READING LIBRARY

• Full Bibliography, 1985-2021
• Medium: IRREGULATORS Latest

The Case to Break up Big Telecom & Cable, April 2021

• Report 1: The Case to Break Up Big Telecom (& Big Cable)
• Article: The Case to Break Up Big Telecom (& Big Cable) Let’s just call it Break Up AT&T et al…. Again
• Report 2: Harvesting and Monopoly Stranded & Harvested & the Creation of the Digital Divide.
• Article: Monopoly: Communications ‘Harvesting’ as an Antitrust Case
• Report 3: Break Up Big Telecom: $1+ Trillion in Overcharging … And Counting. Halt the Overcharging and Fix the Core Problems before America Gives AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink, Comcast and Charter Government Subsidies.
• Report 4 Break Up AT&T Et Al.  Separate the Wireless Subsidiaries from the Wireline Telecommunications Public Utilities.  Get Back $100+ Billion in Underpayments & Overcharges.  No More Government Subsidies.

Summary for Normal People:

• Video: Aunt Ethel Explains the Telco Accounting Scandal that Created the Digital Divide

 Communications Prices

Wireless Prices are Out of Control

• America’s Wireless Service Prices Are 5–20 Times More Expensive than Overseas. Why?

 The “Triple Play” Prices are Out of Control.

• Is America’s ‘Triple Play’ Overcharged $170.00+ Per Month Compared to Europe?

Added Made Up Fees with No Audits and No Government Mandates

• FACT SHEET 1: Remove Made-Up Fees: Broadcast & Sports Fee

No Truth in Billing

• “Teletruth Proposes Truth-in-Billing Act of 2005 New Networks Institute and Teletruth petition FCC

No More Taxes, Fees, Surcharges

• No More Taxes, Fees, Surcharges on the Communications Bill

MARKET POWER: Takeover of FCC, State Legislatures, Media

The takeover of the FCC ro the capture and control of the Consumer Advisory Committee, as ewll as state legislatures and commissions.

• EXPOSED: Corrupt Republican FCC: Puppets of Verizon and AT&T.
• PART II: The Trump-Republican FCC Captured, Corrupted, Consumer Advisory Committee
• Teletruth and New Networks Files A Complaint Over The Industry’s Role on the FCC Consumer Advisory Committee, 2005
• Bell Skunkworks 101 Outing the connections between the companies and those they are funding, 2003
• Reverse ALEC event, Brooklyn Law School BLIP Clinic, 2013

IRREGULATORS vs FCC.

• In 2019, the IRREGULATORS took the FCC to court over the FCC accounting rules that have become deformed but are still in use. The DC Court of Appeals gave us the decision we wanted—the states are independent of using the FCC’s FCC USOA, Uniform Standard of Accounting and can go after the massive cros-subsidy scheme we uncovered.

• Big Win for America. –Implications of the case
• The History of IRREGULATORS vs FCC
• Interview: Fibergate: The Big Telecom Swindle

History of Fiber Optic Deployment Failure in America     

This trilogy of books started in 1999, but the first book was based on one of the largest research projects undertaken to examine the break up of AT&T and the formation of the Bell companies, with Probe Research,1993-1995

• “The Unauthorized Bio of the Baby Bells and Info-Scandal”, Foreword by Dr. Robert Metcalfe, 1999
• “$200 Billion Broadband Scandal”, 2015
  • Featured on Bill Moyer’s PBS program,  “The Net at Risk”, the first national broadcast program on Net Neutrality, 2006
• “$300 Billion Broadband Scandal” – an updated edition,
  • Featured with author in “The Fine Print” by Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston, 2012
• “The Book of Broken Promises: $400 Billion Broadband Scandal & Free the Net”, 2015

Broadband and Accounting States Covered

New Jersey

• Full Case Study: Opportunity New Jersey: A Broadband Failure
• Verizon New Jersey broadband resources

