The company was incorporated as McLeod Telecommunications in 1991 and won regulatory approval for local and long distance service in Iowa and Illinois in 1993. In 1997 the company changed its name and began, with a series of mergers, to call itself a CLEC and market DSL services. This brings us to the third party in the telecommunications market - the consumer. Although the FCC and the Telecom Act advocate consumer protection, the tales of woe from DSL and Bell customers are endless. Determining service availability takes weeks, service rollouts take months, and then truck rolls are problematic, costly and incorrectly accomplished.
Many groups are also interested in consumer rights.
Bob Johnson, Executive Director for Consumers Voice said he thinks that the consumers have become the big victims in the whole situation. In 1996 there were eight RBOCs. Between this consolidation push and the fact that cable rates have risen nearly three times as fast as inflation, consumers in most areas are 0 for 3. An Administrative Law Judge in Pennsylvania has started this process by ordering Verizon to structurally separate its wholesale and retail operations over the next year. New Jersey and Maryland have initiated similar processes within their states, but these actions are not a guaranteed success.