Phone Companies Bill Public for Nonexistent Equipment 612
Srinivasan Ramakrishnan writes "Forbes has an eye-opening article on the scam that lets the Bells scoop $5 billion every year from the consumer with the sanction of the FCC. The FCC Line charge that appears on every phone bill is a vestige of a deal that was struck by the FCC with the Bells. The deal was touted by the FCC as a historic win that saved $3.2 Billion a year for the consumer - Forbes takes a closer look at the deal."
I blame it on the log cabins (Score:5, Funny)
Not quite (Score:3, Insightful)
Google is my friend. Google should be your friend too.
Taxes never die.
This one did, several times. The first resurrection took 12 years.
Nationalize local phone access! (Score:5, Insightful)
If you ask me, any kind of 'infrastructure' system should be run by the government, like the highway system, and companies should only be allowed access to things they can't have exclusive control over.
Re:Nationalize local phone access! (Score:5, Interesting)
While I may be inclined to agree with you to a certain extent, if you want to see the effects of having everything nationalised then take a look at the U.K in the 70's. We're still dealing with the effects from a lot of Labour policies in the 60's and 70's. It isn't always a good idea.
Re:Nationalize local phone access! (Score:3, Interesting)
As it turns out, as far as I can tell, apparently no federal policy maker (economic or otherwise) has read Milton Friedman's [stanford.edu] Capitalism & Freedom (making this event [stanford.edu] quite ironic). Hell, I haven't even read more than half
Re:Nationalize local phone access! (Score:2, Insightful)
Regulated industry is the way to go, but the problem is, the FCC won't regulate. Probably because the industry has its nose (and wallet) so far up the rear of a bunch of senators it's hard to legislate against.
Re:Nationalize local phone access! (Score:5, Insightful)
This moring I sent a letter to the middle of nowhere over 1000 miles away for under 40 cents.
Does that count?
Re:Nationalize local phone access! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nationalize local phone access! (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason it really sucks is that when the U.S. government, for example, privatized the post office, there was no corresponding tax cut. ("Hey, my $5 post office tax went down...") They just spend it on something else.
In theory, privatizing the post office should have little to no effect on price, but in reality, government spending insures we'll never see the money that previously went to the post office.
Itemized taxation and making people pay a tax bill every year, instead of deductions from pay each month, are the answer.
Re:Nationalize local phone access! (Score:5, Insightful)
Tho I wonder how much interest the IRS makes on withholding tax even before they have to refund most of it to average taxpayers. We could just as well be making that ourselves with forced savings deposits from every paycheck, except then they'd raise our taxes to make up their budget loss, and tax us on the interest income from the savings accounts...
Re:Nationalize local phone access! (Score:5, Insightful)
If people got hit with *HUGE* tax bills, say around the end of October, the income tax would either go away or be largely reduced.
Convenience is the enemy of tax reform. Nothing radically changes unless many people get very pissed off.
Re:Nationalize local phone access! (Score:3, Insightful)
The actual, Constitutionally mandated functions of government are very limited. About 90% of what government does is unconstitutional. Some of it is good, lots of it is a waste at best.
If people really want these expenditures the Constitution should be amended.
Re:Nationalize local phone access! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Nationalize local phone access! (Score:4, Funny)
Uhm hello, they gave me a post card IN MY MAILBOX.
Re:Nationalize local phone access! (Score:4, Funny)
How in blazes could anybody show you a better postal service?
There's this thing called other countries, see, and they send letters too.
Re:Nationalize local phone access! (Score:3, Interesting)
The reason. (Score:5, Informative)
and if you are intrested in how the USPS is organized, look here. [usps.com]
Re:The reason. (Score:3, Interesting)
That's the way to go! When they nationalize things like the phone industry, or even (eventually) the ISP industry, then they shouldn't make it into another agency (then we'll just have more bureacracy), but basically non-profits owned by the gov't. We pay them money (as opposed to it coming out of taxes), and they provide us with a service. Their goal isn't necessarily to make money, but to provide the best service for the least money, a
Re:Nationalize local phone access! (Score:5, Informative)
Now if they could just let Amtrak do the same thing and stop throwing tax dollars at *that*...
