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August 26th, 2015

8/26/2015

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Below you see the players in Baltimore trying to quell anger in citizens by pretending they are going to be part of this SMART CITY Economic Zone when the whole intent is to eliminate far more jobs.
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On Saturday October 24, 2015 the Center for International Entrepreneur Development will be hosting an Economic Forum with our current and future leaders.

  • Saturday, October 24at 1:00pm

  • Show DetailsCoppin State University2500 W North Ave, Baltimore, Maryland 21216
This public discussion will cover three major challenge areas in Baltimore City, which are public safety, education, and economic empowerment. Professionals in these fields as well as our current and future officials have been selected to speak on these issues. The goal of this forum is to productively discuss the current economic standing as well as some possible solutions to the problems at hand.

This event is open to the public and will allow residents of Baltimore City to ask questions and share their concerns.

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Today I would like to show that WE THE PEOPLE CAN REVERSE THIS AUTOCRATIC/TECHNOCRATIC HOLD  that global corporations want to take on nations through infrastructure control.

When Obama came to office the first thing he did was change national energy communications transmissions from analog to digital. 
This startled most people as no discussion on this major transition occurred AT ALL and the reason it happened is this SMART CITY/Technocracy policy to control all of a nation's infrastructure.  If you are trying to build a competitive economy with lots of choices----you don't eliminate analog.  You see below an activist article from groups fighting this NSA surveillance/data mining system that uses just that concept-------WE CAN ESCAPE YOU IF WE TURN TO ANALOG.

This is not only a policy that takes power away from global corporations----it is simple common sense----diversity is strength.  We may not change quickly the power of global corporations at the national level----but we can at the local level.  Cities across America need to rebuild public agencies for regulating the energy and water utility industry-----they must rebuild oversight and accountability to eliminate fraud and profiteering---and they must insist that all new cables and infrastructure for energy transmission INCLUDE ANALOG. 

IT IS NOT HARD----IT IS NOT EXPENSIVE----AND REGARDLESS OF WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT QUALITY OF SIGNAL---ANALOG GIVES FAR MORE CONSISTENCY OF SERVICE FOR OVER A CENTURY.

Exelon is receiving lots of government funding to upgrade these lines throughout Baltimore -----the coming national infrastructure stimulus will target the same----AND A CITY CAN REQUIRE THIS DUAL FUNCTION.


Analog not only keeps corporations from intercepting communications/data----it keeps them from having the power to blacken all energy transmission.
  PEOPLE WILL HAVE THAT CHOICE.


'Turning back to the world of coaxial cable, we can now answer a few questions. Can analog cables be used in digital applications? Yes, up to a point; but the looser tolerances of older analog cable designs will limit their run lengths, at least when used in high-bandwidth applications like SDI video. Can digital cables be used in analog applications? Yes, absolutely; the same tight tolerances which make digital cables appropriate for digital applications make them superb for analog applications. One may not "need" the improvement, but it will never hurt, and can help. SDI coax, like Belden 1694A, costs very little more than (and in many cases less than) traditional analog coax designs, and will outperform it on every measure of analog cable performance. The advances in dielectric foaming result in a cable which is not only higher-performing, but more flexible and easy to work with, than its older counterparts. Contrast, for example, 1694A with a cable that was once the broadcast industry standard cable, Belden 8281. 8281 is heavier, thicker, and dramatically less flexible. And if the notion of heavier and thicker cable sounds better--bigger cable equals lower loss, right?--think again. Because of efficient dielectric foaming, 1694A is able to use a larger center conductor in a smaller cable, for lower loss'.




Just the fax: internet activists go analog to fight Congress on cybersecurity bill


Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act would give tech firms broad latitude to collect personal data – even as Congress uses old tech to avoid prying eyes




A fax machine with a phone? Far too fancy for US politicians. Photograph: Ronnie McMillan/Alamy Sam Thielman in New York



@samthielman
Monday 27 July 2015 12.50 EDT Last modified on Monday 27 July 2015 15.28 EDT

Internet activists determined to halt what they see as another ill-conceived Washington cybersecurity bill are hitting Congress where it hurts: right in the fax machine.

Protesters have programmed eight separate phone lines to convert emails sent from a handy box at FaxBigBrother.com (as well as tweets with the hashtag #faxbigbrother) to individual faxes and send them to all 100 members of the US Senate.

The rationale, said Evan Greer of activist group Fight for the Future, is that Congress doesn’t appear to understand technology invented in the current century.