Pennsylvania

• Pennsylvania Fiber Optic Failure Resources

California

• California Accounting and Broadband Failure

New York

• Verizon New York Accounting and Broadband

Massachusetts

• Massachusetts Broadband and Accounting Scandal

California Recent Activities, 2021

• Explosive, New Unredacted Report by CA Commission about AT&T California  Corroborates IRREGULATORS Call to Investigate Billions of Cross Subsidies.
• ARS TECHNICA: AT&T and Frontier have let phone networks fall apart, Calif. regulator finds AT&T raised phone prices 153% over a decade as service got steadily worse.
• 90-Year-Old Spent $10 Grand on WSJ Ads; Got AT&T to Bring Fiber — What about the 70+ Million Locations in AT&T’s 21 States?
• READ A SUMMARY
• CA BROADBAND COUNCIL COMPLETE FILING
• Additional Report: AT&T’s Comments to the CA Broadband Council Exposes Serious Questions about the Company’s Network Investments.
• Summary Release about the Report
• CA PUBLIC UTILITY COMMISSION FILING
• History of Fiber Optic Broadband in CA, 1993–2005.
• Our Work about California Broadband
• California Governor Newsom has called for developing an “Action” plan in order to solve the Digital Divide by upgrading all of California to broadband capable of 100mbps download speed at affordable prices.
• A separate group, the California Broadband Council, has been collecting comments about the Newsom plan. .
• The California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) has a proceeding for input into the Newsom plan.
• The IRREGULATORS filed Comments about the Newsom plan with CPUC.
• The IRREGULATORS also filed with  the CA Broadband Council, calling for audits and a halt to the billions in cross-subsides.
• At the same time, the California Public Utility Commission under President Batjer has been questioning AT&T for eliminating “DSL Service”  which will impact over 1.5 million customers who have few if any other options for broadband. And they point to the fact that AT&T has been ‘disinvesting’ in the networks instead of upgrades, especially to fiber optics.

Articles on 5G and Wireless

• Verizon’s ‘One Fiber’ Scam for 5G Wireless: Did Verizon Fool the Public and Investors?, March 2021

• Verizon Wireless’s 5G Deployment is a 1 Gig Fairy Tale …
• Jan 7, 2016 — Huffington Post: Verizon’s hype machine is in full force for the next generation, 5G. Note: 1 Gig (1 Gbps) …
• 2019: The 5G Bait-&-Switch Continues: History … – LinkedIn
• Mar 25, 2019 — Kushnick’s Law: “A regulated (or deregulated) company will always renege on promises to provide public benefits tomorrow in exchange for regulatory benefits and deregulation today
• The 5G Wireless “Pinprick” Charade Harms US All
• Jul 7, 2019·Phone Company Exec: “Stand right about here…”
• Verizon Claims 31 Cities with 5G: The Reality Is Verizon has “0” Cities has
• Jan 6, 2020·. Verizon 5G Deployment East Harlem map.
• FCC $9 Billion 5G Giveaway. |.

Aug 11, 2020 The FCC has decided that it should give $9 billion for the deployment of wireless 5G, but the FCC has never …

• FCC’s Wireless 5G Conflicts-of-Interest & the Ligado Deal… 05/19/2020

Access Line Accounting has been Manipulated

• Bell Access Line Accounting Manipulation 1984-2018
• Description: Verizon, AT&T, CenturyLink, and their association, USTelecom, with the help of the FCC, have manipulated the basic accounting of access lines, and have removed or hidden 80% of all lines, including all Business Data Services, (special access) DSL, competitor lines, FiOS, U-Verse, all of the wires to the cell sites or WiFi hot spots, alarm circuits, and this has been done to reinforce a claim that the utility networks are unprofitable.

Killed Off Competition

• Open Networks & Get the Money Back: Part of the Net Neutrality Solution.
• About 7,000 small ISP companies who were handling the majority of ISP customers in America, were killed off.
• SBA Rejects FCC’s Broadband Plan, New Networks Institute works with Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy, 2002
• The Broadband Bill of Rights; proposed legislation working with Congressman Nadler, 2001
• Petition to the FCC to deal with harms to small ISPs,  May 1st, 2003,

Statements by Executives and Regulators

• NEW REPORT: 15 Quotes: The Wireline-Wireless Bait-&-Switch Overcharged America and Caused the Digital Divide. Here is a collection of executive statements, excerpts from filings and comments by the FCC, the NY Attorney General’s office and the state PSC.