Re:Nationalize local phone access! (Score:3, Insightful)
No, if they don't have to pay taxes, they are not "getting money from the government". Instead, the government is not taking money from them.
Probably too subtle a point for some people, but there's a significant difference between giving someone money vs. not taking money from them.
Re:Nationalize local phone access! (Score:5, Interesting)
The fact of the matter is that local phone service is so heavily regulated, subsidized by business service, etc. that there would be *less* overhead if governments provided the service. That doesn't mean private companies couldn't offer service for fancy technologies that are outside the purview of basic service (think private roads and turnpikes).
I don't think this is inconsistent with the Constitution. Back then, roads and canals fell under the infrastructure sphere. Now, I think basic phone service does. I don't believe that government service would prevent private companies from offering new technologies and services, such as bundling a bunch of services together via fiber to a house. But for those that just have a copper wire to their house and want to call someone in town... there should be a public option.
Re:Nationalize local phone access! (Score:5, Insightful)
How about a slightly different approach. The natural monopoly is the last mile - just about everyone agrees on that.
Half of the fees on your phone bill are for other than last-mile stuff though. Local Number Portability? That's a switch located in a central office. Ditto for 911 service or long distance access.
The government should eminent domain all the local lines. A fee of a few bucks a month should be charged to anyone who wants to use them. A rental fee should be charged for space in central office facilities. Any company who so desires can set up their own switch in the central office and pay rent on it to the government and sell their services to consumers. The only fixed fee would be for the local loop and this would be a non-profit operation. If a company has an old pulse-dial-only switch lying in the basement and figures they can make money by charging 75 cents a month for zero-feature phone service more power to them. If somebody wants to spend $500k for a state of the art switch they can offer phones which support voice dial. Anybody could get access to the local loop to offer DSL, or cable over phone, or whatever crazy wild creative thing somebody things they can serve over a copper loop. There would be minimal regulation to ensure that whatever goes over the local loop doesn't interfere with other signals or create a hazard, but that would be it.
That's the route that is being taken with electricity generation - generation is going competitive with transmission and distribution remaining a monopoly. It has worked pretty well in most states that have tried it. I still think that the government should take over the transmission and distribution, or the company which runs them should be forbidden from generating power. Otherwise the company has incentive to structure transmission lines in a manner that makes its power delivery costs lower than for competitors, or reduce transmission capacity so that out-of-state generators can't compete at all.
Re:Nationalize local phone access! (Score:3, Informative)
That sounds like pretty much the opposite of what's recently happened in the U.K. with the unbundling of the local loop. This measure was designed to allow smaller companies to compete with British Telecom more directly, giving them the opportunity to place their own equipment in BT's local exchanges.
Not entirely sure how successful it's been though...
Re:Nationalize local phone access! (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, if we are talking the voice side, allowing 911 calls on disconnected phones seems pretty beneficial to people who dont want a phone, but can still use 911.
If we are talking Data side of the telco, I'll agree with you 100%. Telcos fight tooth and nail to keep everyone out of their business, and make money for the stock holders. While bad for the customers, good for the stock holders.
What we need is a group of people looking at whats fair for both the companies and the consumers. I wouldnt trust the FCC as much as a DHS Orange Alert.
Re:Nationalize local phone access! (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, if we are talking the voice side, allowing 911 calls on disconnected phones seems pretty beneficial to people who dont want a phone, but can still use 911.
Don't think for a moments they do that out of the goodness of their hearts - the FCC make them do that.
Alex
Re:Nationalize local phone access! (Score:3, Interesting)
Now I have to ask, do you Really want the federal goverment to be in charge of all phone lines? I have a feeling, Mr. Rumsfeld would just love that, and we could consider a phone call a confession from here on out.
Re:Nationalize local phone access! (Score:4, Insightful)
The last time we had a national local phone monopoly was a disaster. There was NO incentive to innovate. Features like caller id, 3-way calling, call-waiting, and ISDN could have happened YEARS AND YEARS before they came into prominence in the 90's, after we started getting at least a little competition.
Let's see... (from SBC [sbc.com])
All of these services have an incremental cost of just about zero. All they consist of is someone flipping a bit in a database in the central-office switch.
