Testimony Before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, February 11th, 2004

and

Molly Wood

and!!! How about this??? Scott Cleland’s backers!!!

Wow…

DPH, I have a feeling I’ll find you in this research but whatever you wish to send along, please do.

Welcome to Workboxers. I don’t normally approve this nature of comment. Why am I this time? I have a true challenge – I don’t know everything, lol.

So, I’m asking you to offer some support of your own for what you have commented here about Mr. Cleland. I’m not saying I doubt you. I’ve seen the surname Cleland in the past year or so and I thought it might be related to this argument… but I couldn’t be certain.

I’m more than happy to become involved with folks like him. I feel that those of us who can damn well ought to remain involved with this Net Neutrality deal.

There are two sides here. Duh. One of us is lying and the other is telling the truth. Normal stuff eh? Unfortunately, the American public (consumer) isn’t seeing this at a level that would force its truthful conclusion (imho).

So, I need your help. I don’t know you either. Your initials don’t help. Your Arin Whois info determined that your IP is a division of Verizon and you’ve mentioned them in your comment. Help me know and understand how you’ve developed this information about Cleland so I can pass it on to my readers loudly and clearly.

In the meantime I’ll Google him and see what I come up with.

Thanks,

Mark

Finally, Cleland’s fact-putting about competition doesn’t address the key issue of the post article — why does Japan have an internet 30 times faster than is available in the US? And it isn’t just Japan, Europe is much faster as well. Hell, N. Korea has a faster internet than we do. A fellow journalist recently returned from NORTH Korea and spoke to me about the internet they have there and their backbone allows individual homes to have connections 5-6 times faster than the FIOS system now being touted as the best broadband system in the US.

Perhaps Cleland shouldn’t be ashamed. I’m sure he is earning a healthy paycheck to shovel crap for US telcos. But our regulatory agencies and lawmakers should certainly be ashamed if they swallow it.

I downloaded that report and will be reading it. I’ll admit to being not very interested in reading material of that nature but it’s worth it so I will.

I have one very quick thought – what the he** do you mean – “used to be monopolies?” Come on Scott, we all know the Baby Bells are almost all back under the same umbrella again! That’s old history today… If they’re not the same monopoly they once were they’re certainly working on it.

Second thought – “facts are overwhelming?” That had better be a very loud validation, very loud! And somehow, I don’t think it will be…

Third thought – “Cable companies have lost over 30 million customers to Direct Broadcast Satellite competitors.” You didn’t really think the U.S. public consumer was going to completely sit back and let themselves get screwed over and over, did you? Seems to me AT&T et al, earned this in spades.

How is that for evidence. if you want a link go to the FCC report. http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-270128A1.pdf

I appreciate you dropping by – truthfully! I’ll need a bit of time to read and digest what you’ve referenced although I’ve seen most of it before.

Can’t say I’ll be ready to change my mind anytime soon :)

Primarily because of statements like this;

“Why not check the latest FCC data and quote that? Because that data proves that broadband competition is flourishing and increasing.”

Why don’t you offer us the data Scott – seriously… give us a link or post a screenshot or something that will definitively show these “facts” to us. I’m having a very difficult time with this “competition” talk. You don’t honestly expect silly ole everyday citizen like me to believe there is plenty of competition with the likes of AT&T and Verizon, now do you?