What the Bell executives tell the investors, but hides from the public.

• 5G: The Wireline-Wireless Bait & Switch: Because It Makes Them More Money. A full report detailing statements of executives pertaining to the deployment of Wireless – as a money maker and highlighting what the companies do  not what they tell the public.

Bell Mergers and Outcomes

• The Mergers that Created AT&T & Verizon Were Failures. — Time to Break Up AT&T…Again.
• Bell Mergers and Outcomes, summary with quotes, published by Public Knowledge

Business Data Services and Accounting Overcharges

Consumer Federation of America (CFA) New Networks Institute (NNI)

• Consumer Federation Ex Parte Meeting with the FCC, September 2016
• Reply Comments Filed, August 2016
• Joint Comments Filed
• BUSINESS DATA SERVICE MARKET PLAGUED BY ILLEGAL COST ALLOCATIONS, OVERCHARGES AND EXCESS PROFITS
• Consumer Federation of America and New Networks Institute data show deeply anti-competitive, anti-consumer practices On June 28th, 2016  New Networks Institute and Consumer Federation Filed Joint Comments in the FCC’s Business Data Services Proceeding.

Joint Press Release: Consumer Federation of America and NNI

• The Manipulation of the Financial Accounting & Special Access
• Fact Sheet Highlights

Decade of Examination: Verizon NY Reports & Filings, 2010-

New York is the only state that requires a full financial annual report. Starting in 2010, NNI’s team started to find some unsettling financial transactions and business practices, which we later uncovered was happening in every state.

• Verizon’s State-Based Financial Issues & Tax Losses: The Destruction of America’s Telecommunications Utilities
• In 2010, NNI started an investigation of the financial books of five Verizon’s state-based utility phone companies, including Verizon New York and Verizon New Jersey and the ties to Verizon Communications affiliate companies, (subsidiaries) including Verizon Wireless, Verizon Online, Verizon Services, among others. Published in 2012
• Verizon Wireless and the Other Verizon Affiliate Companies Are Harming Verizon New York’s (The State-based Utility) Customers & the State.
• In September 2013, our next report focused on Verizon New York and was the centerpiece of a filing by Common Cause, Consumer Union, CWA, and the Fire Island Association, which called for an investigation of Verizon’s financials and business practices, Alexander Goldman, Esq. co-authored the report.
• “It’s All Interconnected”,
• In May 2014, Public Utility Law Project, (PULP) published “It’s all Interconnected”, written by New Networks (with assistance by David Bergmann, Esq.) and it relied on unexamined data from Verizon New York using different Verizon supplied financials books.
• The Verge: Game of Phones: How Verizon is playing the FCC and its customers, May 2014
• The Connect New York Coalition, filed a Petition with the NY State Public Service Commission to do a formal investigation of Verizon New York. July 1, 2014. The Petition is based, in part, on NNI’s continuing research.
• Coalition members include AARP, Consumer Union, Common Cause, CWA, and NY state politicians.
• NNI & IRREGULATOR FILINGS, NYPSC: August 8^th, 2017, we submitted 3 documents: Comment 1 has a short overview as well as a bibliography of our research, which is directly tied to this proceeding. It also gives a brief discussion of issues that have been overlooked or are missing and need to be part of the next steps the State should be implementing. Comment 2 is a more detailed view (that has been published in Huffington Post) of the current proceeding and a Verizon settlement. Comment 3 is a full report based on our analysis of the Verizon NY’s 2016 Annual Report.
• COMMENT 1: Overview and bibliography
• COMMENT 2: Huffington Post: Verizon NY in Multi-Billion Dollar Settlement Tangle, Underway in NY State, August 4th 2017
• COMMENT 3: Full Report: Verizon NY 2016 Annual Report: Follow the Money: Financial Analysis and Implications.
• Verizon New York 2017 Annual Report: An Analysis of Cross-Subsidies and Customer Overcharging
• DESCRIPTION: This report, based on the Annual Report, shows that there is a utility and that it is hemorrhaging money because of the FCC.
• Verizon NY Settlement Story, July 2018. The investigation concluded and Verizon NY settled the case. Estimated at $300-500 million dollars, the settlement called for an estimated 30,000 lines of fiber optics to be installed and the existing copper networks maintained.