Are you sure we're better off than when we had the monopoly? Are you sure we don't still have a monopoly in most places?
I can't get the features you mentioned anywhere except SBC. No other carrier offers local service in my area. The monopoly is still strong, for practical purposes, in most places.
I don't think these features came about due to innovation brought about by competition. I think they cam about by innovation due to ability to profit, since after breakup of the "monopoly" phone companies could charge whatever they wanted for services that fell outside the core, basic, regulated phone service.
Re:Nationalize local phone access! (Score:4, Informative)
The last time we had a national local phone monopoly was a disaster. There was NO incentive to innovate. Features like caller id, 3-way calling, call-waiting, and ISDN could have happened YEARS AND YEARS before they came into prominence in the 90's, after we started getting at least a little competition.
All that crap happens at a switch in the local office. We're just talking about nationalizing the wires in the ground and the actual building. BellX still owns all the stuff inside, and some newbie can come along and offer whichever services he likes.
Re:Nationalize local phone access! (Score:3, Informative)
cut the line! (Score:5, Interesting)
Ever since I've used my cellphone as my main phone, my phone bill stays consistent month to month, I don't pay extra for long distance (or get screwed in intra-state charges), I get no telemarketing calls, and I have one number where I can be reached.
Cut your landline if you can!
Re:cut the line! (Score:2)
Re:cut the line! (Score:5, Informative)
When you get a telemarketing call on your cell, ask them their name, the company they're calling for, and their return phone number. They are legally required to give you all of this information, if you ask.
Then, ask to speak to the person's manager/supervisor. Inform him/her that this is a cell phone. It is illegal for them to call cell phones. At this point, you've already got their information, so they can't just hang up and run. Inform them that you wish to recoup the cost of this call, and that you want them to send you a cheque for $100 USD. If they refuse, tell them you will take it up with the FCC, and the fine they will levy will be much, much more than that.
Hey, it's worth a shot.
Re:cut the line! (Score:3, Insightful)
Amen to that (Score:5, Interesting)
And yet.
Re:Amen to that (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course they'll probably tell you that it's not an option. Still, it's worth a shot.
Re:Amen to that (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Amen to that (Score:5, Interesting)
when ordering a new land line, always reject the touch tone option they charge extra for. for a few weeks, only pulse dialing works. every now and then, dial using touch tones. usually, they start to work after a few weeks.
like mbourgon said, it costs the phone companies more to support pulse dialing over touch tone. they just want to see if you're dumb enough to pay for touch tone first.
What do you use? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a scam, but they've got me... no other broadband available in my area. Of course, even if cable was available, they STILL force you to get a basic cable package before you can get cable broadband. I'm not a TV watcher, so that's money down a rathole.
What company do you use? Nationwide long distance or anything? I'm curious how you're making this work.
Re:cut the line! (Score:5, Funny)
BUT, if I cut my land line, how would I get in and out of the Matrix!
Re:cut the line! (Score:4, Interesting)
-B
Re:cut the line! (Score:4, Informative)
Say what? My plan gives me 1000 anytime coast-to-coast long distance included minutes per month for $39.95 plus taxes, about $45 a month total.
That comes to four and a half cents a minute for long distance calls, local calls, or whatever calls, and I generally don't use all my minutes, but I get real close.
My land line runs about $50 a month and I still have to pay 7 cents a minute for long distance. To make the same 1000 minutes worth of calls cost me an additional $70, so $50 + $70 for 1000 minutes long distance is 12 cents a minute, with local calls (amortized including the $50 fee just to have the phone) run 5 cents a minute.
My local phone costs 20% more per minute on local calls, and 300% more for long distance calls, than my cell phone (assuming 1000 minutes total per month.)
If I didn't need it for business and another line for the fax machine I would cut the golden cords to my land line.
Another reason to cancel landlines (Score:4, Informative)
This is just another reinforcing reason to do so. The only calls we really get on the land-line are telemarketers anyway, yet a basic line with callerid and a minimal LD plan is $38.00/month.
The consumer/end-user in this country is really getting screwed by the government and various utility oligopolies.