A government surveillance bill by any other name is just as dangerous Trevor Timm The Cisa ‘cybersecurity’ bill is really a way to blow another massive hole in Americans’ privacy

“Groups like Fight for the Future have sent millions of emails, and they still don’t seem to get it,” said Greer. “Maybe they don’t get it because they’re stuck in 1984, and we figured we’d use some 80s technology to try to get our point across.” All 100 members of Congress will receive each of the faxes.

The deluge of badly printed screenshots is in protest of the the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA), sponsored by California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, which proposes cooperation between government agencies and private tech companies and gives the latter broad latitude to collect as much data as possible from users in the name of cybersecurity and then share it with specific federal agencies, who in turn have latitude to share it with all federal agencies.

Findings shared by companies who work with the government will be specifically exempt from the Freedom of Information Act (Foia) and all other attempts by the public to learn exactly what pieces of their data are being collected, scaled and leafed through. Fans of the bill include Facebook, Google, AT&T, Comcast, Bank of America and Blue Cross Blue Shield.

The bill, stalled last year, has been recently resuscitated and will likely be considered next week before Congress adjourns for the summer on 7 August.

Do US senators really use their fax machines that often, though? “Yes, sadly,” one former Senate staffer told the Guardian. They love their pagers as well. Faxes “all get digitized by the time they get to the office, though”, which bodes ill for senatorial email inboxes.

And why is 1979’s hottest tech trend still so popular on Capitol Hill? “One thing that makes faxes – and pagers, for that matter – still good tech is that they are analog and difficult to search. Members love them, especially to transmit data for things like campaign financing records.”

It is, in other words, a great way for American elected officials to obey the letter of the law when it comes to campaign disclosures and Foia requests without exposing themselves to the kinds of invasive data-crunching to which the general public will be prey, should CISA pass. “No one wants to read” the transmissions, the ex-staffer said. “Readers get lost in them, but there is still a record of info being sent and received.”


Latest updates as world markets continue to seesaw in the wake of China’s Black Monday

  But there’s still pressure on Congress to act on cybersecurity worries, especially after the recent hack of the Office of Personnel Management (to say nothing of the security problems at Target, Sony and a dozen other high-profile companies).

Matt Comyns, global cybersecurity practice leader with executive search firm Russell Reynolds, said there were great risks from simply letting the current arc of cybercrime take its course.
“We are living in a new world and need to adjust our thinking and behavior,” he said. “The obvious risk to CISA and more regulation from the government is the abuse of privacy. However, the government seems to have decided that is the potential cost of creating a more secure environment for companies and US citizens.”

Greer had a different take. “With all these breaches,” she said, “there’s a lot of fearmongering going on in DC. They just say: ‘This is a problem – we’ve got to do something!’ And this is the something they’re going to do. It’s not just that this won’t fix things – it’ll make them worse. And it’ll give sweeping legal immunity to some of the largest companies in the world and open us all up to new forms of surveillance.”


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You will here nothing of these choices from Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons wanting to use digital as a means to control all of a nation's energy infrastructure.  Please take time to understand that America was analog for a century and the transmission was fine.  The need is simply in replacing century-old cable. 

The money to do these cable upgrades for analog goes hand and hand in all infrastructure upgrades-----water pipeline, gas pipeline, digital cable, and road repair.  AS YOU REBUILD A COMMUNITY AND ITS INFRASTRUCTURE YOU INCLUDE ANALOG.


I told my story of paying over $800 for a great digital TV only to have to repair it 5 years later at the tune of $400.  Analog TVs were in people's families for generations.  So, Baltimore becomes the location for manufacturing analog products for example.  This is how you reverse the power of global corporations using technology for control and it allows for growth of a local domestic economy.

Digital Versus Analog Power Control—A Fight To The... Draw?They're different, but by borrowing some digital approaches to design simplification, analog can play nicely with digital in many vendors' portfolios.

Mar 2, 2006 Don Tuite | Electronic Design
The gossip: Analog and digital will soon battle for control of power-supply regulation. The reality: When it comes to feedback-loop control, both approaches seem to happily coexist. (See "True Digital," p. 46, and "Looks Like Analog, Designs Like Digital," p. 48.)

Indeed, many vendors offer a choice. Some of digital control's initial programmability advantages are now available even in controllers and regulators that use analog feedback. Still, digital power has some appeal.

"Power supplies have become a part of the overall system, and they're expected to handle power management," says Mikhail Guz, Power-One's director of strategic marketing and applications. "That last point is particularly important as more and more system engineers want to be able to talk to the power supply in real time for monitoring and diagnostics." Many power-management engineers agree.