Other New York Articles and Filings

• Dear Reimagine NY: Governor Cuomo’s Broadband Plan Is Broken. Let’s Fix It.
• Charter, (Spectrum) Altice (Optimum) and Verizon’s FiOS Cable TV Franchises Expired in NYC. Do Not Renew but Investigate — Finally.
• Letter to Mayor De Blasio: NYC Must Call for a Halt to the Billion+ Dollars of Cross-Subsidies and Overcharging by Verizon NY, the NY State Public Telecommunications Utility
• New York City Internet Master Plan Is Missing Key Components: IRREGULATORS v FCC
• Verizon’s NY City FiOS franchise has expired. Do not renew it until 100% has been upgraded to fiber optics. This letter was sent September 24^th, 2020 requesting that the City hold Verizon accountable to finish NYC 100% with FiOS coverage, as stated in the agreement. In November, 2020, the City used the approach outlined in our letter.

FIXING TELECOM REPORTS: 2015-

How the FCC Accounting Formulas Overcharge America

• Report 1: Executive Summary: Verizon’s Manipulated Financial Accounting & the FCC’s Big “Freeze”

• Report 2: Full Data Report

• Report 3: SPECIAL REPORT How Municipalities and the States can Fund Fiber Optic Wireline and Wireless Broadband Networks.

Proving the Cross Subsidies of Wireless by Wireline Utility and Customers

• REPORT 4: Data Report Verizon’s Wireline Networks Diverted Capex for Wireless Instead of Wiring Municipalities, and Charged Local Phone Customers.

The Manipulation of the FCC Accounting Rules, Expert Analysis

• Report 5: The Hartman Memorandum proves that the FCC’s own cost allocation rules created massive financial cross subsidies.

The History and Rules of Setting Rates in America

• Report 6: The History & Rules of Setting Phone Rates in America

• Report 7: SUMMARY REPORT: Verizon Massachusetts & Boston: Investigate the Wireless-Wireline Bait-n-Switch, January 17th, 2017

• Report 8: Verizon NY 2016 Annual Report Analyzed, June 2017.

The Digital Divide by Design The Formation of the Digital Divide by Design

•  FILED WITH COMMENTS: REPORT 1:  Did AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink & the FCC Intentionally Create the Digital Divide?

Overcharging: Manipulated Accounting: Cooked Books Nationwide

• FILED AS REPLY COMMENTS:  REPORT 2: Verizon New York 2017 Annual Report: An Analysis of Cross-Subsidies and Customer Overcharging
• DESCRIPTION: This report, based on the Annual Report shows that there is a utility and that it is hemorrhaging money because of the FCC.

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Read the first rejection letter from the NY Public Service Commission

The FCC has decided that it should give $9 billion for the deployment of wireless 5G, but the FCC has never examined that there has been a massive cross-subsidies of the wireless networks, where Local phone customers have ended up being charged for the fiber optic networks used by Verizon and AT&T wireless. We filed for the FCC to investigate these cross-subsidies, which include 5G wireless. Click to Read the Filing

DEEP DIVE ARCHIVE:

