Bruce Kushnick has got to be the most painful thorn in the sides of the RBOCs. His tone may be confrontational for some but he makes some good points below. I would love to get the response from the RBOCs on this.

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Bruce Kushnick has got to be the most painful thorn in the sides of the RBOCs. His tone may be confrontational for some but he makes some good points below. I would love to get the response from the RBOCs on this.

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Teletruth News Analysis. SBC's IPTV Lies: Do the Math --- Wed Aug 17th,
2005

USA Today's  "SBC's \$4 billion IPTV investment 'not much money'"
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/gear/2005-08-16-iptv-sbc_x.htm

SUMMARY: MATH.& HISTORY

Based on history, Teletruth believes SBC is misleading the public by making claims it knows can't be true. They claim 18 million homes in 3 years will be rewired at a cost of \$4 billion for "IPTV" -- video services using the IP networks.

--- That comes to.\$222 a household for deployment of a fiber optic based new service.
It is pure fantasy. And the equipment doesn't even work today. ---History points to SBC simply making stuff up to change laws in their favor.
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The title of this USA Today article is correct, --- \$4 billion is not much money and SBC can not be trusted to either spend the money or deploy the technology.

USA:  "The carrier (SBC) plans to spend \$4 billion by 2007 to wire 18 million homes for the cutting-edge technology. The project, if successful, would turn SBC into one of the largest purveyors of IPTV in the world."

Welcome to fantasy island. I can say this based on the history of SBC to deploy technology as promised.

Let's put some facts on the table. In the 1990's, Pacific Bell, Ameritech, SNET, and Southwestern Bell all had plans to rewire the 13 states with fiber optics -- Pac Bell promised to spend  \$16 billion with 5 million households by 2000, SNET \$4.5 billion, Ameritech would have 6 million households  -- and the total number of households to be wired in these

13 states was ---- over 12 million lines by 2000!

And customers paid for these networks through changes in state deregulation -- massive financial incentives were given to the phone companies per state.

When SBC took over -- merged with -- Pac Bell, Ameritech, and SNET, SBC closed down every fiber optic plan. Trashed  or sold off everything. There went the fiber optic future for 125 million people -- 40% of the US!

But hope springs eternal,  as part of the Ameritech-SBC Agreement in 1999, SBC stated it would spend \$6 billion to rewire the states, known as "Project
Pronto"---- Another flop. Never completed, much of the money unspent.

And now, SBC claims it will rewire and offer IPTV (which requires broadband based on fiber optic networks).

USA Today: "The carrier plans to spend \$4 billion by 2007 to wire 18 million homes for the cutting-edge technology."

Do the math -- It's simply ridiculous!

It comes out to 6 million homes a year --- at a cost of ----- \$222.22 per household.... Please stop laughing.

Anyone acquainted with this business knows that it cost more than \$222 per household to rewire, much less  supply the technology needed for IPTV -- which is new and has  been deployed sporadically in other countries.

USA Today writes: "Indeed, nobody knows how IPTV will behave once it is  "scaled," or rolled out, to millions of paying customers. One of the largest IPTV installations in the world is in China, and that one has only about 500,000 customers."

And the real kicker -- The stuff doesn't work today, but they can make statements to show how SBC is delivering on broadband.

USA Today:  "The wildcard is Microsoft. The tech giant is developing the operating system that will form the heart of SBC's IPTV service - and it isn't close to done. ....There's also the question of whether the half-dozen or so vendors supporting the project can get their hardware and software to mesh properly.
Getting it perfect right out of the box is critical."

Around the country, the Bell companies are trying to block municipalities from rewiring or wifi-ing their cities. Trusting SBC and the other Bell companies to fulfill any of their public statements is a waste of time, and citizens should stand up to companies who will say anything to remove more laws to make them more money and block competition.

Worse,  SBC is planning on getting larger, now merging with AT&T.
Why hasn't anyone investigated how the previous mergers SBC-Ameritech-SNET-Southwestern Bell, raised rates and harmed broadband deployments and competition. SBC was supposed to be competing in 30 cities outside these regions with wireline competition
-- that never happened either.

For a decade of Bell Broadband Deceptions see:
http://www.newnetworks.com/BroadbandandDSL.htm

Bruce Kushnick, Teletruth