"An engineer can use a single digital product in many different modes and applications," Guz continues. "They can relatively easily implement adaptive control and nonlinear control algorithms. Unlike analog, digital controllers are not subject to component tolerances and aging effects. Moreover, most of the digital control loop is built on CMOS processes that scale much more readily than analog processes, leading to cost savings in future digital generations."

...........................................................

In the long run, digital control was a breakthrough technology. But many of digital control's benefits have now migrated back into analog-control regulators.


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The FCC requirement for national change has no teeth.  It is unconstitutional for the Federal government to make such restrictions especially at a time when the Federalism Act embraced by Executive Order through Obama specifically states this.  Now, if you are going to ignore Federal law as they are doing now----cities need to step in and fight for diversity in energy transmission.  We are fighting for what is there----not for something entirely new.  This is not a luddite stance for those wanting the best in digital transmission as it does not effect the laying of digital cable.  It simply allows dual systems to operate and the analog can be a PUBLIC UTILITY.

As much as Obama promised rural upgrades to digital as analog ended-----we all know a profit-driven global corporation is not going to wire rural America and maintain the infrastructure especially with the push to move people to the cities for density.

 Residents fight to keep analog cell phones Claim better signal coverage than digital service in rural areas 

Chet Brokaw  /  AP Johnny Smith talks on an analog bag phone in his car outside the Livestock Auction in Fort Pierre, S.D. updated 7/26/2005 7:40:47 AM ET 2005-07-26T11:40:47

FORT PIERRE, S.D. — Johnny Smith has a new digital cell phone, but he relies on an older analog bag phone when he travels the wide open spaces in the western part of the state to line up cattle for sale at a local livestock auction.

In rural areas where cellular towers are far apart, analog phones often work when digital models can't get a signal.  With the Federal Communications Commission pushing the move to all-digital phone service across the country, Smith and others in rural areas are urging the agency to wait until more towers are built to improve service.

"I carry a bag phone just because I can get so much better reception with it," Smith said.  "If you're out in the middle of no place, it's nice to be able to call somebody."

According to current timelines set up by the FCC, wireless companies can phase out analog service by 2008.  By the end of this year, the agency also is requiring that 95 percent of each wireless company's customers have digital phones containing chips that allow emergency operators to pinpoint a person's location when a call is placed to 911.

The South Dakota Public Utilities Commission will attempt to rally support for a resolution seeking to suspend or modify the deadline on location-capable phones Tuesday at the National Association of Regulatory Utilities Commissioners meeting in Austin, Texas.

Bob Sahr, a PUC member, said he hopes the FCC will look at the situation on a case-by-case basis to give continued support to analog service in rural areas that need the older technology. In some areas, it's the only kind of service that works, he said.

"If we phase those people out, they may be in a situation where they have this brand new, state-of-the-art digital phone with all sorts of bells and whistles, but they're not going to be able to complete the call in the first place," Sahr said.

AdvertiseAdvertise Advertise The Rural Cellular Association and CTIA-The Wireless Association, which both represent wireless companies, also support suspending the deadline.  Companies do not want to force their customers to switch to newer phones until it makes sense to do so, RCA executive director Tim Raven said. 

"We have instances every day in local markets where folks are rescued because of their cell phones.  It's just a matter of working up the technology issues and obstacles," he said.

The FCC has not responded to the request, and officials said the commission does not comment on pending matters.  The agency has already granted some companies waivers from the deadline based on local conditions.

E911 coverage
The National Emergency Number Association, whose aim is to implement a universal emergency telephone number system, opposes a blanket delay in the move to the new digital phones, said Rick Jones, director of operations issues for the organization.  However, the group is also willing to consider requests for waivers by individual companies in areas where a delay might make sense, he said.

As of June, less than half the nation's 911 call centers had the capability of locating a cell phone containing one of the chips, Jones said. The call centers with the technology covered nearly 58 percent of the nation's population but less than 36 percent of its counties, he said.

In many states in the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains, less than 20 percent of call centers are capable of locating a cell phone, Jones said.  That number may not improve unless more funding is allocated.  Jones said Congress passed a bill authorizing $250 million a year for five years to help call centers install the new phone-locating technology, but the funding has yet to be appropriated.

In the meantime, residents of rural areas will continue to fight to keep their old analog service. Emmer Hulce of Midland, S.D., said he wants to keep his analog bag phone so he can call family members without racking up long-distance charges.  "There's no chance of going with digital.  I had digital and that wasn't as good as the analog," the 79-year-old retired power company worker said.


