet service, according to a new report by the Alliance for Downtown New York. (There are 1,082 retailers overall.) The outages have prevented them from taking delivery orders or swiping credit cards.

SNIP

Yet the flooding caused by Sandy destroyed 95 percent of Verizon's landline network in lower Manhattan, and the company is still working to replace its aging copper phone lines, which were badly damaged, with new fiber-optic cables that it says will provide faster Internet service and be more resilient to future floods. 

 That article was written in February - It is now almost Arpil and they still don't have phone service.

"replace its aging copper phone lines, which were badly damaged, with new fiber-optic cables that it says will provide faster Internet service"

To provide faster internet service (and VOIP phone service) - the hell with any other type of  phone service.

And if you go back to  the article just before this - internet service which is dependent on electricity - went dead in an emergency, cell service went dead in and emergency,  while the copper landlines were still functional.

This is what happens when your state legislators and public officials are in bed with Corporate members of the American Legislative Exchange Council.

They facilitate the push of telecom technologies that are not reliable in an emergency, rather than looking out for the needs of their citizens and constituents - using ALEC distributed legislation.

Your state legislators and public officials listen to the corporations - but not to the citizens who have for years been continuously complaining about the horribly poor call quality of VOIP (internet based) phone service.

From the first article:

“This is part of a national strategy by ALEC to advance a pro-corporate agenda 

at the expense of consumers,”

And from the third article
"The divide between Cardillo and her parents after the storm illustrates one of the major concerns with the reliability of the new telecommunications infrastructure, consumer advocates say. Phone companies are phasing out their aging copper-line networks and moving customers to either wireless service or landline phones that run over the Internet."

It's time for us to stop blindly following the technologies that the telecoms are pushing,
technologise that are poorer quality that what we had,
much more expensive that what we have paid in the past and
less reliable in the long run.

This is what happens when your state legislators and public officials are in bed with Corporate members of the American Legislative Exchange Council, rather than looking out for the needs of their citizens and constituents.