Bruce Kushnick bruce@newnetworks.com Bruce Kushnick has been a telecom analyst for 29 years, and is currently the chairman of Teletruth, an independent customer advocacy group focusing on broadband and telecom issues, as well as executive director of New Networks Institute, a market research firm. Teletruth was a member of FCC Consumer Advisory Committee in 2003-2004 and has worked with the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy on competitive issues. It also helped to create the Broadband Bill of Rights, and research through Teletruth's phone bill auditing services has led to class action suits and major refunds for phone bill overcharging. His new ebook, $200 Billion Broadband Scandal, is available here.

 

Contributions

AT&T should be begging California for forgiveness, not regulatory relief
COMMENTARY | July 20, 2012
AT&T wants another gift from the California legislature. Telecom activist Bruce Kushnick raises questions Californians should be asking about decades of being ripped off, instead.


Angry ratepayers want their broadband; Verizon gives them a can
COMMENTARY | June 25, 2012
In the latest chapter of the ongoing broadband wars, Verizon is suggesting that New Jersey customers who've paid to wire the state with fiber optics now be happy paying more and getting less with a wireless antenna, says telecom activist Bruce Kushnick.


Broadband wars: The battle for New Jersey has begun
COMMENTARY | May 08, 2012
Telecom activist Bruce Kushnick asks: Will Verizon be held accountable for its broken promises? Or will it get a slap on the wrist and the OK to abandon wired telephone service?


The great Verizon FiOS ripoff
COMMENTARY | May 02, 2012
Verizon's decision to stop expanding FiOS, in favor of wireless, shafts millions of customers who paid billions for a network upgrade and didn't get it.


How wireless hype is hurting America
COMMENTARY | April 20, 2012
Our wired broadband is slow and expensive, and our wireless is even slower and more expensive. So why, asks consumer advocate Bruce Kushnick, are so many people buying the wireless ad campaign?


Please, sir, may I have another?
ASK THIS | April 18, 2012
The nation's major telecom companies have been ripping us off blind for 20 years, writes customer advocate Bruce Kushnick. And now they want to weasel out of their obligation to provide affordable telephone service to homes?


The outlook for the FCC and broadband: Not good
COMMENTARY | December 29, 2011
If words were actions the FCC under Obama would be a more aggressive regulator than it was under Bush. But they aren’t and it isn’t. The U.S. is way down on the list of countries in broadband performance, and likely to stay there.


Time to break up the communications trusts?
COMMENTARY | June 17, 2011
Telecom analyst Bruce Kushnick says Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast are dragging down the nation’s economy and bilking millions of Americans. The chief firms in the communications oligopoly got $340 billion to upgrade telephone and broadband systems but have almost totally reneged. Instead, they manipulate data and buy support from experts and citizens groups. In response, regulators on the federal and state levels…well, there is just about no response.


If hype were broadband, the U.S. would be No. 1
ASK THIS | March 27, 2011
A new FCC report and database describe broadband availability and speeds by Zip Code. Bruce Kushnick put in his Zip, and found that just about all the important information in it was incorrect.


The FCC’s exercise in ‘net futility’
COMMENTARY | January 10, 2011
By avoiding any mention of reopening networks to competition, the FCC assures there will be nothing neutral about the future of American broadband.


So Verizon and AT&T are 'very small businesses?'
ASK THIS | September 14, 2010
Bruce Kushnick says the use of obsolete data costs taxpayers billions, and he spells out how. But regulators don't even respond to his complaints -- not even to tell him he is wrong. Why is that?


Multiple rate and tax increases, in the name of broadband
COMMENTARY | June 08, 2010
Using old data, the FCC proposes multiple revenue-raisers. Bruce Kushnick sees most of the money, as in the past, going to the big telecoms that have already collected huge amounts and have failed to deliver on their promises. He asks whatever happened to the quaint idea of protecting customers’ rights.


We’re No. 1, says Verizon CEO Seidenberg
COMMENTARY | April 17, 2010
Never mind that Hong Kong’s broadband is 200 times faster in downloading, 1000 times faster in uploading than the average U.S. service, and at lower monthly fees.


How the FCC's exciting new broadband plan is a fraud
COMMENTARY | March 16, 2010
Telecom analyst Bruce Kushnick writes that giant telecoms and cable companies -- and the lobbyists, think tanks and astroturf groups they fund -- have so corrupted the debate over broadband that what may look like progress actually amounts to small steps toward antiquated standards that taxpayers have already paid for many times over.


Is basic American telephone service in a death spiral?
ASK THIS | February 03, 2010
Bruce Kushnick questions whether AT&T and Verizon are trying to kill off the “plain old telephone service” that millions of Americans rely on. In a recent FCC filing cited by Kushnick, AT&T stated that landline utilities are from a bygone era, and asked to be relieved of its obligations to service them.


