Major telcos have abandoned many promises to the states made...
Major telcos have abandoned many promises to the states made as a condition of deregulation, San Antonio Assistant City Attorney Gabriel Garcia said Friday. With experience in communications and utility cases before courts, the FCC and the Texas Public Utility…
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Commission, he was a panelist at the NATOA meeting in New Orleans. He outlined promises the industry made in the 1990s in exchange for deregulation, and described a failure to deliver. These promises continued to be made in the last decade and also failed to be executed, he said. He compared promises of fiber build-out, of consumer obligations, public benefits, job creation and other benefits that fell short as regulation was eased. AT&T, Verizon and other telcos engaged in “cherry picking” with rolling out advanced services like FiOS and U-verse, he said. Garcia described similar efforts under way now in which telcos remove carrier-of-last-resort obligations and deem wireless and VoIP to be telecom substitutes. The telcos have no real solution for low-income customers and rural areas, he said. “They are acting like rational, profit-making firms.” Garcia noted they're not punished or held accountable by state legislatures. The maxim of Kushnick’s Law is applicable, Garcia said: “A regulated company will always renege on promises to provide public benefits tomorrow in exchange for regulatory and financial benefits today.”