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Everybody understands that these energy mergers are bad for the American people.  Below you see Maryland citizens everywhere fought the merger of BGE with Exelon.  It was done by O'Malley as pay-to-play to Obama for his bid for President as Exelon is a Chicago-based corporation that sponsored Obama's election.  Regardless, a corporate government would have pushed these mergers anyway.  If not Exelon---then Duke.

Maryland Public Service Commission is filled with corporate appointments with Clinton neo-liberal O'Malley and it will stay that way with Bush neo-con Hogan.  That is not the mission or Constitutional purpose of this commission tasked with serving in the PUBLIC'S INTEREST.  We all know none of these rulings by this commission is in the public's interest.

When you go locally with regulation and oversight moving away from all of the dismantled state structure that allows these corporations all the fraud, profiteering, and violations of existing regulations-----you take away all incentive of these national corporations to be in the Maryland/Baltimore market.  Maryland may ignore all of this----but Baltimore can enforce all of this as we move to becoming a regulated public utility for energy and water.

THIS MARYLAND PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION KNOWS IT IS NOT SERVING THE PUBLIC AND BALTIMORE CAN CHALLENGE ALL OF THIS IN STATE AND FEDERAL COURTS WHILE ENFORCING LAWS THAT EXIST.


For those having jobs with these national/global corporations----and often they are union-----you can be a public sector union member with more stability with a public utility and all the management jobs tied to regulation and oversight....THERE ARE MORE JOBS DOING THIS.

Despite Overwhelming Opposition, Maryland Commission Approves Exelon-Pepco-Delmarva Power Merger



Statements on the decision from groups that challenged the merger 

Exelon now controls electric delivery service to approximately 1.97 million Maryland ratepayers.

Exelon’s long history of hostility to renewable energy and competition from small clean energy businesses is a threat to the future of homegrown clean energy projects in D.C. and Maryland. Let’s hope that D.C.’s leadership will acknowledge these risks and reject the merger.

Susan Stevens MillerEarthjustice’s lead counsel on this caseMay 15, 2015 Baltimore, MD — Today, the Maryland Public Service Commission approved Exelon Corporation’s request to acquire Potomac Electric Power Company and Delmarva Power & Light (Pepco).
The Commissioners, charged with regulating public utilities in Maryland, approved the merger despite opposition from the Office of People’s Counsel, the State of Maryland and the Commission’s own Staff, as well as numerous environmental, business and consumer advocates.

Exelon’s application is still pending before the D.C. Public Service Commission. Just this week D.C. Council members called on the mayor to reject the merger. The Delaware Public Service Commission is also considering a settlement to approve the application.

Earthjustice served as counsel for the Sierra Club and the Chesapeake Climate Action Network in opposing the acquisition because its approval harms Maryland’s ability to achieve its clean energy and public health goals. Exelon has a long history of open hostility to renewable energy and blocking competition from small clean energy businesses. Today’s decision will negatively impact Pepco customers throughout the D.C. metro area and inhibit the growth of clean, reliable and affordable electricity.

The following is a statement from Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network:
“The PSC has made a grave error today. Instead of rejecting this bad merger deal outright, the Commission has approved it with conditions that do not fix the fundamental problems. This nearly $7 billion deal threatens to raise rates and inhibit wind and solar development, as well as reduce efficiency gains, across 85 percent of the state’s customer base for electricity. The PSC has put the profits of a Chicago-based corporation over the public interest of Marylanders, despite the overwhelming opposition of the state’s attorney general, the Office of People’s Counsel, the Maryland Energy Administration and Maryland’s environmental community."

The following is a statement from Sierra Club representative David Smedick:
“We are disappointed by today’s decision, which comes as a blow to the future of clean energy in Maryland. The meager conditions added by the Commission do not come close to mitigating the harms that the merger will cause to Marylanders.”

The following is a statement from Susan Stevens Miller, Earthjustice’s lead counsel on this case:
"This merger is simply not in the best interest of Pepco or Delmarva Power customers. There are significant and reals risks that Exelon will use this merger to increase energy bills over the next few years to subsidize its failing investments in nuclear power. The minimal additional conditions imposed by the Commission will do absolutely nothing to offset the harms caused by this merger. Exelon’s long history of hostility to renewable energy and competition from small clean energy businesses is a threat to the future of homegrown clean energy projects in D.C. and Maryland. Let’s hope that D.C.’s leadership will acknowledge these risks and reject the merger.”

