Independent Internet Service Providers For America

If writing to Senators:                                If writing to House Representatives:
The Honorable (full name)                            The Honorable (full name)
(Room #) (name) Senate Office Building        —OR—    (Room #) (name) House Office Building
Washington, DC 20510    Washington, DC 20515

Date

Your name
Your company’s name
Your address line 1
Your address line 2
City, State, Zip

Dear Senator (last name):    —OR—     Dear Representative (last name):

I am a constituent with a vested interest in the protection of independent Internet service and am deeply concerned about the proposed changes to the telecommunications industry—specifically the proposed mergers of AT&T/SBC and MCI/Verizon, the Telecom Act re-write proposals, the anti-municipal broadband bills, and TV franchise legislation.

I believe that once you understand how these changes would affect the population and nation you will not vote to approve them. These proposed changes would harm local, state, and national economies, have a detrimental impact on competition, basically put independent Internet service providers (IISPs) our of business, and have negative effects on consumers, small businesses, technology producers, and non-profits.

Harmful to the local, state, and national economies

Local economies and taxes will be negatively affected by these proposals because state franchise agreements for television and anti-municipality broadband bills will take jobs and taxes out of the community. If the regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs) get state franchise rights, municipalities and counties will lose franchise fees and communications taxes.

If anti-municipality broadband bills like HR 2726 are approved, cities and towns will not be allowed to deploy their own broadband infrastructure, making them dependent on the phone and cable companies to do so in order to compete in the global workplace. And there’s no guarantee that the phone and cable companies will do so. America needs broadband access to be competitive in the global business environment, and without municipal broadband access, this will be extremely difficult to do.

RBOCs are deploying fiber via redlining, resulting in digital discrimination. For instance, Verizon is placing FiOS in only affluent neighborhoods with existing DSL service. Verizon and similar companies are clearly not thinking about the best interests of communities, even though all communities need broadband access and should be treated equally.

A final blow to the economy will be lost jobs. RBOCs have cut approximately 100,000 jobs in the past two years and plan to cut 35,000 more if the mergers are approved. And, these mergers will create even more job loss when IISPs can no longer compete with the big telecoms and close. These lost jobs are ones that contribute significantly to society via taxes and purchasing power, and communities cannot afford to lose them.

Detrimental impact on competition

Another powerful result of these proposed mergers would be a negative effect on competition. With fewer players in the ISP market there will be less competition, which will result in higher prices and reduced innovation. As we’ve seen time and again, only when firms must compete for business do they carefully consider their prices and invest in research and development. Remove the impetus for this—the fear of losing business to competitors—and prices increase while innovation decreases.
When the competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) lost UNE-P in December, the result was AT&T and MCI leaving the market. This action resulted in both less competition and higher rates for consumers, especially small business.

IISPs will be put out of business

Besides reducing competition, these mergers will drive most, if not all, IISPs out of business. If the FCC decides to treat DSL service like cable modem service IISPs will not be able to negotiate favorable agreements with RBOCs for DSL circuits. Current regulations mandate that RBOCs sell at retail for the same prices as they sell wholesale to IISPs. Remove these regulations and the RBOCs will abandon IISP sales to sell only to end users, creating further job loss and forcing 7 million subscribers to switch to the TeleCable companies for Internet service—effectively removing their freedom of choice.

Negative effects on consumers, small businesses, technology producers, and non-profits

IISPs play a critical role as part of our technology backbone, because they are the tech experts for their markets. They are the front-line of Internet security and network management and the ones people turn to for tech help. They provide but instruction and value-added services, and the TeleCable companies will not be able to provide this same local, hands-on assistance. Internet users will be less educated just when they need to be more educated so they can defend themselves against worms, viruses, and identity theft.

And without the front line support of IISPs emerging technologies (VOIP, home networking, wi-fi, broadband) will not be able to penetrate the market. Consumers still have trouble linking their home theater systems together and need IISPs to help them understand emerging technologies. If the don’t understand them they won’t but them, putting technology products manufacturers at a loss. If the IISPs are forced out of business, communities will be without a tried and true bridge to new technology.

One last group that will suffer as a result of these mergers is non-profits. Many obtain free Internet access and technical support from IISPs. They can’t afford to pay retail prices, so without the IISPs their operations will suffer, as will the people who depend on them.

Thank you for taking the time to read my concerns. I don’t want to see any of the above detrimental thing occur, and I’m betting you don’t either.

Sincerely,

Your name