Re:Another reason to cancel landlines (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd just like to add that I have AT&T for my wireless service and they suck. I routinely
Re:Another reason to cancel landlines (Score:3, Insightful)
My problem with ATT wireless was that when the tower was down (we have one tower in this town), there was nothing they would do, nor would they compensate us for loss of service, so we switched to Verizon.
Joe
Tone dial (Score:5, Interesting)
My father-in-law resisted for years but finally gave in.
Re:Tone dial (Score:2)
My father's bill was $2.00 less than mine, but he finally gave in when his ISP stopped accepting rotary calls after an equipment upgrade.
Re:Tone dial (Score:5, Interesting)
Here in the Boston area, I get charged $0.44 per month for TouchTone service. Which is ridiculous, since with today's digital equipment, it probably takes more effort to understand pulse signals than DTMF tones. A couple of folks I know have sucessfully gotten that canceled on the grounds that they don't use TouchTone. I've been fighting with Verizon for a few months now (I have 2 phones in my apartment - one is rotary, and another is electronic pulse only), but I've had no such luck.
They're not the only ones (Score:2, Informative)
Is anyone *actually* surprised by this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Step 2) Get Cable or Satelite Internet - Better mediums altogether IMO
Step 3) Rejoice that the "Bells" are screwing you any more. I've been w/o a phone line for 1 year plus now ( I'm sure others have been longer), and I couldn't be happier w/ the arrangement.
Step 4) Profit! (Or, actually the Bells stop profitting).
Re:Is anyone *actually* surprised by this? (Score:2, Informative)
Those are just a few reasons why I can't cut my land line. I'm sure there are others in the same situation.
Re:Is anyone *actually* surprised by this? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Is anyone *actually* surprised by this? (Score:3, Interesting)
Whenever you've had to report a power or cable or some other sort of outage, was your phone out?
I was one of the early adopters of RoadRunner back in 96, and had cable since up through the end of last year. Verizon offered a deal on DSL, and I bit. Since then I haven't worried a minute about 'net outages of any kind. I almost forget what it was like to have to call Time Warner and report yet another problem
Re:Is anyone *actually* surprised by this? (Score:2)
I know where it is! (Score:3, Funny)
Kevin Mitnick's Secret Warehouse!
I pay $20 a month (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I pay $20 a month (Score:2)
Most folks I know use cell phones more than land lines now. If I didn't have to keep both lines, the cell is cheaper than the land line for my use.
Re:I pay $20 a month (Score:2)
This is the primary reason I haven't dropped my land line for a cell phone. I love my DSL line. I don't want cable.
Possible (cheaper) Solution (Score:4, Informative)
I'd ask your phone company about something similar, if you really want to ditch your land line.
oh, and I live on the East Coast, in case you're wondering what market I'm in.
Let's not forget andout FCC LD taxes (Score:5, Interesting)
$458 dollar gloves (Score:5, Funny)
1 phone switch - $133,000
The same phone switch on newegg - $4
Succeeding to sweep a damning audit of your shady accounting under the rug: Priceless
There are some things money can't buy. You use back-office deals with the FCC for that.
This is nothing new... (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, the Bell system invented DSL back in the last 70's but didn't pursue it because of their own short-sightedness. Then it comes to pass that when the Internet boom took off and the Bell companies were left out in the cold, suddenly they wanted to 'charge' fees each time someone dialed-up an ISP phone number. Luckily the count system told the Bells to suck it. The Bell system claimed it was putting more burden on their system, which might very well be the case, however, they also stuck it to the consumer for YEARS with this 'unlimited local calls' for one rate when they had done studies way back in the day to determine that the average customer makes/receives 6 calls a day with the average call being 4.2 minutes. Now that customers are using MORE of their unlimited service the phone company is crying the blues...
Let them reap what they've sewn all these years
Profit! (Score:3, Funny)
1: Monopoly broken up by government.
2: Local companies and national carriers hold secret meetings with government regulators, decide how to screw customer over.
3: ???
4: Profit!!
There is no step 3... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is just a three step process, there are no question marks.
