The Book of Broken Promises ― $400 Billion Broadband Scandal & Free the Net

With the FCC’s Net Neutrality decision, (and the legal challenges to follow), The Book of Broken Promises emerges to expose the sad truth about communications services in the U.S and delivers a fact-based history of broadband in America that you were never told about. The third book in a trilogy spanning 17 years, senior telecom analyst and industry insider Bruce Kushnick lays out, in all of the gory details, how America paid over $400 billion and counting, to be the first fully fiber optic-based nation yet ended up 27th in the world for high-speed Internet.While over four million people filed with the FCC to ‘Free the Net’, one thing is abundantly clear— You know something is terribly wrong. Every time you pay your bills you notice that the price of your services keeps going up, you don’t have a serious choice for Internet (ISP), broadband or cable service, or maybe you can’t even get very fast broadband service. Broken Promises is not just about broadband, Net Neutrality, or some cautionary tale. It reveals new damaging facts about the underbelly of our communications providers, AT&T and Verizon, not to mention the cable companies, and why it’s time to restructure communications if we want the future we paid for. Most importantly, Broken Promises answers a fundamental question: How did we get into this mess and what can we do to fix it today? And don't worry; all of this jargon will be explained in plain English. First, Broken Promises thoroughly documents the failure to upgrade America’s networks. Starting in the 1990’s, the companies asked state regulators to grant rate increases and tax perks to pay for replacing the existing, utility copper wires connected to homes and offices, (and schools and libraries), with a fabulous fiber optic future. Though it varies by state, by 2014, over $400 billion was collected, charging you thousands of dollars for services you never got. Alongside this, in 1995, the cable companies cut a deal with the FCC called the “Social Contract” to charge customers for network upgrades and the wiring of schools. While the Contract expired in 2001, the companies never stopped billing and collected about $50 billion extra and there’s no evidence that the schools were wired. And we were all charged about 9 times to wire America's schools & libraries. Adding insult to injury, Congress passed the Telecom Act of 1996, opening the networks to give customers a choice of ISPs and even cable providers. But, by 2005, the FCC reversed this ‘right’, creating Net Neutrality issues. Also, the FCC allowed the companies to consolidate power, leaving a trail of broken promises from the mergers that created AT&T, Verizon and Centurylink. Broken Promises also details what to expect from the AT&T-DirecTV and Comcast-TWC mergers.In order to keep control, the companies have an army of fake consumer groups (astroturf), paid-off politicians, corporate-funded stink tanks, co-opted non-profits, all coordinated by massive skunkworks networks that use disinformation campaigns. Broken Promises pulls back the curtain and also shines the spotlight on the ALEC/Corporate sponsored deregulation bills from hell and how this game is played.Broken Promises explains all the ‘buzzwords’ and supplies encyclopedic coverage—everything you need to know about the current, critical issues, from Net Neutrality, something called “Title II” and “reclassification”, the "IP transition", the secret ‘special access’ connections, the rise of municipalities who didn’t wait to get wired—or the plan to ‘shut off the copper’. Broken Promises ends with a proactive plan to reclaim our rights and restructure communications by leveraging the companies’ broadband commitments and business practices to bring America’s states and cities very high speed, fiber optic-based utilities that lowers your rates and delivers choices via "Open Network" competition for all services. Isn’t it time everyone got the fiber optic future we alrea