Below, follow links to some common sense strategies and tactics that local residents can use to restore local control over the placement, construction and modification of Wireless Telecommunications Facilities (WTFs) of any size and Any G — the same local control that is consistent with the Congressional intent of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, a chief purpose of which is to promote the safety of life and property.
Deception & Misguided Cross-Subsidies are the Foundation of the Current Densified 4G/5G Infrastructure Tyranny
The first thing to realize is that the nearly trillion-dollar US Big Wireless industry, in violation of the 1996 Telecommunications Act (1996-TCA)’s Title 47 US Code § 254(k): Universal service | Subsidy of Competitive Services Prohibited — in an intentional Reverse Robin Hood move — has, for the last 20 years, massively cross-subsidized from their State Public Telecommunications Utilties (SPTUS) — the firms that provide legacy copper switched “plain old telephone service” (POTS) and “fiber optic to the premises” (FTTP) at regulated, reasonable and just rates — to their multi-bilion-dollar private Wireless subsidiaries that are unregulated and can soak consumers for wireless service at any rates the market will bear.
Title 47 US Code § 254(k): Universal service | Subsidy of competitive services prohibited
A telecommunications carrier may not use services that are not competitive to subsidize services that are subject to competition. The Commission, with respect to interstate services, and the States, with respect to intrastate services, shall establish any necessary cost allocation rules, accounting safeguards, and guidelines to ensure that services included in the definition of universal service bear no more than a reasonable share of the joint and common costs of facilities used to provide those services.
It is interesting to note that Ars Technica cites a Ruling that evidences that the FCC is an out-of-control Captured Agency, one that ignores the Public to do the bidding for the Industry it presumably regulates. In a 2019 appeal (one dealing with media ownership rules) that the FCC lost in the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, the court stated in that ruling that the data and analysis presented by the FCC would “fail an introductory statistics class”.
The Third Circuit judges wrote:
- “Even just focusing on the evidence . . . the FCC’s analysis is so insubstantial that it would receive a failing grade in any introductory statistics class.”
- “Even if we could treat the use of these two data sets as reliable, the FCC’s statistical conclusions are woefully simplistic.”
- “But in this case the reasoned explanation given by the Commission rested on faulty and insubstantial data.”
- “The Commission does not really contest any of these deficiencies in its data or its analysis. Instead it argues that they are irrelevant.”
The 2020 IRREGULATORS v FCC case exposed a Federal Agency that continually quotes artificial, manipulated and deformed data which are based on the FCC’s own corrupted accounting rules — and these corrupted data have been used in almost every FCC proceeding from 2017 through 2019 — rendering all of these FCC Orders arbitrary and capricious.
- Arbitrary — based on individual preference or convenience rather than by necessity or the intrinsic nature of something; ruling by unrestrained and often tyrannical authority.
- Capricious — describes events or policy changes that are sudden, impulsive, and not based on careful analysis.
Key Strategies Residents Can Consider to Defend their Homes and Lives
Opening Caveat: None of the following can be considered legal or medical advice. Our Town, Our Choice employs no attorneys or medical doctors and cannot offer legal or medical advice of any kind. Please also realize that in the United States, there are currently two groups of states:
- (a) 27 intelligent states that DID NOT PASS an ALEC-written State Streamline Small Cell Deployment Bill.
Intelligent: AK, AL, AR, CA, GA, ID, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MS, MT, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NV, NY, OR, PA, SC, SD, WA, WI, WV, WY - (b) 23 dumb states that, inexplicably, stole local control from their municpalities over the placement, construction and modification of Wireless Telecommunications Facilities (WTFs) in the public rights-of-way and passed an ALEC-written State Streamline Small Cell Deployment bill.
Dumb: AZ, CO, CT, DE, FL, HW, IA, IL, IN, KS, MI, MN, MO, NC, NM, OH, OK, RI, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT - That means that all of strategies listed below are possible for (a) states, but some are not possible for (b) states.
American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) Exposed – Full News Conference
Corporate dollars are funding changes in state laws that disenfranchise voters, and weaken regulations designed to protect the environment. Those dollars are flowing through the Arizona desert this week as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) convenes to draw up more legislation it wants passed in state legislatures. To highlight what ALEC is doing, groups including Common Cause, People for the American Way, the Center for Media and Democracy, the Arizona AFL-CIO, AFSCME, the American Federation of Teachers, the Arizona Education Association, and Progress Now held a press conference Wednesday in front of the Arizona state capitol. ALEC’s leaders, firms like Wal-Mart, Pfizer and Koch Industries, have poured close to $400 million into state elections over the past decade, financing campaigns and spoon-feeding our elected officials bills that put profits over the public interest said Bob Edgar, president of Common Cause, citing a recent Common Cause report.