The four step one is the Microsoft DoJ changes
1) Monopoly found guilty by Goverment
2) Monopoly has word with new candidate
3) ???
4) Goverment lets Monopoly off.
With the Bells the worst thing is that everyone KNOWS how they are getting the money, but its not exactly something we can all reproduce.
another good example... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:another good example... (Score:5, Informative)
Now, they put the extra charge in the "Taxes and Federal Fines" (or whatever) section, and yet when I checked up on the explanation of these fees, it says something along the lines of "Eventhough we SAY that these are taxes, they really aren't. We're just making this tax/charge up because we're being forced into this number-portability thing..."
Seriously. Is this legal to label it as a "tax" eventhough it isn't? Man, I'm starting to distrust any fee-based company because they keep raising charges. (I've been with DirectTV for only about 1.5 years and they've already raised my monthly fees by at least $6 and removed some of the channels in hopes that I'll just "upgrade" my package and pay more.)
For those of you with SprintPCS, check your April bill.
Hmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
You and I both know that the cost of using those lanes would NEVER go down. They'll always find a way to charge more for what they've built, simply because people become so adjusted to things (like telephones) that they become a "necessity" instead of a "luxury" and people pay them blindly for the service. Look at cable TV -- how many of the channels you get in your huge bundle do you actually watch?
Monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm no advocate of government regulation, but in economic terms, there is only one workable solution to prevent this sort of abuse. If the FCC and state regulators would get out of the way and let communities implement this, the cost and quality of phone service would improve to accurately reflect a competitive market value.
1. The community should purchase the network: all the last mile copper and rights of way should be owned by the commons and not monopolized by any private entity.
2. Any company (including the Baby Bells) can bid to rent the use of the network for the provision of any service (dialtone, DSL, etc.) to any customer. These rents should be for a term that allows for regular adjustment as the market changes.
With this approach, the Baby Bells would be in a good position to maintain a dominant market position in the near term, but not a monopoly which they can abuse. And if other firms can enter the market and do a better job of providing value to consumers and businesses, they will take market share away from the Bells.
I need my hard line to... (Score:2, Funny)
An enigma... (Score:4, Insightful)
The government establishes regulations on how much money welfare recipients should get. The recipients abuse the system (we've all seen stories about this at some point, somewhere)....and people scream about "the system".
UK line charges (Score:4, Informative)
"Grandpa" Al Lewis... (Score:2, Funny)
~Philly
Phone company billing just sucks, period (Score:5, Informative)
When I took over the phone guy's responsibility when he quit, I asked the telco for a detailed customer record, and I got ~175 page report that detailed our services in a totally unintelligible report. Each DS0 from our four D1s took up about a page on the report, detailing every 10 cent tarrif that made up the price of each DS0, along with the other tarrifs associated with the DS1 itself. After looking at it I pretty much gave up and handed it over to our phone maintenance vendor who audited for me -- they employee two ex Qwest employees specifically for this purpose, since the codings and info aren't explained anywhere but in some Qwest internal documents.
We ended up dropping a bunch of 1FB (telco slang for analog copper) circuits, CENTREX circuits and other stuff we weren't using. They were live on our demarc block, but not punched to anything.
This isn't unusual, either -- the vague monthly invoicing and byzantine customer records lead to so many overbilled or unused service that there's an entire industry that does nothing but audit phone bills in exchange for a percentage of the savings.
My experience with telcos leads me to believe that half of this is a monopolistic lack of desire for reform, government bureaucracy and overregulation, and excessive merger activity that's left them with dozens of computer systems that don't communicate without human intervention. I've been told by both Sprint and Qwest that they have systems so complex that there are few people there who can even *use* both of them, but data is required to be pulled/entered from both of them to get anything done.
Unfortunately I don't see any hope for reform. You pretty much have to do business with them, and when business is good they give you what they want and waste the money on mergers and exec perks (Nacchio sucks!), and when business is bad (like now), they plead poverty and can't afford to fix this.
I guess the only hope is that some of the CLECs can do better without becoming just like the ILECs, although I'd imagine the temptation is to become the ILECs, not improve on them.
