Verizon, AT&T, BellSouth, CenturyLink and others got $200 Billion in funding, plus tax breaks, favorable changes to laws, and other perks in exchange for a commitment to upgrade the telecommunications infrastructure across the nation to all neighborhoods rich and poor.

Specifically there was supposed to be fiberoptic lines run to every house capable of running at least 50mpbs up and down and up to 500 channels of video costing the average consumer around $50/month. This fiberoptic system was by law supposed to be open to ALL competitors and not be a Comcast owned set of wires or a Time Warner set of wires. This was written to PREVENT area based monopolies and allow everyone to access a “free open market” of service providers.

There were even specific deadlines and goals to reach by state. At least 50% of Pennsylvania households were to be hooked up to this fiberoptic system by 2004. At least 75% of New Jersey by 2005….

Then the telecommunications industry came back and said, “Hey… Look theres been a lot of mergers and acquisitions going on so no one really knows where the money is anymore, not to mention price increases all around…. Give us ANOTHER $200 Billion so we can finish.”

All told, the direct payments, tax incentives, regulation cuts, etc have cost the US almost $5 TRILLION since the 90s.

Do you have fiberoptic internet in your house? Do you have a market of internet service providers competing to provide high speed service to your home? Do you pay less than $50/month for your TV and Internet service?

No?

Then you see that the telecom industry has not fulfilled their side of the bargain and have earned the penalties that are coming their way.

If you paid someone to build a house on land that you own, you wouldn’t keep paying the builders rent as if they were your landlord. You might hire them for routine maintenance if they did a good job though. That’s your monthly bill, routine maintenance of a system that we the people are supposed to own.