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Last spring, consumers across North Carolina banded together to oppose legislation custom-written by the telecommunications industry to keep municipal broadband networks from competing with cable and telephone companies. Your efforts made a dramatic impact on state legislators and the bill was set aside. One representative that helped push it has since resigned after being caught up in a campaign contribution scandal. But we always knew the industry would be back. The threat of competition, and a reduction in their fat profits, is too great to ignore.
HB1252 – The “Level Playing Field” bill, which is among the most ironically named pieces of state legislation around, will be in the North Carolina House Select Committee on High Speed Internet in Rural and Urban Areas on Monday morning at 10am. For those of you who might want to attend, the meeting will be held in Room 415 of the Legislative Office Building at the General Assembly in Raleigh.
For those smart enough to recognize a telecom industry power play when they see one, a reality check for our state legislators is imperative.
I have been attempting to be added to the agenda to speak against HB1252 as a consumer. So far, no call back.
I believe that I have a unique perspective on this issue, as I hail from Greensboro, one of the communities that experienced the attempt by Time Warner Cable to force classic Internet Overcharging schemes like metered billing and data caps on consumers in the Triad region. These experiments came as a direct result of the large void many of us have in the area of competition.
HB1252 would make it next to impossible for municipalities to have their own city run broadband service to compete. The city of Wilson made the dream a reality. What costs a Time Warner Cable customer $180 to bundle cable, telephone, and Internet service together is on offer in Wilson from their municipal system for a mere $99. That’s nearly half the price.
Wilson’s Greenlight system offers a direct fiber to the home connection to subscribers. Wilson customers get speeds up to 100Mbps, ten times faster than cable or DSL. What has Time Warner Cable done in Wilson to compete? They reportedly cut their prices, particularly for consumers calling to cancel.
HB1252 will help protect Time Warner Cable and other providers in North Carolina from ever having to cut prices and take a profit hit. By taking away your community’s right to provide service the cable and phone companies refuse to provide, at an affordable price, this piece of legislation assures you of paying more and having less choice.
If you cannot attend Monday’s session, you can still deliver a wakeup call to state legislators by reminding them you are paying close attention to this issue, and know exactly who is behind the push for HB1252. Tell your representative Time Warner Cable and other telecommunications interests should not be ghost-writing legislation that favors them and protects their monopoly. Ask your legislators to firmly oppose HB1252 and demand as much competition as the marketplace can stand, be it from phone, cable, wireless, or municipally run fiber to the home.
Here is the list of North Carolina representatives. We won the first few rounds on behalf of North Carolina consumers. Time to win one more!
Other stories of interest:
I find it interesting how TWC and Comcast react to competition of various types. When a non-muni (mostly FiOS) pulls in fiber TWC and Comcast implement DOCSIS 3 speeds in the area, possibly increasing tiers at the same price.
In contrast, when a muni comes in TWC bumps speeds a bit, but mostly lowers prices for the first six months of a customer’s service with them, hoping that the muni will go out of business or something by then. TWC’s pricing in Wilson is as follows:
768/128 – $20
3/384 – $30
10/768 (fastest TWC standard service in the country to my knowledge) – $30 for first six months
15/2 (best non-DOCSIS-3 package from TWC) – $40 for first six months
In contrast, Greenlight’s 10 Mbps symmetric service is $35 and their 20 Mbps service is $55 if you bundle in TV or phone (or both). 20 Mbps service is available for $60 standalone. It’s a nice deal for customers with a need for speed (I would grab 20 Mbps service with no second thoughts) but it doesn’t capture the low end of the market, which TWC hopes it will snag.
For comparison’s sake, here are TWC’s speed tiers in central TX (another rather competitive area, but one that doesn’t have a muni competing):
768/128 – $20
3/384 – $35
7/512 – $40 (some promos available)
15/2 – $50 (some promos available)
And here’s TWC’s portfolio a bit west of Wilson, where their competition is CenturyLink (maximum speeds of 10/896 over ADSL2+)
768/128 – $20 for 12 months ($25 thereafter?)
1.5/256 – $38
7/384 – $30 for 6 months ($50 thereafter? No PowerBoost, though standard tiers elsewhere have it)
10/512 – $40 for 6 months ($60 thereafter?)
What’s even odder is that CenturyLink hasn’t changed pricing one bit in Wilson. 10/896 ADSL2+ is still $55 per month, with tiers going down from there to a $30-per-month 768/384 tier, with a $15 per month discount when bundling a non-basic phone line. For the record, I’d take CenLink DSL over TWC if 10 Mbps service was offered from both at my address.
Not only are TWC & friends annoying for their endless greed and their wasting of my money on paying off public officials, but on top of that, I have to go out of my way to email every one of these representatives to make sure they don’t do something stupid.
Dear TWC,
I’d rather be playing games right now but now I have to write reps cause of you. I hate you and your filthy management. Maybe if you didn’t spend so much money on lobbying you wouldn’t need to worry about a couple little municipal broadband communities, cause then your profit would be astronomical.
I’ve written them all now. I wish you luck in getting in there, Jay.
Thanks KC! I have spoken with the chair of the committee’s office and I will get the chance to speak on Monday. For those attending the room has been changed to room 544.
Speaking of TWC, there’s a bunch of people statewide who were seriously pissed at the fact that rates are rising and one of the reasons listed is “sports related packages” when in fact TWC is the last major holdout for NFL Network. It’s hilarious that TWC said that they would have to raise rates to be able to carry this network, and so when they do and use the reasons given, and still no network so fans across the state could watch their local professional football team, people are finally seeing the sham that’s being put forth.
We’re being played for fools, and because the state government is getting paid to be morons, we all suffer.
I had better not be paying more for more damn sports crap I don’t watch. I don’t pay for my neighbor’s groceries, I am not going to pay for their entertainment either! Already 13 MLB/NHL channels and crap I have to pay for.