By Herb Levitin, president of GoConference and FreeGoConference

Chairman Martin,

Time is really running out. For the last 12 months we have been trying the correct and legal way to remedy AT&T’s self help action in stopping the settlement payments to our free conferencing companies. We have spent a lot of time and money with our law firm, there have been many meetings with the FCC staff but still AT&T is illegally withholding payments. There was even a record set of the most complaints to the FCC in the history of the FCC when the carriers started blocking calls to conferencing companies. Thanks for the directive asking the carriers for the second time to do what you already told them to do-stop all call blocking.

We started with eight parties and we have really grown since AT&T and Qwest have sued our expanding group of carriers regarding settlement fees paid to rural carriers. It seems to be just fine that AT&T pays Apple around $20 per month for marketing fees per iPhone. With 1 million iPhones sold in 74 days, that $20 million per month is great for Apple and AT&T, better yet when it is $200 million per month next year. It is fine for AT&T subsidiaries to also be in the free chat business collecting settlements, who cares if they are pornographic chat sites, just ignore that part of their complaint against us. Meanwhile AT&T (funny how nearly all the other carriers are doing the same thing, that is not collusion is it?) by their self-help actions (deemed illegal three times by the FCC) is squeezing some small competitors out of business. AT&T has you and your staff convinced that what is good for AT&T is good for the country. Only one more merger with Verizon and we are back to one telephone company and it is still called AT&T. So much for the Telecom Act of 1984, the Telecom Act of 1996 is already effectively toast now. All that hard work by Congress will effectively be negated.

So I have a brilliant solution, a truly win-win excellent solution. There are four issues affecting AT&T that represents billions in revenues, how about you give them the three largest issues and give us the smallest issue. The three issues are Internet neutrality (let them charge Google, Yahoo and MSN a few extra billion per year, they have it), the 700MHz spectrum (who needs more wireless competitors) and a merger with Verizon (better AT&T than Vodaphone). Winning on these three issues certainly will keep AT&T happy. The fourth issue which has the smallest financial impact on AT&T is to order them to follow the law and pay us our settlements, call them marketing fees like the iPhone arrangement. AT&T can then start a new lobbying campaign to kill the settlement law that will take a couple of years to accomplish. So we all win.

For those of you readers interested in making a difference, please download the attached draft letter and forward it to your representative in Congress. If you are like me and do not really want to live in a third world country where the law is corrupted by lobbyists then drop a dime to your representatives. I think we would all be better off if we had the best and most honest government, not the best government money can buy. Letter to the FCC Chairman and Commissioners.

Herb Levitin is president of GoConference and FreeGoConference and founder of Powercom. He can be reached at herb@goconference.com .

User Comments !

Herb,

I've known you a long time and I couldn't love you more if you were my brother - but you're not even preaching to the choir here, you're preaching to an empty church.

"Free" has decimated our industry. Those who you think read this blog (and who you hope might sign your letter) all left the industry years ago because "free" beat the margin out of our industry that used to afford decent jobs and opportunities.  Hey, no one begrudges those of you who made a decent living the past decade investing capital into free conference bridges and living off extremely high termination fees (maybe we should have done it ourselves) but don't come “hat-in-hand” to those you made poorer for help or sympathy.

Five years ago I was making a couple grand a month part-time selling flat-rate conference services. All that revenue has been lost though to providers of free conference bridges. (That’s a $20,000 hole in my pocket over just the last year.) Say what you want about AT&T - they can't put free conferencing out of business fast enough to suit me.

Small businesses today are paying a just a fraction of what they used to pay for telecom just a couple years ago. No business today is going to go bankrupt because they suddenly loose access to free conferencing. And consumer groups? Hey, if consumers can afford $100 bucks a month for TV, phone & Internet they can afford an extra $5 a month for their unlimited MLM conference calls.

Color me a back-stabbing traitor and report my name to whatever TRA/ASCENT has become these days, but all I call say in response to your plea is, “How do I contribute money to AT&T’s legal fund?”

(Don't get me wrong Herb, I still love you! - and I’m pretty sure you’ll be the first guy to figure out how to make a million bucks off the next weird telecom thing that comes along.)

Dan Baldwin
ATEL Communications

Posted by: Dan Baldwin | September 27 2007 21:06:06

Herb,

You should be talking to your clients or to Comptel. Having worked lobbying efforts for the service provider industry, I can tell you that most don't care. What's in it for them?

The real problem is that the FCC is now a subsidiary of RBOC - and it doesn't even shock people. The real issue: If they can block calls to you, why not block calls to the next annoying CLEC or VOIP Provider?

Net Neutrality is too big a concept for most coach potatoes. Yet there are many in this very industry who have no idea either. Imagine talking with a CLEC company exec who proclaims that he owns the network - when really he leases it from the LEC - and doesn't realize / care what the difference is.

On the panel, no one is happy about the RBOC Agent programs, but the way things are going, that will be the only program selling voice and DSL to SMB.

The FCC has been working on most NOI for years! Pick one: Inter-Carrier Comp, Virtual NXX, USF, spectrum, et al. Why hasn't any of this been fixed? Even one or 2? The answer is complicated: politics, lobbying and litigation. (The RBOC replaced R&D with L&L a while ago).

But, Dan, wow! And they call me bitter. 

Regards,

Peter

Posted by: Peter Radizeski | September 28 2007 10:30:57