"Shameless plug: BOOK EVENT: TONIGHT: March 6th, NYC"

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bruce Kushnick <bruce () newnetworks com>
Date: March 6, 2006 1:04:27 AM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] more on The Return of Ma Bell -- AT&T (SBC) to buy  
BellSouth?]]

Shameless plug: BOOK EVENT: TONIGHT: March 6th,  NYC, "$200 Billion
Broadband Scandal" release....
more: http://www.newnetworks.com/scandalinvite.htm
=============
Why is this book timely? America is 16th in the world in broadband  
because
these companies failed to deliver
on their fiber optic committments. And it is now clear that the  
mergers were
to blame...Making them larger?

First, Teletruth has an active complaint with the FTC over the  
previous Bell
mergers.
http://www.newnetworks.com/FTCcomplaintSBCVerizon.htm

Using their own data, combined, Verizon and SBC claimed they would spend
$48.9 billion and have 36.5 million households by 2000. (this is the low
number.) This was the fiber-to-the-curb services, 45 Mbps, 2 directional
services, with 500+ channels.

As we show, the companies essentially 'gamed' the regulatory system with
promises that they would never
keep. For example, the mergers closed down the fiber optic  
deployments in 26
states, even though they totally
disregarded their promised committments in the states, such as NJ or
Ameritech. Also, the companies never
competed with each other, as promised in their SBC-Ameritech and  
Verizon-GTE
mergers. SBC was supposed to
be in 30 cities OUTSIDE their regions and Verizon claimed 24 cities  
outside
their regions...
Is 66 competitors in 22 markets robust competition?

How did making these companies larger help the Public Interest?

Here's a link to a chart showing the timing, the money to be spent, the
number of households to be passed, and the fiber optic closures and the
merger dates:.  http://www.newnetworks.com/SBCVerizonmergers.htm

Here's a few chapters on the SBC-Ameritech-Pacific Telesis-SNET- 
Southwestern
Bells committments and their failure to deliver on competition and  
the harms
to broadband.
http://www.teletruth.org/docs/SBCMergerharms.pdf (PDF File)

(As someone who's been following this-- the linkages between the  
mergers and
the fiber optic closures
was news to me.)

The book was written to supply the data for our FTC complaint and other
state actions.

Bruce Kushnick, Teletruth




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