Why does the FCC keep using old data?
COMMENTARY | November 19, 2009
There aren’t many ‘small’ or ‘very small’ Internet service providers. But you can’t tell that from data the broadband and Internet regulators use to make decisions that benefit the big telecoms.


The new FCC chairman is making all the right promises. Can he fulfill them?
ASK THIS | July 08, 2009
Julius Genachowski, with connections to Obama and prior experience at the FCC, says he will promote universal, affordable, open broadband. To do that and to fulfill other promises, he first will have to take the agency out of the grip of the telecommunications firms it is supposed to regulate. Press coverage here isn’t just desirable, it’s vital.


What’s the outlook for broadband and Internet?
ASK THIS | February 03, 2009
The congressional stimulus packages could go either way, writes consumer advocate Bruce Kushnick. They could mark a new, promising beginning—or they could be a new boondoggle for AT&T, Verizon and rural phone companies.


Expect big problems in the switch to digital TV
ASK THIS | December 03, 2008
For some over-the-air viewers in rural areas the switch to DTV in February may result in unforeseen costs and inability to view stations they now watch.


What now for broadband and the telecoms?
ASK THIS | November 17, 2008
Will Obama and Congress be satisfied to leave the U.S. as 15th among developed nations in broadband use? Will the FCC under Democratic control be less of a tool for large corporations? Questions and proposals from Bruce Kushnick.


The FiOS ads say, 'This is big!' Well, maybe it is, and maybe it isn't
COMMENTARY | May 09, 2008
Bruce Kushnick scoffs at the new FiOS ads in New York and wants to know where all the billions earmarked for broadband have gone.


Wisconsin: A case study in how corporations get the legislation they want
COMMENTARY | January 31, 2008
Telecom and broadband expert and activist Bruce Kushnick describes how model corporate bills get introduced and enacted in Wisconsin, to the detriment of the common good. (Second of two articles.)


How much of your state’s legislation is being drafted by industry?
ASK THIS | November 30, 2007
The American Legislative Council, or ALEC, lets corporations cultivate legislators and win support for industry-written bills while not technically breaking lobbying rules – and paying no taxes. (First of two articles)


Corporate-funded research designed to influence public policy
COMMENTARY | October 01, 2007
Reports by well-known think tanks and individuals funded by telecoms are helping quash competition, increase phone rates and set up a corporate-oriented Internet system. Is there any reason to trust these reports? Or to trust experts who testify before regulators without revealing the sources of their funding?


Press gives a free pass to citizens groups allied with telecoms
ASK THIS | May 07, 2007
At a New Jersey utilities board hearing on cable franchises, three guys from Verizon – the elephant in the room – go unnoticed by the regulators, and by the press.


Verizon, AT&T and the manipulation of public opinion
COMMENTARY | April 04, 2007
Needed: Blacks, Hispanics, disabled, deaf, low-income and the elderly to support the telecoms’ positions on anti-consumer FCC rulings and legislation.


For low-volume users, phone costs have risen sharply
COMMENTARY | January 04, 2007
Despite phone company pledges to reduce charges, millions of people are paying more for long distance calls, sometimes as much as $1 a minute. Meanwhile, the FCC chairman says rates are in a free-fall.


Local phone charges have soared since the break-up of AT&T
ASK THIS | September 18, 2006
One in a series: Activist Bruce Kushnick examines local telephone charges. Is the sum greater than the parts? No, they’re all extremely high, he finds, and basically unregulated.


Why is Congress considering such anti-consumer telecom bills?
ASK THIS | July 26, 2006
Activist Bruce Kushnick writes that both telecom bills before Congress would be huge giveaways to the very same telecommunications giants that have in the past pocketed massive government subsidies while shafting consumers and knee-capping American competitiveness. But they've taken very good care of members of Congress


How do the big telecoms qualify as small businesses?
ASK THIS | June 23, 2006
Bruce Kushnick, in the fourth of a series, says giant firms are gaming the system, using fronts for FCC auctions of the airwave spectrum.


Telecoms, cable and the ‘Net neutrality’ fight
ASK THIS | May 03, 2006
Who paid for, who owns the broadband ‘pipes?’ Customers largely paid for them; phone companies claim ownership. Also: Open vs. closed networks. (Third in a series)


How the Baby Bells and the government destroyed competition for DSL, long distance and local phone service
ASK THIS | April 13, 2006
Customer advocate Bruce Kushnick, in the second of a series on telecommunications, writes that reporters should be asking why the promised era of competition to lower prices and bring broadband to America never materialized.


Where’s that broadband fiber-optic access?
ASK THIS | March 14, 2006
The head of Teletruth, a consumer advocacy group, writes that in spite of huge payments and other financial incentives to the country’s monopolistic telecommunication giants, the United States is 16th in broadband Internet technology and falling. How did things go wrong in your state?