Cableco POV: Clearing The Smoke.

By Steve Effros

Smoke screens, head fakes, misdirection plays and sleight-of-hand. Nope, not just on battlefields, playing fields or as part of a magic act. These are the normal tactics used in just about every political campaign, and not just those in which someone is running for office.

The political campaigns I'm talking about happen at the FCC and on Capitol Hill every day when various groups employ any tactic they can to either get their point across or to try to negate the point someone else is trying to make.

A really good example has come up at the FCC with Verizon versus the Cable Guys.

It all started when the Cable Guys noticed that folks who were planning to switch their telephone service suddenly changed their minds. What was happening? Well, as you all know, in order to switch your number from one carrier to another, the original service provider has to "release" the number so the new provider can put it back into service.

The Cable Guys complained to the FCC that, apparently, when the request has been sent to release the number (this is considered confidential information and may not be used for any other purpose), the telco has been notifying its marketing folks, who then go back to the customer seeking to switch and try to talk them out of it...offer them a deal, do anything to keep them.

That, the Cable Guys are arguing, is a gross misuse of confidential marketing data, and the FCC should order it stopped. A strong argument.