Verizon Begs To Be Classified Under Title II For Subsidies; Screams About Parade Of Horribles Any Other Time
from the title-ii-shell-game dept
If you've been paying any attention at all to the whole net neutrality fight, you'd know that the key issue is whether or not broadband services should be reclassified under Title II of the Telecom Act. In the early to mid-2000s, the FCC declared both cable and DSL broadband to be information services under Title I, rather than telecommunications services under Title II. This basically means they are not subject to common carrier rules, including non-discriminatory rules that are the key issue around net neutrality. And, of course, the telcos are putting up a big fight over this, listing out a supposed parade of horribles that would happen if they were reclassified under Title II.There's just one big problem with this: those very same telcos with those very same networks are begging to have them classified under Title II at other times. Basically, the telcos absolutely love Title II when it gives them all sorts of subsidies and tax breaks.
Here, for example, you can see Verizon making it quite clear that its FiOS fiber service should be classified under Title II in New Jersey.
But here's the little dance move they pull. They claim that this infrastructure must be considered Title II, in order to get those subsidies, tax breaks and rights of way. And they insist that it's proper to classify it as Title II because it offers voice service over those lines. But, at the very same time, they claim that all other services that they provide, must be classified under Title I.
Oh, and it gets better: they claim that in order to pay for all of this (even though they're getting all these breaks and subsidies), they have to raise the prices on telephone service -- which they've done at a fairly astounding rate.
And, we're not done with the scam yet. As we've been describing for years, part of this shell game is that Verizon promises that, under Title II, it will install this fiber to everyone -- and then never delivers. And then, for the final kick in the gut, after it fails to deliver on those promises, it gets local politicians to drop the requirements it agreed to in order to get the subsidies.
And... this doesn't even touch on the issue of "IP transition," where after they get all these tax breaks and subsidies based on the claims of providing (increasingly expensive) "voice" services under Title II, the very same telcos will want to turn off that voice service, in favor of voice service over the internet. Now, voice services are clearly moving to the internet, and that's reasonable. But this is part of the telco shell game. Get all these tax breaks and subsidies by pretending all of that fiber was a Title II service, but then shut down the Title II covered-telco service the first chance they get, and shift it to an "information" service under Title I. Voila: they get all the tax breaks and benefits of Title II for installing the infrastructure, but then don't have to meet the obligations of a common carrier which they promised to meet in order to get those subsidies.
It's almost astoundingly brilliant if we weren't all left paying the (increasingly larger) bill for worse service.
Either way, whenever you see the telcos listing out the parade of horribles under Title II, it might be worth reminding them that they, themselves, were the ones who insisted on classifying their own networks under Title II because of all the "benefits" it brought.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: access, broadband, fcc, fiber, fios, net neutrality, rights of way, subsidies, title ii
Companies: verizon
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Perhaps we should throw out some of these old laws.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This does raise an interesting point though, as even without the "transition" proposals the telcos have been pitching, Verizon has actively forced people off of title II phone service when they've installed FiOS in some areas. Thankfully a utility reform agency is suing them for just that.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Title II
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
FCC
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: FCC
- fixed
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: FCC
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: FCC
[ link to this | view in chronology ]