Re:Phone company billing just sucks, period (Score:4, Interesting)
One month I was asked to investigate a huge jump in our bill (30 or 50 percent as I recall). After spending hours fiddling with my record-matching perl and coming back with nothing, I looked at the datestamps on the records. There were records spanning 14 previous months. Once those were stripped out our bill was as close to right as we could hope to demonstrate.
True Story... (Score:5, Interesting)
Similar experience with SBC (Score:3, Informative)
I had a similar experience with SBC. Last May (2002), I moved, and cancelled my service. Switched to Cox. Thought I was done dealing with the clowns. Imagine my surprise, then, to get a "Dear Deadbeat" letter from them in February. Yes, February. Called them about it, they said it was for transferring my service, and that it was billed in December. Well, that's a little more reasonable--only seven months, instead of nine. I called them, no help. Called their main office in Atlanta, no help.
Coincid
Phone lines... (Score:5, Interesting)
Road Runner moved in a year later and gave me a glorious broadband connection at home, and my servers are at a local ISP. The day my Hughes DirectTV DVR pulls info over my network rather than POTs, is the day I cancel my land line and run all calls through our mobiles. I suspect it is game over for both the cable and telcos once the wireless broadband hits it strides.
Every time the phone company would call me during supper trying to sell me the latest service, I would ask them for one thing. Can you give me a DSL connection? I'll be damned, but that just horked up the call center script badly. (grin)
Is cellular service really any better? (Score:2)
Who do you think owns your wireless service? (Score:5, Interesting)
Who exactly do you think you're hurting?
Verizon = Northwest Bell
SBC = Southwest Bell
Cingular = PacBell (owned by SBC, see above)
Who's left?
AT&T? They started this fiasco.
WorldCom? Better known as MCI, now bankrupt
Sprint? NexTel?
Nobody's going to get screwed by you cancelling yoru land line. You're still paying the same people for your cell phone. Do you think their accounting practices will suddenly become honest just because you're now using wireless?
"There's too much rat hair in McDonald's food, so I'll just have their fries".
Think people! Think!
Re:Who do you think owns your wireless service? (Score:4, Insightful)
Many people who are canceling their land-lines are doing so because they already have wireless devices that basically de-value their land-line.
While canceling land-lines might not make any of the bells suddenly "see the light", it will shift more of their income to their wireless markets, which have competition, which *might* just force them to offer competitive services/prices.
Even if canceling land-lines doesn't fix anything, there is no point in paying $40/month for a useless service.
Where'd you get that list ???? (Score:4, Insightful)
Cingular is owned by Bellsouth
Suncom by AT & T
Verizon was Bell Atlantic and others
Sprint owns Sprint (and the former 360)
There are lots of LARGE independent cell companies. You named one. Nextel
The others are: TMobile and PowerTel with 3.8 million and 1.4 million respectively plus TMoblie has the sexy Catherine Zeta to whore for them. Man, I wish she'd "rouge her knees" for me ;)
There are others I can't think of. You are partially right. But, the cell phone companies (even if they are the same companies) are in a new era growth of competition, the phobne comapnies and the branches that formed were on a dead tree to begin with.
New Yorkers Get Hit With.. (Score:2)
Hold on a sec (Score:4, Interesting)
Now lets gets some of the facts straight. What they found was 5 billion in equipment that the bells had on their books but couldn't be found. They aren't getting away with that whole amount each year. I'm outraged by the whole bells situation too, but let's read the article. Especially one as informative as this one. I know, this is
Switch to Vonage... (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, I don't expect this to last too long, but in the meantime, it's been well worth it! My old phone bill had over $35 of bullshit fees a month from the subscriber line charge, to the universal service fee. It's all a giant scam.
that aint all! (Score:3, Interesting)
It was originally supposed to pay for the Spanish American War.
It was supposed to be a temporary tax that went away after it satisfied it's original intent. Haha! Sure...
I wonder what is the oldest such tax??
Routine regulator failure (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a normal failure of regulating monopolies. If your plan for an industry is to have a private monopoly and regulate it, then expect this sort of thing to happen every few decades.
If you choose nationalisation instead, it's much worse. Costs may be low, but service will be dreadful to non-existent. Want a new phone line installed? Sure: it will be ready in 6 months to a year (eg UK or Italy before privatisation).