The Arizona desert is a perfect place for the public to call them out. ALEC’s agenda includes weakening clean air and clean water laws, undercutting public education, and disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of legally-qualified voters. At closed-to-the-public meetings like this week’s confab at the posh Westin Kierland Resort Spa, ALEC’s business executives, lobbyists, and elected lawmakers sit side-by-side and vote as equals on the group’s model bills, then carry that legislation back to state capitols across the nation. ALEC puts its stamp of approval on hundreds of pieces of legislation each year and claims an annual success rate of about 20 percent. Almost all of the group’s $7 million annual budget, including the cost of conferences like this week’s gathering, is underwritten by its corporate affiliates.
Try these local strategies, listed in the following rough order (feel free to mix, match and reorder)
- Return local control to counties, cities, towns and villages for placement, construction, & modification of WTFs of Any G.
- Link to Protective Municipal Telecom Code / Zoning Ordinances — See some good examples from these cities: Petaluma, CA, Calabasas, CA and Eagle, ID
- Link to Fiber Optic to the Premises (FTTP) and Wireless Broadband ARE NOT Functionally Equivalent Services — according to the 1996-TCA Conference report.
- Link to Case No. 18-1051 Ruling — in Mozilla et al. v FCC which establishes that the FCC cannot preempt states’ authority over the placement, construction, modification and operations of wireless infrastructure for Title 1 Information Services (provision of Internet, Video, Gaming and similar).
- Link to NEPA Strategies — according to the FCC’s top NEPA attorney, Erica Rosenberg, every single WTF must undergo NEPA review; if the file lacks substantial written evidence of NEPA review, then the City can declare the application incomplete.
- Link to OSHA Rules — and working with your Fire Dept may be able to stop placing sWTF antennas above high-voltage electrical lines
- Link to WE-WANT-IT — add to any state telecom bill or local telecom ordinance to set up a semi-annual Written Evidence – Wireless Antenna Need Test – in Telecommunications, to log second-by-second, street-by-street Wireless Carrier-specific signal strength data — and place this objective data in the public record for all to inspect and verify to determine if there is a significant gap in carrier-specific telecommunications service.
- Link to Resident-executed Wireless Antenna Need Tests (WANTs) — See some good examples from these cities: Napa, CA and Thousand Oaks, CA
- Link to Good advice — how to build a local team to get the work done, figure out what to say and what not to say, prepare the testimony/evidence you need to win and mostly to develop the resolve to consistently show up
- Link to Zoominars/Goominars — in July/Aug 2020 discussing how to fight and win locally — the buck stops with your local city councils
- Link to Video of Attorney Andrew Campanelli — advice from July 23, 2020 given to Woodstock, NY City Council members
- Link to Video of Attorney Mark Pollock — discussion the need to establish the corporate identify of the applicant and their requirement to provide insurance without an RF-EMR pollution exclusionfor claims of injury, illness or death pulsed, data-modulated, Radio-frequency Electromagnetic Microwave Radiation (RF-EMR).
- Link to 4G/5G Lacks Basic User Plane Message Security — which is a matter of National Security; any bad actor of rogue state can impersonate either side of the wireless transmission at the root of 4G/5G wireless telecommunications
- Link to Instituting Effective Radiated Power limits for any WTFs that are constructed in the public rights-of-way, attached to any buildings, or has antennas installed lower than 100 feet off the ground.
- Link to DONATE to fund the Our Town Our Choice Washington, DC lobbying efforts for local control over Telecom infrastructure:
Our Town Our Choice Lobbying Efforts
(a) Lobby against S.1699 — The STREAMLINE Small Cell Deployment Act, HR.6488 — The Streamlining Broadband Infrastructure Act and similar disastrous Wireless Telecom bills
(b) Lobby for S.2012 — Restoring Local Control Over Public Infrastructure Act of 2019, HR.530 — Accelerating Broadband Development by Empowering Local Communities Act of 2019 and similar bills to restore local rule over the placement, construction and modification of Wireless infrastructure