Mar

7

Who Wrote Illinois SB1700??? The Quest for the Guilty Party Continues...

sascha's picture

I've been tracking down the actual authors of SB1700 and have now received independent confirmation from several sources that this state law wasn't written by a legislator at all. It now appears that SBC lobbyists are directly responsible for the language of the law -- in other words, this law appears to have been written, word-for-word by the major telecom industry that it's supposed to regulate. If this proves to be true (and I'm still looking for confirmation on the individual names and affiliations of the law's authors), it would represent an incredibly cynical machination on the part of the telecom incumbents and any legislator who supports this bill.

The Citizens Utility Board has just released an easy-to-fill-out online form that will send a fax/e-mail to your elected representatives about SB1700. As I've previously reported, SB1700 is an anti-consumer, heap-of-dung-of-a-bill that pretty much eliminates all of our rights as end-users and protects the telecom incumbents from any repercussions for unjustly and unfairly ripping us off.

If you have any information on the law's authors, please let me know.

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  1. rharnish on Mon, 2005-03-07 20:01

    Sascha,
    The Illinois bill sounds almost exactly like the one that alledged SBC representatives wrote in Indiana (HB1148). As a fixed wireless provider, I normally would have been for an Anti-Municipal Broadband Bill. However, after diving into the language of the bill, I came to the same conclusion as you have with SB1700. Through a campaign with other providers in the State and their lobbying efforts with their legislators, we were able to get this bill delayed if not stopped. This bill would have effectively halted or delayed most broadband deployment in the state through the use of carefully worded language in the bill.

    The RBOCs are authoring these one-sided bills left and right and submitting them through legislators with whom they provided campaign contributions. It will take a massive watchguard effort in each and every state to warn the people of this intrusion and the behind the scenes quest for a telecommunications monopoly once again. It seems to be a last ditch effort by the RBOCs to salvage what is left of their unfair, unethical and overpriced billing structures in telecommunications. The threats from VoIP, cable, wireless, celluar and even BPL must surely scare the living daylights out of the telco's. Their long empire is now being challenged by rapidly changing technology. Unfortunately for these lumbering monsters, they move much to slow to adapt at a pace that compliments current Internet time and demand. This is where the entrepreneur can be adept and find niches, continually putting the pressure on the Big Dogs to adapt more quickly. They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks, well the telco's are learning new tricks on their own.............for their survival. Their only method to fight back is to pass legislation that disrupts competition and slows down technology to a pace they can adjust too. The conflict of interest here is with the insatiable demand by the American Public for further broadband deployment and upgrades. I encourage all readers to take a look at current state legislation and to write your legislators with warnings of this invasion the American Dream.

    Keep up the good work, I only found out about this blog today, but I will keep it on my favorite list.

  2. sascha on Tue, 2005-03-08 15:57

    thanks for the encouragement. i have a feeling IN isn't out of the woods yet. in the meantime, if you'd like some happy reading, you should check out the muni-report that Esme Vos from www.muniwireless.com just released:

    http://www.muniwireless.com/reports/docs/March2005Report.pdf

    it'll bring a smile to your face.