___________________________________________

The fight for net neutrality nationally has the FCC supposedly deciding that the internet is a PUBLIC UTILITY NEEDING TO BE REGULATED AS SUCH.  It is a public utility as all of the funding to develop the internet came from Federal Defense funding and this is why the internet is common carrier.

If cities like Baltimore handle corporations in this way it makes that Federal standing stick.  We have global corporate pols who intend to ignore any Federal ruling in this regard even if it happens.  Challenging an FCC ruling against public utility designation is what a city like Baltimore should do.  If we have no local or state government challenging Federal agencies working against public interest-----the illegal rulings are simply allowed to stand.

THE INTERNET IS A PUBLIC UTILITY. THAT MEANS ALL PEOPLE HAVE EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AND ACCESS WHETHER FOR VIEWING OR OPERATING A BUSINESS.

Trans Pacific Trade Pact will be used to negate this public utility stance-----global corporations and their rights to profit.  Obama is no doubt waiting for TPP to pass to make that happen as he pretends he is standing with net neutrality.

It is the failure of local governments to challenge these global corporate rulings at the Federal level that allows them to move forward against the good of the public.
 

IF VERIZON OR COMCAST MOVE OUT OF BALTIMORE BECAUSE OF THIS STANCE----WE HAVE SMALLER COMPANIES MOVE IN TO TAKE THE MARKET---WHICH IS WHAT WE WANT.

As you see below, these telecommunications corporations pushing complete digital wiring are using common carrier status to get the funding and then replacing all cable from copper to fiber-----making digital king. This is happening because city and state pols are silent and not educating the public or taking this to court.

Report: Verizon FiOS claimed public utility status to get government perks

Still, Verizon campaigns against utility-style regulation that it benefits from.


by Jon Brodkin - May 28, 2014 3:43pm EDT

Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam. Verizon Verizon and the rest of the country's biggest Internet service providers joined forces this month to argue that so-called "common carrier" regulations for utilities shouldn't be applied to broadband. Such rules would force the ISPs to innovate less and spend less money than they do today on network upgrades, they argue.



Yet Verizon obtains a variety of perks from the government for its FiOS Internet service by using public utility rules to its advantage, a new report drawing on public documents says.

This isn’t a new practice and it isn’t illegal, but it could become part of the debate over network neutrality rules and the transition from heavily regulated landline phone networks to Internet-based voice service.

“It's the secret that's been hiding in plain sight,” said Harold Feld, senior VP of consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge and an expert on the FCC and telecommunications. “At the exact moment that these guys are complaining about how awful Title II is, they are trying to enjoy all the privileges of Title II on the regulated side.”

“There's nothing illegal about it,” Feld, who wasn’t involved in writing the report, told Ars. However, “as a political point this is very useful.”

The FCC classifies broadband (such as FiOS) as an information service under Title I of the Communications Act, resulting in less strict rules than the ones applied to common carrier services (such as the traditional phone system) under Title II. But since both services are delivered over the same wire, Verizon FiOS is able to reap the benefits of utility regulation without the downsides.

Verizon checks its privileges, finds them quite niceThe US has long applied common carrier status to the telephone network, providing justification for universal service obligations that guarantee affordable phone service to all Americans and other rules that promote competition and consumer choice. In exchange, phone companies are granted certain kinds of legal immunity, easements over private property and public rights of way, pole attachment rights, access to the phone number system, and the right to interconnect with other networks.

The report by telecom analyst Bruce Kushnick says the following:

FiOS Rides over a “Title II”, Common Carriage, Telecommunications Network.

  • Verizon’s FiOS TV, phone, Internet and broadband service products ride over a Fiber-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network.
  • This FTTP network, as stated in the Verizon New York City FiOS TV franchise, is categorized as a “Title II”, common carriage, telecommunications service, as opposed to a ‘Title VI” (cable TV service) or a “Title I” (“information” service). These “Titles” refer to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and they are critical as to whether and how the services are regulated.
  • This classification of FTTP as a Title II service appears to be in every Verizon FiOS TV cable franchise nationwide.
  • “FiOS” is not the fiber optic wire; it is a brand name of a Verizon product that uses the FTTP networks.
  • Verizon invokes its powers as a telephone corporation under the NY Transportation Corporations Law to install fiber optic wire over private property, or use the public rights-of-way.
Kushnick points to a New Jersey franchise agreement which states, "The construction of Verizon NJ’s fiber-to-the-premises FTTP network (the FTTP network) is being performed under the authority of Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 and under the appropriate state telecommunications authority granted to Verizon NJ."

