If they succeed, we lose: they get less competition, and will raise prices, and we get stuck with their lousy service and slowest-in-the-world internet speeds. Help support small internet provider companies by contacting the FCC today!
The US Telecom Association, the trade group for the mega giant telecoms like Verizon, ATT and Centurylink, have petitioned the FCC for forbearance from the COPPER line sharing requirements of the landmark 1996 Telecommunications Act. If they succeed, it will mean the end of small internet provider organizations, and that will hurt us all.
They falsely state that there is robust competition in local Internet Access markets and cheap fast Internet Access throughout the US. They are requesting that the FCC end all regulated wholesale access to the Unbundled Network Elements (Copper Pairs) of the Telephone Network, which your grandparents, parents and you paid for through your taxes.
California companies like Omsoft, SonicNet, CruzIO, LMI, Shasta.com, and Cal.Net, along with the remaining small ISPs across the nation will have their access to their main Internet Transport medium, the Public Switched Telephone System, (PSTN) completely shut off in 2 years.
On the line here is all the investment, revenue growth, job creation, and the hundreds of millions of dollars of economic activity generated by these remaining 3500 or so local and regional internet provider ISPs over the last 20 years. Large or small, we all rely on access to this network to provide ever better bandwidth products, and many leverage this revenue to build much needed Fiber Optic to the home infrastructure that other large providers will not do, and the rest of the world has already done.
You will be forced to work with only those companies that continually raise prices, sell your Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI), scan and record your browsing data, and sell your history to advertisers. Your only choice for the wire line Internet of the future will be two investor-driven companies devoted to extracting as much profit from your internet as they are able. The last check they had on competitive pricing and best practices — the local ISP — will be wiped out.
Combined with the end of Net Neutrality legislation, this severely restricts a free, open and decentralized Internet in the United States.
Please take 5-10 minutes to let the FCC know you support more competition in the Internet Access market, not less. Let them know that newer technologies and privacy protections are important to you to, and that those are delivered by local community network type Internet Access operations.
Write a letter to the FCC using this helpful site. Read more about the issue here. And check out the organization incompas.org, which is doing great work, and help support them if you can.
A fairly run and priced internet future depends on you.
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