One small town ISP in Texas has filed comments contradicting the story Verizon told the FCC.

[February 3, 2005]

A few days ago, not long before the comments deadline of February 8, 2005, Larry Summers, general manager of Brownwood, Tex.-based WTS Online, filed comments with the FCC. Summers is an ISP proprietor and familiar to many on the ISP-Lists as one who believes that the small businesses need to get together to fight the unfair business practices of big business, the RBOCs especially. You too can file, if you act now.

Summers was not the only ISP proprietor to file last week. Michael Bathrick, president of Pittsfield, Mass.-based Berkshire Net, also filed comments, available on the FCC website here [.pdf].

We reprint Summers' comments because they are an exhaustive look at the totality of the barriers the RBOCs raise to prevent local businesses from becoming ISPs. Summers' comments are available on the FCC website here [.pdf]. We reprint them below:

Reference: 04-440 Petition for DSL Forbearance by Verizon.

I am the General Manager and part owner of a small, rural Internet Service Provider in Brownwood, Texas. Because of Verizon business practices and predatory pricing as detailed herein, my company has lost roughly 20 percent of its business base and cash flow over the course of the past year. I have a wholesale contract with Verizon to resell DSL. I am not a awyer and for that reason, I am presenting my comments in essay format in opposition to Verizon's Petition.

1. Background

I remember when a modem was an acoustical coupler with a handset stuck in it that worked at about 300 baud. Thanks to legislation, regulation and the Department of Justice with Judge Greene presiding over the trial, AT&T and other Local Exchange Carriers had to open up their networks and AT&T was broken up into seven entities—now four—that were charged with the responsibility of operating local service and maintaining the wires.

Competition took it from there. As a matter of fact, competition was what divestiture was all about. Total monopoly over all telecommunications services was considered undesirable and against the national interest.

Yet at this time it should be obvious to even the most disinterested observer that the four Regional Bell Operating Companies have successfully embarked on a course to restore their monopoly powers and stranglehold on wire line telecommunications within their geographical territories. Given that the two largest cellular companies are owned by one or more RBOCs, it would appear that wireless is headed in the same direction.

So what has changed?

I remember when entrepreneurs, Universities and people just having fun developed local computer bulletin board systems and the Usenet. Then the Federal Government and other entities cooperated to develop a standard protocol that thereby allowed Long Distance carriers to develop the means to network local nodes together using that standard protocol.

We call this network the Internet, the World Wide Web. And phone companies, as a culture, hated it while embracing it for their own use. They hated it, in my opinion, because of all that lovely retail money being made by entities they didn't control; those upstarts were using "their" wires to make money. Whether it is a competitive CLEC or ISP, the corporate culture of an RBOC does not look with favor on those who would use "Their" wires to make a profit, in my opinion.

The RBOC approach to the Internet was barely "me too." Innovation was something that someone else did. Instead, the RBOCs focused on getting into the long distance business, which meant they had to temporarily—as it turns out—allow a bunch of upstarts to use their legacy wires to make money. After that objective was achieved, their legion of lawyers and lobbyists started the real campaign; restoration of their total monopoly.

 

1. Background

>what the RBOCs really think about competition

missing the Internet revolution

Robert Cannon

2. Pricing and Cost Issues: predatory prices crush competition

RBOC costs, for the record

3. Business Practices

4. Slamming and other dubious business practices

5. Networks

6. Customer Service

7. VNXX

8. Verizon's Petition for Forbearance

9. Unintended Consequences

10. Conclusion

RBOCs, why you need me