Local community ownership has been raised here; that might work. One region of the UK -- Kingston upon Hull -- had a phone service run by the local council (city government). I think it was more or less OK, much like the nationalised service. The council sold it off for umpteen million at the top of the telecoms boom, then lost all the money in an investment swindle (or it might have been BCCI). In the UK at least, massive incompetence or corruption is always a danger with local government.
Deregulation is tricky too. Comms networks are a textbook natural monopoly: barriers to entry are huge. You will be lucky to end up with real competition.
I think light regulation is the best answer. Try to encourage competition rather than capping retail prices. The inefficiencies caused by having duplicated facilities provided by competing businesses are small compared to the institutional paralysis produced by public or private monopolies. In many countries people have abandoned monopoly-provided fixed lines in droves for competing cellular providers.
The moment you sit regulators round a table with the industry to make deals, you're heading for disaster. Politicians are tempted to do this to get "achievements" they can point to, but there's always a price and it's usually hidden from the electorate. It's better for the politicians to stand back, and only intervene when they see anti-competitive behaviour, and then stamp down without any discussion.
Accounting complexities (Score:5, Interesting)
For the RBOCS, keep in mind that serious regulation started in 1934, and there were 23 local companies operating under the AT&T banner. Then those companies were consolidated into seven in 1984, and have further combined into just three. Could anyone have kept accurate track of equipment and accounting for it under those conditions?
How about misplaced equipment? (Score:4, Interesting)
I work at a company whose head office is located in an old manor house within a high-scale community. Sometime during the development of the community, before the company acquired the house and while the community's developer was using it as its sales office, the local phone company decided that the manor house's basement would be a good place to house an OC-3 multiplexer (a Fujitsu FLM-150, in this case) to serve the community, despite the fact that the building would eventually become a private property.
A few years later, the developer finished its work, and sold the house to our company, who then sent contractors to upgrade the electrical and network wiring. At one point, they found two pairs of wires that were unmarked, and they couldn't figure out what they were used for (not out of incompetence, mind you), so they yanked them. Come the next day, a telco van was outside, saying that they had received complaints about loss of service and may I please come in to check our equipment.
It didn't take long for the facilities manager to ask the telco to please get the bloody machine out of our property. The requests have fallen on deaf ears, however. We still have the multiplexer here, along with the telco end every pair of analogue and digital lines in the community, including the T1 smartjacks for the country club next door. It is absolutely trivial to come in and open the multiplexer's cabinet and screw around with the linecards inside it, not to mention being able to tap into any of the lines on the demarc's punch panels themselves. The telco knows all of this, but they won't do anything about it because they're too bleeding lazy and it would cost them money to move the equipment to somewhere else.
This is only the one of the scams of the teleco's (Score:5, Interesting)
"Teletruth estimates that customers paid Verizon Pennsylvania $785 per household for a fiber-optic service they will never receive."
"50% of All Small Business phonebills have mistakes. ---And that's why we have announced our "Send Us Your Phone Bill" campaign in the Verizon territory to help business and residential customers recover overcharges on their Verizon telephone bills."
Also if you have a lot more time than I do you can read "The Unauthorized Bio of the Baby Bells" [newnetworks.com] and How The Bells Stole America's Digital Future [netaction.org]. Excerpt from the latter:
"New Networks Institute (NNI) estimates that consumers have already paid over $45 billion in extra telephone charges, and continue to pay over $8 billion annually. As monopoly providers of local phone service, the Bells are still subject to some regulation, yet they are among the most profitable companies in America today. Bell profit margins are more than double that of the major competitive long distance companies and other regulated utilities and literally 167% above the profit margins of some of America's best-known companies. Much of this excess profit is a result of the financial incentives that were supposed to build the infrastructure for America's digital future."
The guy behind all this is Bruce Kushnick [google.com]. I've yet to find any one claiming he's anything but on the level. If you have please email me.
My blog post about this [icepick.info]
Pizza delivery requires a landline... (Score:3, Informative)
And it does make sense.
*holdup man calls Domino's behind Walmart*
Gunman: Umm..Yeah.