Huffington Post/Medium articles about AT&T and California

• The Trump-FCC-AT&T-Et Al. Plan: The Insidious “Wheel of Mis-Fortune”.
• The Corporate Takeover of the Trump-FCC Is in Full Attack Mode.
• Open Letter to California about SB-649: You’re being Played by ALEC & AT&T Et Al.
• The Copper-Wire World of AT&T: The Reason to Investigate AT&T, Now
• Solve Net Neutrality, Privacy, & Bring Back Competition: Break Up AT&T and Verizon… Again.
• Expose: AT&T California Fiber Optic Scandal: Billions Charged for Broadband that Never Showed Up.
• Californians Paid Billions Extra: The State Assembly Should Investigate AT&T’s Cross-Subsidies.
• IRREGULATORS: Stop the FCC and Investigate AT&T, Verizon, Et Al.
• Brendan Carr Omitted Critical Facts in His Testimony to Congress: He Worked for AT&T, Verizon, Et Al.
• Regulatory Capture of the FCC: Stacking the Deck with the New Proposed Republican Commissioner
• Verizon and AT&T Should be Required to Deliver FTTP, Fiber to the Home – Finally.
• California Wireless Legislation: Paid for by AT&T Et Al.
• AT&T, ALEC, FCC. The FCC’s plans are based on AT&T’s Petition, which is from ALEC Model Legislation.
• AT&T’s IP Transition Trials Lost 32% of “Legacy” Customers, yet the Overhyped Con Continues.
• AT&T’s 1000 Foot Violation of AT&T-DirecTV Merger Conditions?
• AT&T and Verizon’s Wireline and Wireless Cross-Subsidies Harm Competition and Every Communications Service You Use
• Corporate Greed vs Critical Infrastructure: Greed Won. America Lost.
• R.”I.P.” Rest in Peace, AT&T IP Transition Trials.
• Will the FCC Stop Verizon & AT&T’s Manipulation of Financial Accounting & Special Access (BDS) Overcharges?
• AT&T & Verizon, With the FCC, Blocked My Access to Critical Broadband Data
• Have You Received a Disconnect Notice From Verizon or AT&T Yet?
• AT&T’s IP Transition Trials Are a Superhyped, Yet Unsuccessful, Con
• The Age of Noise, Clutter and Spying on Us
• AT&T Slams AT&T. AT&T & Verizon File to Block Kushnick from the FCC’s “Special Access” Data… Again.
• AT&T’s Fiber Optic Construction Last Six Years — $140 Billion, or One Slice of Pizza and “FiberHype”?
• AT&T to FCC: Stop Kushnick From Examining the Special Access Data
• AT&T’s ‘IP Transition’ Trials Appear to Be a Total Bomb
• The FCC and AT&T Don’t Care About Rural Areas and They Can Just Make Crap Up
• Are the FCC and AT&T Harming the Children of Rural Communities?
• MobTel: Some of America’s Most Hated ISPs, Cable TV and Wireless Companies Have Their Associations Suing the FCC Over Net Neutrality
• I Do It For My Aunt Ethel
• Verizon & AT&T’s Wireless Broadband: $1,125.00 for One Month of Cable TV; $375.00 to Watch Netflix — and that’s Not Even ‘HD’.
• Stop the AT&T-DirecTV Merger or History Will Slap Us in the Face
• Will the FCC Ignore Our Complaint? Did AT&T Commit Perjury, Claiming it had Covered 100 Percent of 21 States With Broadband?
• Did AT&T Commit Perjury? Does AT&T have 100 Percent Broadband Coverage in 21 States?
• Did AT&T, Verizon, Et al., Garner Over $17 Billion in ‘Very Small Business’ Spectrum Licenses?
• Telecom Sleaze: ALEC and Its Communication’s Funders — AT&T, Verizon, Centurylink, Comcast and Time Warner Cable

BACK IN THE STACKS: 2002-2010

• FREE REPORT on Telecom Charges. Phone, Broadband, Wireless, Internet & Cable Charges in San Diego, California.
• With the removal of AT&T as a competitor, the prices of service increased and there was a clear harm to customers in terms of choice of service, Also, it is clear that this impacted previous AT&T customers adversely, especially low volume or low income families. — Based on survey of actual phone bills in San Diego CA working with UCAN, on a grant from the CA Consumer Protection Fund, done originally in 2004 then repeated in 2008.
• • Teletruth Files Two Comments about AT&T-BellSouth Merger: 
  • Competition: FCC Can’t Create Enforceable Merger Conditions.FCC/Bells Harmed Competition — 43% Drop in Wholesale Lines. The Mergers Eliminated Competitors.
• Teletruth Sends Letter to Judge Sullivan Regarding the Bell-AT&T-MCI Merger Review.
• The Bell Mergers Harmed Broadband Deployment, Competition and the Economy.
• The AT&T and MCI Deals Added New Harms to the Public Interest – New Neutrality Concerns

• Wireless Spectrum Fraud by AT&T, Verizon, Cingular — Are they Very Small Businesses?
• Very Large Phone Companies have been able to create ‘fake fronts’ to bid on wireless spectrum as Very Small Businesses? Is this fraud?

