New Networks Institute

You Decide Who's Telling the Truth.

Over the next few months, there will be a great deal of hype by the Bell companies and their supporters about the proposed ''Internet Freedom and Broadband Deployment Act of 2001''. They will tell you there's no data to support our claims--that the Bells do not need new incentives to rollout broadband. We now present a few thousand pages of data, representing thousands of customers and companies, in the form of reports, filings, and other documents that clearly shows

  •  The Bells promised to rollout a fiber-optic network to the American public in exchange for massive financial incentives --- and instead they kept the money
  •  The Bells are harming DSL customers
  • The Bells have continually harmed competitors, Internet providers and Competitive local phone companies.

BROADBAND ROLLOUT FAILURES

The Bells promised to rollout a fiber-optic network to the American public in exchange for massive financial incentives --- and instead they kept the money. Since the mid-1980's, NNI has collected information about the Bells promised rollouts--- and their failure to do so, including ISDN

 A Summary Report, discussing the Bells Promises and the Bells' profits.

A compendium of Bell's Broadband Statements--- an rollout failures

A Complaint filed in Massachusetts, and our findings in New Jersey

Reports by third parties

 Customer Harm

Virtually everyone should be aware of the problems with DSL.--- and most of them are being caused by the Bell companies since they control not only their own product, but the health of all competitive offerings.

First there are the Customer Complaints. To read a few hundred customer complaints, see the NNI site site at:  http://www.newnetworks.com/alliance/signatures.php?view=1

Or or go to DSLreports and read the stories at http://www.dslreports.com

You can also go to Verizon Pathetic at http://www.verizonpathetic.com

Then there are the law suits: 

Then there are the articles. To see a compiled list see: http://newnetworks.com/articles.html

Here's just a few that New Networks has been involved with

 HARM TO COMPETITION

Internet Provider Issues NNI has conducted Surveys of ISPs, (Nationwide, and Kansas, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, New York, and Texas. Some of these were done in conjunction with the US ISP Alliance and CIX, Commercial Internet Exchange. The primary finding has been that Internet Providers have been receiving sub-standard customer services, that serious impact their ability to do business and offer competitive services.

In fact, various reports by both the FCC, and Department of Justice found identical problems.

One of the most egregious problems for ISPs has been that the Bell companies discount pricing to resell their services is Predatory and their behavior discriminatory. In two complaints filed with the New York State Public service Commission and the Attorney General's offices, we go through the issues and how it clearly shows harm to competitors trying to sell competitive products. The harm is also felt by the customer.

Harm to DSL Customers via the ISPs problems is also a serious issue. When an ISP can't deliver because of the Bell companies' failures, it is ultimately the customer that is purchasing the service that is harmed.

How bad is it?  ISP problems are happening in virtually ALL states. In a recent case, the Kentucky Public Service Commission found that BellSouth was harming a small ISP, Iglou, (this collection is from http://www.amlung.com/page4.html)

A recent more technical discussion of the problems was filed with the FCC by the California ISP association (CISPA) which commented that "Bells Favor their Affiliated ISPs in DSLAM Port Provisioning"