"Verizon New York City’s current cable franchise, as well as the franchises for other Verizon franchises in other states, from DC to New Jersey--all detail that at the core of Verizon’s cable, Internet, and broadband networks is a 'Title II', common carriage, telecommunications service," Kushnick wrote. "And it appears this was done for two reasons—it gets all of the powers of the utility, including the rights-of-way that are part of the telecommunications utility service, but it also may charge the copper-based POTS [plain old telephone service] utility customers for the development and deployment of FiOS."

Verizon's New York division also obtained tax benefits, although it still lost money. "Over the last five years, Verizon NY showed over $11 billion in losses, about $2.1 billion annually, with an income tax benefit of $1 billion that is used by Verizon Communications, the parent holding company, to offset its tax liabilities," Kushnick wrote. "This also means Verizon New York paid no taxes, even though the company had $7.2 billion in revenues in 2010, the last year the information was available."

Verizon Communications itself has been profitable, and yet "New York’s residential POTS customers, who use the aging copper wires, [are] paying rate increases for the development and deployment of FiOS—a cable, phone, broadband and Internet service," Kushnick wrote.

The Verge has a good analysis of the report.

“We will ask the FCC to open the networks”Kushnick wrote the report for the Public Utility Law Project of New York. The group will lobby the FCC to take action, he told Ars.

“The companies' affiliates have acted together and have taken control of the customer-funded wires and networks, which are Title II, in multiple ways that allow the company to control both the end-user connection—speed, access, and use of the Internet—as well as the competitor side of attaching to the wire and delivering services to the end users,” Kushnick wrote in an e-mail. “We will be asking for the FCC to open the networks to all forms of competition because customers paid for it and they are Title II, and because the affiliate companies have created a bottleneck that controls the wires and blocks competitors.”

Verizon and the FCC did not provide responses to Ars’ requests for comment.

Feld noted that it's common for transmission paths to include multiple services governed by different sets of regulations.

"You have a bunch of different services that go over the same wire," he said. "This is true for wireless also. When you buy your wireless mobile device, what you're buying is a Title II service for voice, probably a Title II service for the text, although the FCC has never really classified it one way or the other... and the data part is Title I."

"The wireless carriers are all big on using this Title II stuff when it comes to things like getting the FCC to preempt states on tower siting and... the use of phone numbers and mandatory interconnections with landline [networks] and all that good stuff," he said.

Cable companies like Comcast are "offering you a cable service, Title VI, over the line that also brings you broadband, which is Title I, and their phone service which is unclassified because it's Voice over IP (VoIP)."

Verizon's phone services are even more complicated. Although traditional landlines typically ride over copper networks, Verizon can also provide Title II phone services over fiber. In these cases, Verizon says that "phone service is still provided by our conventional switched network, not over the Internet. We’re simply changing the infrastructure over which their service is delivered from copper to our more reliable, all-fiber network."

That fiber network also carries traffic for VoIP, which the FCC has never classified as either Title I or Title II. With AT&T and Verizon asking the FCC for permission to shut off the Public Switched Telephone Network by 2020, the regulatory status of VoIP is going to come under increased scrutiny.

One question for the phone transition is whether phone companies get to "keep all the good stuff about being a phone provider... while not having any of the attendant responsibilities that come with it," Feld said.

The potential of the FCC classifying broadband as a common carrier service is also being widely debated, because it could let the FCC impose stronger net neutrality rules on ISPs. As we mentioned, ISPs have railed against this possibility.


Verizon's use of Title II to its advantage "highlights that these providers are speaking out of both sides of their mouths," Feld said. "They say, 'oh you can't do Title II for broadband because that would be heavy-handed, burdensome regulation and would destroy investment.' You're over here at the FCC saying, 'you can't treat this as Title II' and you're in New Jersey saying, 'you must treat it as Title II.'"


The treatment of cellular voice calls (or "Commercial Mobile Radio Service") as Title II (albeit with fewer regulations than landline phone service) proves the regulations aren't an investment killer, he said.


"It is nonsense to say that Title II is this terrible, horrible thing that kills investment," Feld said. "As the wireless industry never gets tired of telling me, there's nothing more dynamic and [full of] investment wonderfulness than wireless, where they spend billions of dollars on licenses alone in order to provide a Title II service."








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    Cindy Walsh is a lifelong political activist and academic living in Baltimore, Maryland.

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