On web: http://www.newnetworks.com/Redactedstory.htm
REDACTED: Your Rights. FCC Data and Order on Local and Long Distance Market Harms VOIP, Competition, and Customers.
FCC to Public: Trust US: "AT&T's market share of stand-alone, interstate, long distance services ranges from [REDACTED] percent to [REDACTED] percent, with a median market share of [REDACTED] percent. The respective figures for Verizon are [REDACTED] percent, [REDACTED] percent, and [REDACTED] percent."
WRITE THE FCC: GET THE REAL DATA: (SEE BELOW)
In a covert operation, the FCC released an important order the Friday before Labor Day, August 31st, 2007 -- maybe no one would notice. The FCC is rewriting the rules and allowing the phone companies to intermix their local and long distance service offerings, data, etc. This harms VOIP providers, all competitors, and all information about the market. It also harms every customer who pays a phone bill.
Here's the FCC ORDER: 8/31/07, FCC Replaces Outmoded Long-Distance Rules With New Protections For Consumers. News Release: FCC 07-159 (Order) http://www.fcc.gov
To explain the overall impacts and intricacies of this would take hours. Let us summarize the worst problem: The FCC's phone charges data is so bad it has no basis for making any decision. Worse, the only new data the FCC is dispersing is being redacted, covered-up.
Here's a sample of the Order COVER-UP: Teletruth's Favorite:
"[1] Id. AT&T's market share ranges from [REDACTED] with an accompanying HHI of [REDACTED] to [REDACTED] with an accompanying HHI of [REDACTED]. See Appendix C, Table 3 for individual state results for Frame Relay services within AT&T's franchise areas with more than 30 observations. [1] Appendix C, Table 4. Bell Atlantic's market share ranges from [REDACTED] with an accompanying HHI of [REDACTED] to [REDACTED] with an accompanying HHI of [REDACTED]. [1] Id. GTE's market share ranges from [REDACTED] with an accompanying HHI of [REDACTED] to [REDACTED] with an accompanying HHI of [REDACTED]. [1] Id. Bell Atlantic's market share ranges from [REDACTED] with an accompanying HHI of [REDACTED] to [REDACTED] with an accompanying HHI of [REDACTED]."
And this is throughout the entire document. (see sample) http://www.newnetworks.com/fccredactedsamples.htm
The FCC also claims it is too complicated to get accurate data.
"As discussed above, an increasing number of customers are shifting to bundled service offerings and away from stand-alone long distance offerings. We acknowledge the conceptual difficulties associated with estimating market shares for this bundled services market."
Worse, because the numbers look like an anti-trust case waiting to happen, the FCC claims that the numbers submitted 'overstates' the market share Verizon and AT&T have, thus no anti-competitive problem.
"...these market shares likely overstate AT&T's and Verizon's respective shares of the interstate long distance market, and their potential market power, for a number of reasons."
More redacted information is supplied to support that observation. (See the samples.)
Teletruth previously filed a Data Quality Act Complaint claiming that the FCC was using bad data pertaining to phone charges by AT&T and Verizon and that bad data harmed customers. http://www.newnetworks.com/dataqualityharvest.htm
We also raised questions about long distance market share and bundling, as well as low, medium and high-volume customers, using actual phone bills as our data. And we pointed out that the FCC had no clue about phone bundling statistical accuracy. The FCC stated in one report:
"For some households taking bundled local and long distance service, it was impossible to separate the bill into its component parts. In those cases, the entire bill was allocated to the local exchange service provider."
Read the FCC's rejection letter, as well as our appeal: http://www.teletruth.org/docs/FCCphoneDQA.pdf Our appeal: http://www.teletruth.org/docs/DQAAPPEALPHONECHARGES.doc
Now the FCC claims it can redact any information to make a case, and not have to show it to anybody. Worse, the FCC does not even trust the data inputs from the phone companies -- so it covers everything over.
Like the FCC Broadband report data that is being contested in the courts, it is time to get accurate information about how powerful AT&T and Verizon have become in the market.
The FCC will claim that this benefits consumers and that they have cut a deal to get low volume users lower rates. Read the fine print in the AT&T letter. http://www.teletruth.org/docs/ATTLDCOMMITT.PDF
The changes are only voluntary and customer only gets lower rates if you already are a customer of AT&T or Verizon in their region --- and then the offer expires. It makes no claims of lowering stand-alone services or that the other 'bogus' charges that have been added to America's phone bills will be taken off. In fact, Teletruth guarantees that the bills will still be unreadable, deceptive and inaccurate.
This sweetheart cover-up now gives the local phone monopoly more control over your phone services and less choice. We also believe the data may also prove very damaging in that it can be used to demonstrate that the Bell mergers were all a mistake, increasing their market power in the their primary markets.
ASK THE FCC COMMISSIONERS: http://www.fcc.gov Write the Commissioners: How many low volume customers are there in America? How many stand alone long distance customers are there? Has AT&T and Verizon market share increased? Can you understand your phone bill today? Did the mergers harm customers? Bruce Kushnick, Teletruth, bruce@teletruth.org Tom Allibone, Teletruth, tom@teletruth.org
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