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 opposed to the proposed changes to the telecommunications industry and wanted to share my views with you. These changes—the mergers of AT&T/SBC and MCI/Verizon, TV franchise legislation, the Telecom Act re-write proposals, and the anti-municipal broadband bills—are going to be bad for many. Here’s why.
Discourage competition
One of the worst effects of these changes will be a loss of competition. They will reduce the number of companies in the industry, which will result in less competition, which will result in higher prices because competitive pricing only happens when there is competition.
These proposals will also result in reduced innovation. Competition fosters innovation as innovation is a self-preservation tactic; remove the competition and there’s no need to innovate. Competition is why Internet access took hold so quickly; without the 7,000 or so ISPs that made the Internet accessible we might still have limited access nationwide.
Negative effects on consumers and business
IISPs are the technology experts for their markets who supply the front-line of Internet security and network management. They provide instruction and extra services that large telecoms are not be able to provide or are not interested in providing. Without the IISPs consumers will be less educated about technology threats, which will then increase exponentially.
IISPs help consumer understand new technology (wi-fi, VOIP, etc.). Without the IISPs new technology products and services will have a very hard time getting into the market, because what people don’t understand they don’t buy. Without IISPs consumers and technology producers will suffer.
Bad for economies
If regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs) are given state franchise rights, municipalities and counties will lose franchise fees and communications taxes. If anti-municipality broadband bills like HR 2726 are passed, cities and towns will not be allowed to deploy their own broadband infrastructure. When phone and cable companies don’t either, communities will not have the Internet access necessary to compete in the global workplace.
Additionally, RBOCs are redlining fiber deployment, which promotes digital discrimination. For example, Verizon is only putting FiOS in affluent neighborhoods that already have DSL service. This type of behavior is not good for the economy because it limits potential.
The final blow to the economy will be lost jobs. RBOCs have downsized almost 100,000 employees in the last two years, and will get rid of another 35,000 with these mergers. Add to this the jobs that will be lost as result of the IISPs closing and you can see how local, state, and the national government will lose significant amounts of tax revenue and the individual purchasing power that fuels the economy.
The end of IISPs
Also please consider this: These mergers will drive IISPs out of business. If the FCC starts treating DSL the same as cable modem IISPs will not be able to negotiate fair commercial agreements with the RBOCs for DSL circuits. This will in turn force them to close. Currently DSL service is regulated so that RBOCs charge the same prices to end users and IISPs. Remove these regulations and RBOCs will abandon IISP sales in favor of selling only to end users. Thousands of IISP jobs will be lost and millions of consumers will be forced to switch to the TeleCable companies for Internet service, losing their freedom of choice.
Thank you for taking the time to consider my position. As you can see, these proposed changes are not in the best interest of consumers or businesses except the very largest telecommunications firms. Small businesses are the lifeblood of the economy, and these changes would leave then unable to compete with corporate giants. Please don’t facilitate the end of IISPs or the loss of thousands of jobs.
Sincerely,
Your name
Contact information:
http://www.ii4a.org,
email: isps@ii4a.org or phone
813-496-2122