The IRREGULATORS: An Independent, Expert Telecom Team
The IRREGULATORS is an independent, consortium of senior telecom experts, analysts, forensic auditors, and lawyers who are former senior staffers from the FCC, state advocate and Attorneys General Office experts and lawyers, as well as former telco consultants. Members of the group have been working together, in different configurations, since 1999.
Bruce Kushnick
Executive Director of New Networks has been a telecom analyst for 40 years. If you ever used a touchtone phone, saw the phone number of the caller or listened to a recording over the last three decades, odds are Bruce Kushnick had something to do with it. In 1985, as Senior Telecom Analyst for IDC/Link, (a subsidiary of International Data Corp), Kushnick’s 1985 report (a best seller) predicted that the addition of new technologies and new networks would change the way America used communications. In 1992, Kushnick helped to invent and deploy the first 3-digit phone service, “511” with Cox Newspapers. In 1992, Kushnick also started New Networks Institute; in 2002 Kushnick was one of the founders that established Teletruth, a telecom advocacy group that was a member of the FCC’s Consumer Advisory Committee. Kushnick is the author of a trilogy of books spanning 18 years; the most recent is “The Book of Broken Promises: $400 Billion Broadband Scandal & Free the Net”, released May 2015. NNI’s research was used to help create an investigation of Verizon New York, and settlement in July 2018, working with CWA union. Estimated at $300-500 million dollars, the settlement requires 30,000+ lines of fiber in unserved areas and the maintenance of the copper networks in non-fiber areas.
Paul M. Hartman
Paul Hartman is a former FCC Assistant Chief of the Pricing Policy Division (PPD), part of the Wireline Competition Bureau, as well as worked in the Office of Inspector General as part of the Universal Service High Cost Oversight by the commission. Paul was also on the FCC’s Jurisdictional Separations Federal-State Joint Board. Paul has been involved in regulatory cost studies since working for the Bell System in 1973. Starting in 1985, for the next 14 years, Paul taught classes on telecommunications primarily in the areas of jurisdictional separations, settlements, access charges and related issues for the various major stakeholders, e.g., local exchange carriers, interexchange carriers, cable TV providers, state and federal regulators. Among other opportunities, Paul was the general manager of a startup Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier that provided fiber to the home.
Scott McCollough, Esq.
McCollough is an attorney whose practice focuses on communications, computer and Internet law and regulation, with an emphasis on representation of consumers and small competitive and new technology application and service providers. He also provides instruction and training in those areas to individuals, groups, and companies. He is Board Certified in Administrative Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. Past activities included 10 years as an Assistant Texas Attorney General and Contract Consumer Advocate (representing residential and small business consumers) with City of Austin Electric Utility (1994-1999). Past Regulatory Counsel for Texas ISDN Users Group and Texas Internet Service Providers Association. He has unparalleled knowledge and experience relating to those places where technology and regulation intersect. Scott was lead counsel for IRREGULATORS vs FCC and is part of the Robert F Kennedy Jr. team, challenging the FCC.
Chuck Sherwood
As part of his involvement with national advocacy associations, Chuck is a former member of the Alliance for Community Media’s Public Policy Working Group and the Policy and Legal Committee of the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors. He has organized and spoken at many conferences and workshops dealing with cable, telecom and broadband network infrastructure issues with a focus on how they can be used for community, educational and economic development. In addition he has written articles for the ACM’s Community Media Review (CMR) and the NATOA Journal and served as the Guest Editor for the Summer 2010 issue of the CMR entitled, “Community Connecting with the New Broadband Networks”.
Tom Allibone
Allibone is the President of LTC Consulting, and the Director of Teletruth‘s Auditing Division. He has been a telecommunications professional with over 38 years of experience. Prior to founding LTC Consulting in 1989, Tom worked for New Jersey Bell and AT&T as a systems consultant and National Account Manager, starting in 1970. Tom is an AT&T ‘legacy’ as his grandfather and father (and his wife) all worked for AT&T and the Bell System. Tom has led Teletruth’s auditing capabilities which has resulted in the settlement of 2 class action suits against Verizon, New Jersey, as well as telecom auditing resulting in over $30 million in refunds. Tom was a member of the FCC Consumer Advisory Committee.
Fred Goldstein
Goldstein advises companies on technical, regulatory and business issues related to the telecommunications, cable and Internet industries, especially in areas where they overlap. He has designed multifunction backbone networks for public and private sector clients. He has served as an expert witness in regulatory proceedings including intercarrier compensation, access to network elements, and the regulatory classification of services on multi-function networks Prior to joining Interisle, he was principal of Ionary Consulting; earlier, he was employed by Arthur D. Little Inc. in its Communications, Information and Electronics practice. Before that, he was corporate telecommunications manager for Bolt Beranek and Newman, after working for the telecom regulatory consulting firm Economics and Technology Inc.
Kenneth Levy, Esq.
Levy has worked as a telecommunications lawyer since the late 1970s, when he joined the FCC. He held several supervisory positions at the FCC, including Deputy Chief, Operations of the Common Carrier Bureau and Chief of the Tariff Division during the period leading up to divestiture and through the aftermath. He left the FCC to become General Counsel of the National Exchange Carrier Association, Inc., the organization charged with administering the FCC’s interstate access charge plan and universal service fund. Recently he has worked as a consultant on telecommunications regulatory proceedings involving universal service, inter-carrier compensation, Internet telephony and interconnection of networks.
David Bergmann, Esq
(On Sabbatical)
Davif Bergmann worked as an attorney and then Assistant Consumers’ Counsel for the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, the state’s residential utility consumer advocate, for almost 30 years. In 2007 he received the “Outstanding Service Award,” the first of its kind, from the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA), a non-profit, national organization of state offices in more than 40 states and the District of Columbia designated to represent consumers in state and federal utility proceedings. NASUCA stated that “His passion for helping to protect consumers has spread across the country through his role as a key organizer of federal telecommunications work performed on behalf of the nation’s telephone consumers.” In 2011, David started Telecom Policy Consulting for Consumers.
David Schofield
Schofield is a Partner at Network Sourcing Advisors. NSA provides contract compliance services to mid and large enterprises and specializes in voice, data, wireless and TEM (telecom expense management) negotiations. Schofield has been active in telecom for decades. At Siemans, Schofield managed multiple carrier contracts for 26 Operating companies, which included managing day to day telecommunications costs, service and delivery across the business units. NSA’s services include a benchmark of existing services to the most complex engagement which includes a bid process of existing agreements.