Shortchanged By The Baby Bells

from the lies,-damned-lies,-and-network-charges dept

With all the arguments over the FCC and how they should treat the Baby Bells, here's a fascinating read accusing the Bells of scamming all of us out of billions of dollars, by over-inflating the costs of their networks. It tells the story of a secretive agreement between the Baby Bells and the FCC to cover up some scary looking accounting discrepencies, and plenty of "missing" or non-existent equipment. Some of the equipment was charged at widely varying rates (in one example the same piece of equipment is booked at $4 in one case and $133,543 in another). According to the story, the FCC realized the discrepencies were so big, that they couldn't even go after the amount they thought the Baby Bells had scammed (many billions). The numbers were simply "too big to pursue". While consumer groups are now trying to get the whole story, the article suggests it's all been swept under the carpet as part of the deal with the FCC. The Baby Bells, for their part, (of course) deny the whole story.

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