Telcos Finally Annoying Consumers

"The Telcos are spending one million dollars a week to buy the votes of Congresspeople for their legislation, House Bill 5252 and Senate Bill 2686 and on advertising to influence public opinion. The proposed legislation will curb local control over video franchises, negatively impact thousands of local Public, Educational and Governmental Access channels, allow red-lining in low-income and rural communities and jeopardize the openness of the internet by removing 'net neutrality' provisions designed to promote competition. Recent news also has exposed the privacy violation of millions of telephone users-- that AT&T and Verizon willingly handed over call records to the National Security Agency without proper legal warrants." Protests will be taking place today, May 24. Cablecos are closing in on 10M phone lines - that amounts to a $1B+ loss annually to the Telco pocketbook. Add to that the millions in lobbying and payola mixed in with declining revenues - this last effort better have a huge pay out or the Tele-Barons will fold. (Also, EVDO and Video are clogging in their networks, so they have to build 1 tower per square mile instead of 1 tower per 3 square miles - at $250k or better per tower, plus trunking and rent for the land.)