[BALUG-Talk] Fwd: Raw Bandwidth and other competitive Internet access providers need your help at the FCC today!

[Michael Paoli]

If one cares about competitiveness among ISPs, choice,
and generally having quality options, this is one to pay attention to
and take action on.

If you prefer negligible choices, and ISP services to only be provided by
the large monopoly/oligopoly players, and generally with poor quality,
higher prices, and most or all other players squeezed out, then feel
free to completely and totally ignore this.

----- Forwarded message from mdurkin@rawbw.com -----
     Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2018 00:03:31 -0700 (PDT)
     From: "Mike Durkin" <mdurkin@rawbw.com>
  Subject: Raw Bandwidth and other competitive Internet access  
providers need your help at the FCC today!
       To: michael.paoli@cal.berkeley.edu

Dear Raw Bandwidth Customer or former customer:

It's a rarity that I email all of our customers (and some former
customers), but we are at a critical moment for competitive Internet
access, so I hope you'll excuse the intrusion.

In early May, USTelecom, a lobbying group headed by large incumbent
monopoly phone companies AT&T and Verizon, filed a petition at the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) to "forbear", that is to no longer enforce,
provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which are critical to many
independent Internet access providers like Raw Bandwidth reaching its
customers with service.  The Telecom Act rewrite in 1996 requires the
incumbent phone companies to unbundle and rent discrete network elements to
competitors at regulated rates--especially elements such as the pairs
of copper wire running through the streets that they have a monopoly
over and have no competition for--so that competitive providers
can also use the elements in their services.   I am writing to ask
you to take action by filing comments at the FCC in support of independent
Internet access providers (we'll help you do it), to tell the FCC what
it means to you to have choice in your Internet provider, and to urge
them to deny the petition. (The petition would also affect competition
for voice phone service.)

Here is a good article that summarizes a lot of what's at stake:
https://www.engadget.com/2018/07/11/small-internet-providers-face-a-fight-for-their-lives/
(Note this article says the FCC would vote on the petition on August
6th, but that's incorrect; August 6th was a filing deadline for
opening comments, and September 5th is the next deadline for reply
comments.  The FCC won't vote on the petition until late this year
at the earliest, but informal comments need to be filed now.)

Explaining what's at stake takes a lot of words, so I've made a web
page that explains what the petition is all about, and also contains
links to help you easily file comments at the FCC (all done online) to
support competitive Internet access.   Please take a look at the web
page and instructions here
http://www.rawbandwidth.com/clec/forbearancepetition.html

The short version is that if the FCC grants the petition as requested,
independent DSL and Ethernet over Copper providers like Raw Bandwidth
will see cost increases (due to removal of rate regulation from
monopoly network elements only available from incumbent monopoly providers
like AT&T--a single provider of the element to any particular location) that
will result in an increase in retail rates, and some coverage areas are
likely to be lost over time.  The petition should not be granted under
the standards it is supposed to be judged on, and providers like Raw
Bandwidth are filing detailed rebuttals to the petition, but the current
FCC and political climate is one for gutting regulations, so despite that
it should be denied, there is a significant risk that it may be granted.

Please take the time to weigh in with the FCC and tell them how important
it is to you to have competitive choices at competitive prices, and urge
them to deny the petition.  Your comments submitted to the FCC by
September 5th are important!

I don't intend to send any followups to this email by email so as
not to be any more intrusive.  Instead I will post updates to the status
of the petition at the same web page
http://www.rawbandwidth.com/clec/forbearancepetition.html
including links to the FCC's decision once available and an explanation of
how the result affects our business and service to customers.

As always, thanks for your business and support!
Mike Durkin
Raw Bandwidth
mdurkin@rawbw.com


----- End forwarded message -----