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Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 07:55:39 -0700 (MST)
From: wildcardus freakis <wildcard@dax.belen.k12.nm.us>
To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Legislative Alert on US West Bill S408 (fwd)
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I just recieved this from my ISP, I know it is off topic so please forgive
it but since it affects everyone I figgered that it might prove to be
informative.
Thanks
Sasha
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www.geekcode.com
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This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a Bang, but with a whimper.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 24 Feb 1999 19:22:25 -0000
From: "Marianne Granoff, Director of Operations" <granoff@nm.net>
To: NM Technet Circuit Customers: ;
Subject: Legislative Alert on US West Bill S408
Dear Subscriber:
Please accept our appologies if you have previously seen this alert
on other mailing lists; we are trying to reach as many affected rate-
payers as possible.
New Mexico Technet believes that you should be aware of what is happening
in the NM Legislature regarding telecommunications deregulation
legislation. This will affect everyone in NM who uses the Internet.
The risk in this legislation is that US West will have the freedom to
raise your rates for any of your data services, including modem access
at will, and you will have no recourse. For example, US West could
initiate a per-minute charge for any modem connection to an Internet
Service Provider from your existing phone line. The Bell operating
companies have been attempting to get the FCC to allow them to do this
for years, but have been prevented by local regulation.
U S West is heavily promoting legislation which would allow them to be
deregulated. This would make them, in effect, an unregulated monopoly.
The following is a summary of the status of the bill and the sections
concerning telecommunications in New Mexico.
Status:
Last evening, the House Business and Industry Committee passed House Bill
470 - the U S West Deregulation bill. This bill now goes to the House
Judiciary Committee. It is critical that you call and state your opposition
to this action as quickly as possible.
On Wednesday, 2/24/99, we believe that the Senate Judiciary Committee will
hear 3 telecommunications bills. One of these is the U S West deregulation
bill SB 408. This bill has already passed the Senate Corporations and
Transportation Committee. This is the last committee to which it is
assigned. This committee is scheduled to meet in room 321 at 2:00 pm. If
the Senate stays on the floor longer than 2:00 pm (which has happened) the
committee meeting will be delayed. The 3 telecommunications bills to be
heard are:
SB 408 - the Senate version of the U S West Deregulation bill
SB 374 - the bill sponsored by the Interim Committee on Telecommunications
and Utilities that makes NM's Telecom Act comply with the federal act
SB 372 - the bill to fundthe PRC and the Attorney General to hold a rate
case on U S West
Please check the legislative web site at http://legis.state.nm.us for
additional information. This site contains copies of Senate Bill 408 and
House Bill 470 and the other bills that you may wish to look at. The U S
West deregulation bills are entitled: "The Infrastructure Investment and
Economic Development Act". Choosing this name is a public relations move
by U S West. They are very good at public relations.
The U S West deregulation legislation has very powerful sponsors. It is
about very complex issues. Only a handful of legislators understand the
issues. Many legislators are looking at the sponsors and saying that the
sponsors must know about it so "I will support them". The legislation is
likely to pass
**** unless a lot of people call their legislators and say they oppose it.
The sponsors have been lobbied heavily by U S West for many years about
this legislation. The sponsors and the U S West lobbyists are saying that
this is an economic development bill and they are being listened to by
other legislators.
Everyone knows that we need more investment in infrastructure, especially
in rural areas. Many of our legislators think that this bill will provide
it. It won't - but after it is passed - it will be too late to take the
legislation back.
Specifics:
This bill deregulates data services and all new telecommunications
services. The following language is excerpted from the bill. [My comments
are in brackets]:
Section 3.
C. "data services" means a telecommunications or information service that:
(1) provides transmission functionality between customers using
point-to-point facilities, point-to-multipoint facilities or digital
subscriber loop facilities [sounds like all "circuit" services];
(2) uses asynchronous transfer mode, packet, frame, cell or equivalent
technology-based transmission [ATM, FRS, etc.];
(3) permits routing of a packet, frame, or cell using addressing
information contained within the packet, frame or cell [IP? ethernet? does
this mean a routed ISDN connection is "data"? how about a routed voice
line?] ; and
(4) uses data conversion protocol [does this mean its a data line if it
has a modem on it?];
Section 5.
A. no telecommunications carrier is subject to rate of return regulation
or to any investigations of its earnings by the commission [Public
Regulation Commission or PRC].
I. A telecommunications carrier may offer or discontinue offering
packages of services five days after filing a notice with the commission.
A packaged offering may combine a retail public telecommunications service
with another telecommunications service or offering [U S West can "bundle"
like crazy].
J. A telecommunications carrier may combine a retail public
telecommunications service with another telecommunications service or a
non-telecommunications service or offering [U S West can bundle anything -
equipment, real estate, cars, etc.].
K. A telecommunications carrier may offer a public telecommunications
service on an individual contract basis to a specific customer upon filing
a notice with the commission. The customer name and location shall be
looked upon as confidential informational for review only by the commission
[U S West can give "special" pricing to anyone and only the PRC knows].
Section 6.
D. the burden shall be on the party complaining to prove the allegations
of its complaint [since you won't be able to complain about price or
service anymore, I am not sure that it matters - but this would be a
serious burden on someone who has a complaint].
Section 8.
A. data services offered by a telecommunications carrier shall be
deregulated and shall not be subject to any regulation by the commission.
And here's ***all*** that great infrastructure investment language:
Section 9.
a telecommunications carrier that serves more than two hundred fifty
thousand access lines in the state [only U S West serves >250,000 lines]
shall enter into an agreement with the secretary of economic development
detailing a specific plan of investments that the telecommunications
carrier will make in telecommunications infrastructure over a specified
period of time [technically they could invest $1.00 over the next 50 years
according to this language. [I am sure that the Secretary of Economic
Development is a fine person, but I do not believe he is very knowledgable
about telecommunications infrastructure investment. Why not have the
agreement with the PRC?]. The secretary of economic development shall make
an annual report to the legislature detailing the investment committments
made by the telecommunications carriers and their impact on economic
development within New Mexico [note - if there is no investment nothing
happens except that it gets reported].
The citizens of the State of NM will have to live with this FOREVER if it
passes. If you don't want this to be passed, you have to stop it. There
are people going to Santa Fe and testifying before committees - but that is
simply not going to be enough. You have to decide how much effort you want
to put into this now - or understand that you are choosing to live with U S
West getting to do exactly what it wants forever with no recourse available
to you.
I believe that this is a bad bill for New Mexico. I have never seen U S
West voluntarily reduce the charges on anything it didn't have to. Charges
for data services will go up. Schools, universities, hospitals, city and
county government, banks, ISPs, and other large organizations - including
state government - will all be paying more for these data services. U S
West can let uswest.net have special deals, however, and we will not know
it. That will be confidential info.
I strongly urge every one of you to call or FAX your legislators TODAY and
express your opinion on this legislation. Email is not as effective unless
you know that your legislator reads email regularly. If you do not know
who your legislators are - that information (and their phone number in
Santa Fe) is available at http://legis.state.nm.us FAX numbers are
available by calling their office.
If the Senate Bill passes the Senate Judiciary today, this legislation will
go to the full Senate tomorrow morning. It is important to act as soon as
possible.
Thank you for taking the time to read this message. There are several
people at Technet who will be happy to discuss these issues with you in
more detail.
Marianne
Marianne Granoff
Director of Operations
New Mexico Technet, Inc.
5921 Jefferson NE
Albuquerque, N.M. 87109
Ph: (505) 345-6555
FAX: (505) 345-6559
email: granoff@nm.net or granoff@technet.nm.org
http://www.technet.nm.org
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