2020: IRREGULATORS vs. FCC Law Suit

Adapted from an article by Josh Del Sol, Dec 14, 2019 | Original article here

Correcting an illegal financial scandal behind the expansion densified 4G and 5G in our neighborhoods

Watch this groundbreaking conversation with two member of the IRREGULATORS below or on YouTube. The IRREGULATORS v FCC law suit is being argued on Jan 17, 2020 at the DC Court of Appeals. The case could correct an estimated $1 Trillion cross-subsidy and accounting scandal — stopping illegal cross-subsidies from regulated State Public Telecommunications Utility Cos. to unregulated private Wireless Cos..

This case could result in the following:

  1. Restructuring the Telecom industry
  2. Reshaping the current push for 4G and 5G densification in neighborhoods across the United States.

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the IRREGULATORS’ Grassroots Funding Campaign; Learn more here.

IRREGULATORS vs. FCC: The Interview

Bruce Kushnick and W. Scott McCollough, Esq are highly-skilled professionals. Kushnick is an expert Telecom forensic accountant from New York and McCoullugh is an experienced trial attorney from Texas. With the other leading experts in the IRREGULATORS, Kushnick and McCollough are working to correct the institutional corruption behind the decades-long expansion of 4G-LTE and now 5G.

Case 19-1085 Summary — a more complete summary is here.

Bruce Kushnick is the Executive Director of New Networks and has been a telecom analyst for over 30 years. In 1985, as Senior Telecom Analyst for IDC/Link, (a subsidiary of International Data Corp), Kushnick wrote a best-selling research report in 1985 that predicted how new technologies and networks would change the way America used communications. In 2002, Kushnick was one of the founders that established Teletruth, a telecom advocacy group that was invited to join the FCC’s Consumer Advisory Committee. Kushnick’s latest book “The Book of Broken Promises: $400 Billion Broadband Scandal & Free the Net”, released May 2015, is the third book in a trilogy. Download this book for FREE at this link

Scott McCollough is an attorney whose practice focuses on communications, computer and Internet law and regulation, with an emphasis on representation of consumers and small competitive and new technology application and service providers. He is Board Certified in Administrative Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. Past activities included 10 years as an Assistant Texas Attorney General and Contract Consumer Advocate (representing residential and small business consumers) with the City of Austin Electric Utility (1994-1999). He is Past Regulatory Counsel for Texas ISDN Users Group and Texas Internet Service Providers Association. He has unparalleled knowledge and experience relating to those places where technology and regulation intersect – and often collide.

In the interview, McCollough outlines some key points in this scandal involving misappropriated funds which he estimates now totals a shocking $1 Trillion, over the last 19 years:

“We had a bait and switch. We paid for a bunch of fiber to the home, and now we’re getting densified 4G and 5G to our homes, instead.

. . . We started this accounting thing not because we wanted to kill densified 4GE and 5G, but because it was the right thing to do, once we figured out how badly local and intra-state wireline ratepayers were getting screwed.”

Kushnick reveals how he obtained financial documents from Verizon-NY — the State’s Public Telecommunications Utility — that clearly show several billion dollars per year in illegal cross-subsidies from Verizon-NY to Verizon Wireless. The IRREGULATORS estimate that the amount of funds that wireless giants are stealing from wireline ratepayers to total $60 Billion per year,

“[The IRREGULATORS’ suit] is a knife in the heart of the underlying economics that currently drive the expansion of densified 4G and 5G in the public rights-of-way.

“If we are successful, densified 4G and 5G cannot sustain itself on an economic basis — if it has to pay its own way.”

FCC Has Been a Serial Loser in the Courts in 2018-2019

We’re told that courts have been stripped of their ability to administer justice. However, as evidence for realistic optimism, Scott cited two recent wins against the FCC in the D.C. Circuit Court:

“I’m confident we’ll get a fair hearing from the court. The D.C. Circuit has demonstrated an absolute willingness to bring the [Federal Communications] Commission to heel, when it’s appropriate to do so. And it has done so twice in just the last six months.

In correspondence following the interview, Scott summarized these two wins:

1: United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, et al v. FCC, 933 F.3d 728 (D.C. Cir., Aug 19, 2019).

“This was the D.C. Circuit’s reversal and vacatur of the FCC’s decision to completely excuse small cell deployments of small Wireless Telecommunications Facilities (sWTFs) from environmental and historic-preservation review. The court held FCC did not adequately address possible harms of deregulation and benefits of environmental and historic-preservation review. As a result, every small cell application must go through the NEPA and NHPA ‘review’ process to determine if further study or analysis would be required before site approval.

2: Mozilla Corp., et al v. FCC, 940 F.3d 1 (D.C. Cir., Oct 1, 2019).

“This was the D.C. Circuit’s disposition of the FCC’s 2018 decision to reverse the prior majority’s decision to impose “net neutrality” on broadband Internet access by applying “Title II” common carrier regulation over the Interent. The court generally affirmed the FCC’s decision for interstate purposes, but vacated the FCC’s effort to expressly and in advance preempt “any state or local requirements that are inconsistent with [FCC’s] deregulatory approach.” 940 F.3d 1, 74-86.”

Both of these Rulings in 2019 limited the FCC’s ability to completely preempt state or local regulation of Internet and wireless service and effectively gave power back to states and localites".

“Our case is the third leg of the stool. It would also allow state commissions to decide whether to end the current, massive cross-subsidies from regulated State Public Telecommunications Cos. to unregulated Wireless Cos.”

Local Governments’ Strategy To Win

Throughout the interview, Kushnick outlines a plan for state and local governments to take back control of their local telecommunications networks, by:

  1. Realizing that each state actually has a State Public Telecom Utility that can be empowered to provide fiber broadband directly to homes;

  2. Identifying how much the State’s ratepayers have already spent on fiber broadband and/or have been the victims of misappropriated funds;

  3. Invoking legal strategies, which may include police powers, to claim ownership of the often-unused fiber and/or infrastructure being deployed in the public rights-of-way

  4. Seeking a return of the misappropriated funds.

Kushnick shares about the years of groundwork they’ve laid which now lead to the culmination of their IRREGULATORS v FCC law suit:

“4G/5G densification has woken people up. Scott and I have been doing this a very long time. Now, we’ve got all these people saying, ‘I don’t want a cell phone tower in front of my house!’

“The one thing most people don’t understand is what it takes to win….. What are the Telecom companies doing to us? What do we have to do to defend ourselves?

Scott sums up a key opportunity area: how we can educate, inspire and team with our local officials to win the battle.

“Many local officials hear news coming down from the top — from the feds, and from industry — saying, ‘There is nothing you can do. Your hands are tied.’

. . . Well, their hands are not tied. I mean, there may be a piece of string around one of your fingers, but you’ve still got nine other fingers!

. . . Some [local officials] may not be able to stop a particular cell tower . . . but they can stop the fiber that goes to the tower.”

We would all benefit from Fiber to the Home (FTTH) as the backbone for an open, interoperable Net Neutrality network. — preferably one that’s community-owned.”

Note from Josh del Sol:

I believe the IRREGULATORS vs. FCC initiative is great opportunity for positive change. But in order for this case to happen and be successful, they need our support.

On behalf of the 5G Crisis Summit initiative and community, please take a moment to internally check in, and consider a financial contribution to their campaign. Give give according to your means.

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the IRREGULATORS’ Grassroots Funding Campaign

If we blow them away with our support (which we can do with your help!), they will allocate any extra funding for future legal and strategic initiatives.