[antidote] Re: If you think the cablecos are bad ...
- From: jim rogers <jimorogers@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: antidote@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2003 07:38:29 -0800 (PST)
TPR Begins Probe Of ?Public Interest? Advocates
Review Of TRAC?s Records Produces Surprising Results
The debate surrounding telecom policymaking is growing
more intense with each passing day. It now appears
nearly inevitable that Congress will again tackle a
major reform of federal telecommunications policy when
it reconvenes next year. The issues are varied and
complicated, and legislative demands for a complete
overhaul of the 1996 Telecom Act are bound to emerge
With that in mind, TPR recently embarked on a
long-term investigative project to identify the major
players and ? more importantly ? their advocates.
Public interest advocacy is rarely as straightforward
and unbiased as its practitioners would have the
public believe. Often, such entities are directly ? or
indirectly ? connected to major proponents of one side
of an issue or another. Sometimes such connections are
entirely visible ? as in the case of AT&T?s
underwriting of the so-called Voices for Choices
group. Other times, the connections are not clear at
all.
This week, TPR focuses on a non-profit consumer
advocacy organization known as the Telecommunications
Research and Action Center (TRAC). It should be noted
that TPR last Thursday (Nov. 20) sent a request to
TRAC seeking the organization?s participation in this
research. However, as of presstime (Tuesday, Nov. 24)
TRAC officials have not responded to our request.
TRAC, according to its Web site, is ?a non-profit,
membership organization based in Washington, D.C.,
that promotes the interests of residential
telecommunications consumers. TRAC members can be
individual, business or academic.?
With only minimal scratching of TRAC?s veneer, TPR
learned that the organization is chaired by Samuel
Simon, who also happens to be president of Issue
Dynamics Inc., which bills itself as a Washington,
D.C.-based consumer affairs consultancy. Issue
Dynamics, as it happens, lists BellSouth, SBC, US West
(now Qwest) and Verizon among its many clients. It
also lists the U.S. Telecom Association (USTA), the
lobbying organization for the nation?s incumbent local
exchange carriers (ILECs), as one of the firm?s
clients.
The Rev. Robert Chase, a minister and church leader
affiliated with the United Church of Christ, is listed
as one of TRAC?s directors. Chase was particularly
active in speaking out against Worldcom ? now MCI ?
when the company was reeling in the wake of seemingly
endless charges of massive corporate fraud and the
biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history. This past summer,
Chase, acting on behalf of his church, filed a
petition with the FCC in an effort to thwart the
transfer of key licenses and authorizations from the
defunct WorldCom to the reorganized MCI.
Retired FCC General Counsel Henry Geller also serves
on the TRAC board. He was general counsel at the
commission under Newton Minnow, the chairman who first
described television as ?vast wasteland.? Minnow may
have been right about TV, but Geller?s take of telecom
competition proved totally wrong. In June 1998, he was
quoted in a news story about telecom competition,
saying: ?The phone war will be over by Feb. 3, 1999.
Then every [RBOC] will be in every [other RBOC's]
market.? Obviously, that has not happened.
Dirck Hargraves serves as TRAC?s secretary and
counsel. Like Simon, he also works for Issue Dynamics
as that firm?s general counsel and senior consultant.
TRAC?s board includes another practicing attorney as
well ? Jay Halfon, a well-known consumer advocate with
connections to the U.S. Public Interest Research
Groups (U.S. PIRG). Halfon is an experienced public
policy advocate and a respected expert on the rules
governing non-profits. Having acknowledged his
expertise, TPR wonders whether Halfon was aware of
TRAC?s tenuous ? if not dubious ? financial condition
when the organization sent its FY 2002 tax filing to
the IRS (see chart this page).
On the face of it, TRAC appears to have ended the FY
2002 in a state of virtual bankruptcy. Even so, the
organization seems to still be in business. In fact,
TRAC continues to promote its trademarked TeleTips
residential comparison chart as a tool to help
consumers ?save as much as 50 percent? on their
monthly phone bills.
That sort of advice seems out of sync coming from an
organization that, according to its own IRS filing, is
penniless.
--- jim rogers <jimorogers@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> I hope this works. I've attached a Word file to this
> that I hope everyone can access. It's a story that
> appeared in the last edition of Telecom Policy
> Report.
> It's about one of the so-called "public interest"
> non-profit organizations that has very distinct ties
> to the Bell companies. If anyone can't access the
> word
> file, send me a personal email and I'll reply with
> the
> actual copy itself.
> The point I'm trying to make is that as bad as the
> cablecos are, they pale in comprison to the RBOCs.
> Did
> anyone follow that SBC/Bill Daley-backed legislation
> in Illinois? I don't recall any of the cablecos
> doing
> anything like that.
>
> How about the Oct. 20 "secret" cocktail party In
> D.C.,
> sponsored by USTA and the RBOCs. The cablecos
> haven't
> done anything like that?
>
> Maybe there are no "white hats" in this industry --
> only various shade of gray.
>
> Some of them are downright black.
>
> JR
>
>
> -- Binary/unsupported file stripped by Ecartis --
> -- Type: application/msword
> -- File: TPRtrac112603(1).doc
> -- Desc: TPRtrac112603(1).doc
>
>
>
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