Center for Public Integrity reports on the telecom industry, state by state

ASK THIS | November 313, 2005

Questions and data for covering a business that is vast in scope, not well understood and that affects all of us.

By Alex Kingsbury

10 questions suggested by John Dunbar

Q. What are service providers in your area doing to meet their public service obligations? Are these obligations being met? How well are these obligations understood by the public?

Q. How are consumers impacted by regulatory decisions, telecommunications mergers, and a shrinking of the competitive marketplace?

Q. Are legislators and regulators acting in the best interests of business and residential customers?

Q. How is the Congressional rewriting of the telecommunications Act progressing? What are the issues at stake?

Q. How will changes to this law impact consumers? Who is doing the redrafting?

Q. Should municipalities offer wireless Internet connectivity?

Q. Who controls information pipeline in your area? What types of information are the residents of these areas prevented from accessing?

Q. Who are your utility regulators? What are the resumes they bring to the job?

Q. Are political backgrounds the best qualifications for a job as a regulator?

Q. How much are regulators paid? What do they receive in the form of industry-sponsored trips? Does this impact their regulatory decisions?

The telecommunications industry has an impact on everything from the cost of residential and business phone and data service, to the content available through TV and the Internet and the competitiveness of the local advertising market. It touches all Americans in some way, yet reporting on its business, technical and political aspects is rare.

Now comes the Washington, DC, watchdog group, Center for Public Integrity, with accounts resulting from three years of reporting in what CPI calls the "Well Connected” project.

With additional funding from the Ford Foundation and the Open Society Institute, a team of 14 reporters, editors, and database managers have produced a series of investigative stories and a set of useful tools that journalists in every state can use (for free) to track the telecom influence in their own front yard.

"People tend to run screaming from technical issues, and understanding the telecom industry is no different," says John Dunbar, the Well Connected project manager. "The core issues are basic: control of the information pipelines, the regulatory and legislative process, and what it means for the consumer."

Dunbar also says journalists should ask tougher questions.

The project has tracked issues of accountability and political influence on an industry-wide and statewide level. In the coming weeks, coinciding with the annual conference of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, the Center will release more results of its investigation into individual public service commissions.

The new data will augment the existing search tools, which allow visitors to see what companies own what media and telecom assets in their area. The new data will allow reporters to cross reference financial disclosure forms, salaries, political contributions, and industry-funded excursions for individual commissioners.

Here's look at some of the stories the CPI investigation has uncovered:

"Telecommunications companies spent $60.3 million on political contributions over six years and a minimum of $83.4 million on lobbying over two years in an attempt to curry favor with elected officials in the states," writes Dunbar. He finds that "large regional telephone companies and cable television operators are spending millions in the hope that legislative success at the state level will translate into similar success in Washington, D.C., as Congress debates a major rewrite of federal telecommunications laws this fall."

Reporter David Baumgarten examines the case of Austin, Texas, which allows residents to log on to a wireless Internet connection. The service is popular, but, he reports, "a provision in a lengthy telecommunications bill would have made it illegal for local governments to offer residents high-speed Internet access. The legislation was by no means unusual—this spring, lawmakers in 14 states debated banning or restricting municipalities' ability to provide wireless access."

The issue pits chip makers like Intel against the telecom giants. "Telecom companies argue that municipalities that provide wireless access violate the principles of free enterprise. Public competition puts private companies at an unfair disadvantage, they claim, and what's bad for business is bad for citizens."

Dunbar says, "There has been an explosion in the number of media outlets "but it hasn't been accompanied by an explosion in the quality of information about those outlets."

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