Gunman: I'd like to order a pizza behind Walmart on 32nd street.
Gunman: Tell him to delivery all his other orders first.
Gunman: I'll just wait...
So, as a programmer I REQUIRE a land line to get my nourishment! (and if you tip them well, after a while they deliver beer too!)
Re:Pizza delivery requires a landline... (Score:3, Funny)
I don't do it very often but I've never had any problem with Papa John's or Mr. Gattis delivering to me.
I'm one of those guys without a land line -- I have just a cell phone.
I don't advertise that fact, but then I don't tell them I'm fat, either.
--Richard
cellular to landline converter (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, if I could find one out there, that is what I would use.
Why does telephony even cost money anymore? (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, if i, in theory can have 390 phones for $27/month how much is it really worth having one?
I'm not suprised... (Score:3, Insightful)
But they should have fairly decent records for now from that audit process.
NO LANDLINE!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
I now use Windows Messenger for my voice, although I have been playing with Xphone (http://www.xten.com) which is simply amazing. Put it on my iPaq with wireless internet, and I now have an 802.11b phone. I've heard there is a Linux version in the works, but won't be out for several months. Can't wait so I can put it on my Zaurus!
So for me, no more long distance charges which is rediculous in my opinion. I'll gladly take my internet phones thank you very much. Asterisk at http://www.asteriskpbx.com can run my internal phone network and Cisco IP phones will replace my landline phones to run over the internet.
http://fwd.pulver.com is my new phone number (18924 to be exact)
So screw the Bells, I don't need'em. Cable internet all the way baby. I've been landline free since January 1st, 2003, and wish I'd done it sooner.
I suspect ... more theft and fraud (Score:3, Interesting)
There are (I think) many other business scams/cons occuring.
My wife got an unknown charge on a credit card. She tried to correct the obvious billing mistake, but as of today many weeks later the business that charged and/or the credit card folks have our money. At one point she was given a phone number to call, she called, and we got charges ($4) on our phone bill for calling the number the company provided. Nothing resolved/achieved we are out about $40 and consider it a lesson learned.
A couple times over the past few decades, I had a problem where the credit card company refused to remove the about $50 charge, another time (different credit card) would not stop recurring charges to an ISP. I told, wrote, and emailed all involved that the credit cards were canceled on my request and that I would not pay any charges or bills that were caused by the companies.
I got some threats, but I used some strong expressive English and did call one company a group of scam and con artist.
I am beginning to here these kinds of complaints more often. The companies end up with a few extra dollars, know you won't sue for $50 worth of fraud, and hope you pay the bill, don't cancel the credit cards, and continue on as if nothing happened.
A few dollars here and there must really help big business's by the millions monthly, and GW Bush thinks folks will trust business and the economy soon. We learned a lesson with enron, GC,
OldHawk777
Reality is a self-induced hallucination.
Vonage to the rescue (Score:3, Interesting)
The voice quality is good, and the price is excellent, and I can take the # anywhere I want to - just plug into broadband, it autoconfigures with DHCP, and in 10 seconds or less, I'm up!
The bells, with all their "X per minute on Wednesdays between 4 and 11PM" bull---t are ripe for a serious change in their business model.
Drop your wireline you do not need it for DSL (Score:3, Informative)
Dallas (Score:2, Interesting)
Now, he indeed seems to have been obsoleted.
But don't take it wrong : in Europe, we had loads of similar examples : Paris'Mayor's wife who got 10000's of dollars for a few dozen pages bugous report, France former Prime Minister, Edith Cresson, who was proven guilty of sharing European money with her dentist, etc.
So, well, it is not typically American, this is just typically global.
Re:funny math, not funny money (Score:3, Funny)
What the fuck, man? You trying to ruin my
Re:Average phone bill? (Score:3, Informative)
br. No. I haven't noticed that at all. My friends in my area that have DSL can download from a major ftp server (running on an OC line, etc) at about 50 or 60 k/s. I consistently get 75 - 150 on cable. it varies through the day, but usually varies in that range (4am i get 150, 8pm i get 75). The ads for DSL are correct out here. You get consistent speed. Unfortunately though, you ge