• FTC Complaint for Commercial Speech, Deceptive Practices in Mergers,
• Teletruth files this Complaint with the FTC, claiming that the previous Bell mergers were based on a massive, 10-year pattern of misrepresentation, untruthful and outright fraudulent statements made to customers. How many misleading, deceptive or fraudulent statements does it take to become a case of fraud?
• TO READ THE RELEASE
• To Read this Complaint
• To Read the MINI-REPORT on SBC’s Mergers (PDF)
• TO TAKE ACTION AND READ MORE

• Break Up SBC, Break Up Verizon
• Teletruth Requests Congress Start Immediate Investigations into the Previous Bell Mergers.
•  Do Not Let 2 Companies Control America’s Digital Future! — More Materials.26 States Lost Fiber Optic Broadband After each merger, SBC and Verizon cut fiber optic deployments. It impacted 26 states, over 200 million people.

• The AT&T-SBC, Verizon-MCI Mergers. Death to Competition. Investigate and Break Up SBC, Break Up Verizon.
• Comments: FCC in WC Docket 05-65, May 10^th, 2005 TeleTruth Asks Senator Hollings for Hearings to Break Up SBC-Ameritech and Pay $1.2 Billion in Penalties. By April 2002 SBC was supposed to be competing in 30 cities outside their region. The commitments were set because SBC merged with Ameritech, another Bell company. According to the agreement, the FCC can “Divest” SBC of Ameritech and it is required to pay $1.2 billion in penalties. Therefore, TeleTruth (with New Networks Institute) is calling on Congressional hearings. This failure has raised the rates of every local subscriber because competition did not come into the markets to lower prices.
• For more information about the SBC Ameritech Merger
• To read the letter to Senator Hollings
• For a list of the cities SBC was supposed to compete
• To Take Action

https://newnetworks.com/mergersandoutcomes.htm

Click for the FCC Numbers-Only Version of this Exhibit.

As I stare at the various pie charts and exhibits in the FCC’s latest report on broadband in America, “Internet Access Services: Status as of June 30, 2017”, published November 2018, only one thing comes to mind: Congress needs to investigate how this smoke and mirrors data is being used to create harmful public policies.

Back in March, 2011, I wrote about the FCC’s highly inaccurate National Broadband Map Database, where the companies listed did not offer service at my address or at the speeds listed.

Seven years later, and trying to reverse-engineer the number of broadband services, especially the accounting of the “Fiber to the Premises”, FTTP, here are a few startling long-term issues and new discoveries. In the industry, these are some of the dirty, little secrets.

Quoting the FCC, there are various caveats.

§ “Who Files What?

· “All facilities-based broadband providers are required to file data with the FCC twice a year (Form 477) on where they offer Internet access service at speeds exceeding 200 kbps in at least one direction.

· “Fixed providers file lists of census blocks in which they can or do offer service to at least one location, with additional information about the service.

Please notice the words and phrases: “census blocks”, “200Kbps in at least one direction”, “they can” and “at least one location”. We will address them in a moment.

How Big Is One Census Block?

A census block is sort of like the area of a postal zip code. And it is directly tied to a specific geography with people living and working at specific locations. Sounds obvious until you examine how they count these locations.

According to Current 360

“Block groups generally contain between 600 and 3,000 people, with an optimum size of 1,500 people… Each census tract contains at least one block group, and block groups are uniquely numbered within the census tract. A block group is the smallest geographical unit for which the census publishes sample data.”

Smoke & Mirror Competition

The FCC and phone companies claim that there is competition and yet, this next FCC caveat about this data tells us that while the database may show a competitor, you, the customer, may never be able to get service from them.

The FCC writes: