Re: California Declares Free Market Broken, Recommends Price Controls For Phone Services

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Bob Frankston" <Bob19-0501 () bobf frankston com>
Date: August 17, 2008 6:32:32 PM EDT
To: "'Bruce Kushnick'" <bruce () newnetworks com>, "'Open Infrastructure  
Alliance'" <oia () lists bway net>
Subject: Re: [OIA] [IP] California Declares Free Market Broken,  
Recommends Price Controls For Phone Services

They bill for local service?? Why?

Yes, it’s 100% politics because there is nothing to be charged for.  
It’s not just the lack of competition but the complete bogus idea that  
phone bits are so very special that you can charge people for them  
even though you can’t charge for email bits or video bits.

It makes no more sense that requiring a postage stamp for email. You  
don’t win by negotiating the price down by 90%.

From: oia-bounces () lists bway net [mailto:oia-bounces () lists bway net]  
On Behalf Of Bruce Kushnick
Sent: Sunday, August 17, 2008 03:47
To: 'Open Infrastructure Alliance'
Subject: Re: [OIA] [IP] California Declares Free Market Broken,  
Recommends Price Controls For Phone Services

>That’s all we need – someone fixing the price of phone calls so that  
it doesn’t fall to the natural price of $0.00.

Bob, the fixing is not about long distance, but about local services,  
though long distance has also gone through the roof because of added  
plan fees, bogus charges, etc.  Your idea that calls are free is a  
political problem, not a technical one and it will never be free for  
the majority of the US under the current Regulatorium.

Teletruth is currently working with a group called UCAN in San Diego  
on a grant from the California Consumer Protection Board. --- Our  
study is to examine what happened to prices since 2004… when we did  
our first survey.

With over 600 wireline/cable bills,  and a few hundred wireless  
bills,  --- the price didn’t just go up,

On the local side, we found that virtually every charge has been  
ratcheted up  --- just like the article claims, and almost all of  
those services are stuff like Caller ID, Call Waiting, directory,  
local phone calls.  – This is

However, we also found:

A)    there’s no longer competition. It is an unbalanced duopoly  
between (in san Diego) Cox and AT&T, which has almost 80% of the phone  
markets, but also controls 95% of LD on their bills, not to mention  
offering DSL, ---
B)    Since 2004, legacy AT&T and MCI have been harvesting customers –  
meaning continue to raise rates until people leave. Many simply didn’t  
and are paying $.50-$1.00 a minute when you add in all the additional  
fees.
C)    No one has a package, but are paying ala carte for LD and local.  
(unlike Verizon. --- However, the AT&T customers (the majority) make  
only 87 minutes of calls --- so, packages actually cost more and harm  
about 75% of the population.
D)    The FCC’s data on the market is pure fiction – based on actual  
phone bills. Only 2% of AT&T customers are paying  the average $.06  
cents a minute when you actually examine the customer’s bills by  
‘accounts’ the FCC merges all of the high-volume customers *(less than  
25%) with the low and medium volume customers.
E)     There are multiple Truth-in billing, truth in advertising and  
merger violations.

By killing off virtually all of the competition, we can now prove  
competition does not exist in San Diego. --- We’re looking for funding  
to do a nationwide survey next as we believe it will reveal almost  
identical stats.

And to address bob – your’ not typical user. In fact, your grandma or  
aunt would be the typical user – few calls, all costs. The most  
insidious, which many lifeline customers have are unlisted numbers and  
wire-pro, now $6.00 a month. (it used to be included in the cost of  
local service.

Most people do not care about phone service, it is a utility, they  
don’t shop, there aren’t any serious choices and so, if you don’t step  
in an return some regulation over price, they can continue to raise  
rates…

B.


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