Out in the States
With now more than one million voices speaking up for wireless freedom and consumer control, MyWireless.org continues to inform and empower consumers to impact the wireless policies affecting them, their businesses, and their families. This year, nearly 50,000 MyWireless.org consumers contacted their state and local policymakers via telephone and email. MyWireless.org mobilized wireless consumers in states, including:
- Passing a repeal of an outdated telecommunications fund fee in Texas;
- Staving off a proposed wireless tax increase in Prince George’s County, Maryland, Cook County, Illinois, and Georgia;
- Advocating for the reduction of unfair or regressive taxes on communications services in Florida and Michigan;
- Rallying consumers in opposition to proposed, but highly misleading, ‘consumer protection’ bills in several states such as Hawaii, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Dakota, New York, and Oregon.
Wireless in Washington
As always, Washington, D.C., policymakers were busy on wireless issues as well this year. MyWireless.org engaged its community of wireless consumers to infl uence national lawmakers in their home congressional districts, on Capitol Hill, and at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). More than 64,000 MyWireless.org activists contacted their national lawmakers supporting passage of the ‘Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act of 2007,’ which would have made permanent the existing moratorium on taxation of Internet access and certain forms of commerce (more than 71 percent of wireless consumers polled in 2007 agreed on permanence). Ultimately, legislation enacting a seven-year ban on Internet access taxes was passed in both the U.S. House and Senate and signed into law by the president before the expiration of the moratorium on November 1st. Almost 21,000 wireless consumers also contacted FCC commissioners in opposition to a proposal by Skype, which would have put their wireless service and safety at risk. And, nearly 65,000 wireless consumers contacted their representatives and senators in support of the ‘Cell Phone Tax Freedom Act of 2007’ this year, which would place a three-year moratorium on all new state and local wireless taxes, and allow lawmakers to focus on a fair, responsible national structure for wireless services. Eighty-one percent of wireless consumers polled in 2007 supported a three-year nationwide freeze on new wireless taxes, prohibiting states, counties, and localities from raising them.
MyWireless.org is a nationwide non-profit consumeradvocacy organization giving wireless consumers a powerful and unified voice to protect the freedom and security they enjoy with
wireless services. MyWireless.org brings together consumers from across the country to protect
their wireless rights in their cities, states, and nationally. To learn more, please visit www.
MyWireless.org.