West Virginia residents are assured of an indefinite future with 1-3Mbps usage-capped “broadband” as Frontier won conditional approval of its plan to assume control of the majority of the state’s landlines.

Frontier Communications, the phone company with the 5 gigabyte monthly acceptable usage allowance, won approval from West Virginia’s Public Service Commission after nearly a year of opposition from several unions and consumer advocacy groups.  The opposition, led by the Communications Workers of America, charged that Frontier’s balance sheet made it impossible for the company to fulfill promises to deliver quality phone and broadband service to the majority of the state’s residents.  Consumer groups, including Stop the Cap!, argued Frontier’s DSL broadband service is inadequate for the state’s needs, because it typically only provides 1-3Mbps speed and is usage-limited for residential customers.

Verizon’s history of bad service in the state helped drive some to believe Frontier can do better

Verizon’s West Virginia division has frequently achieved a poor rating among many West Virginians upset with the company’s service record and broadband deployment.  Last Monday, the PSC announced that Verizon’s service in the state was so poor, it ordered the company to place $72.4 million in an irrevocable escrow account to be used to improve the quality of service.  The PSC found Verizon’s disinterest in delivering service in West Virginia had resulted in the deterioration of Verizon’s essential infrastructure.

The PSC-ordered escrow account will be used to maintain and improve everything from restoring copper wiring to vegetation control and pole replacement.

With a history of complaints like that, it comes as no surprise West Virginians are ready to wave goodbye to Verizon, hoping for better times with Frontier Communications.

Bray Cary

Bray Cary, a TV station owner in West Virginia, has hosted editorials on his network of local stations across the state promoting the transaction, believing it will bring a better future for the state’s telecommunications needs.  Just two weeks ago, he demanded the PSC make a decision on the proposed merger, claiming the state needs a “modern, cutting edge communication system that will bring high-speed Internet to every corner of this state.”  Unfortunately for Cary, there is nothing from Frontier that comes close to “cutting edge,” with the exception of the company’s brazen Internet Overcharging scheme now being tested in Minnesota that threatens to bring $250 monthly broadband bills to some residents.

WOWK-TV’s Bray Cary criticized the West Virginia Public Service Commission for stalling on a decision to move forward the Verizon-Frontier landline transfer in the state.  Just about ten days later, the PSC conditionally approved the deal.  [Video problems were a part of the original clip] (Aired: May 4, 2010 — 1 minute)

Frontier specializes in delivering slow-speed DSL service to most of its rural service areas, usually less than 3Mbps in speed.  Even in its largest service area, Rochester, N.Y., the company’s broadband options are an also-ran against the far faster and more reliable cable modem service from Time Warner Cable, which also beats Frontier’s out-the-door price.

Unfortunately, West Virginian media has never given important details to residents about the specific services Frontier is willing and able to offer residential customers.  It also never informed customers about the important limitations the company attaches to its “high speed Internet” Cary hopes to see available in every corner of the state.

Sometimes change for change’s sake is not an improvement.

The PSC attaches conditions to its approval

The Commission did not grant blanket approval to the transaction.  The PSC is requiring that Frontier:

• Honors all existing obligations of Verizon following the close of the sale, including the currently effective Retail Quality Service Plan approved by the Commission to continue through at least July 2, 2011.
• Makes capital investments in Verizon of $30 million during the second half of 2010, $75 million in 2011 (including $12 million targeted at service quality), $63 million in 2012 and $63 million in 2013.
• Makes additional capital investments of at least $48 million to increase broadband deployment and subscription in the Verizon service territory.
• Expands broadband availability in Verizon service areas so that by no later than the end of the fourth year following the close of the sale, access to broadband service will be available to no less than 85 percent of the households within Verizon service areas.
• Locates its Southeast regional headquarters in Charleston, WV, after closing the sale. Charleston will be Frontier’s Southeastern regional headquarters, and will be a major employment center for Frontier in the region. It will be the hub for engineering, technical, operation and executive personnel for Frontier’s operations in West Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida.
• Adopts all of Verizon’s tariffs, price lists and contracts, including long distance, under the same terms and conditions at closing.
• Caps all regulated rates subject to jurisdiction of the Commission for one year after close of the transaction.
• Provides E-911 functionality provided by Verizon prior to close.
• Waives early termination fees for current Verizon customers participating in a Verizon bundled service package for the first 90 days after closing.

Reactions from all over

“We’re pleased the commission has approved the transaction. The record developed in this case provides comprehensive evidence and assurances that the transaction with Frontier Communications is in the public interest and will provide many benefits to West Virginia residents, including increased investment and broadband availability in the state, while protecting jobs and promoting employment.”

– Verizon-West Virginia President B. Keith Fulton

“We’re in the process of evaluating the order. After full review we’ll look at what we can do that will best serve West Virginia consumers and CWA members. Of course, we’re disappointed but we’re heartened by the fact that at least one person on the three-member commission agreed with us and more than 80 legislators, several county commissions and a broad coalition of consumer, union and first responder organizations that this deal is too risky and not in the public’s interest. The split decision shows our arguments about the deal had validity.”

– Communications Workers of America, District 2 Vice President Ron Collins

Byron L. Harris heads the Consumer Advocate Division of the West Virginia Public Service Commission

“There are many areas of West Virginia that will always be dependent on landlines, absent some sea of change in technology. Those are the people I’m most concerned about. They’re the truly captive customers of now Verizon and, in the future, Frontier.”

– West Virginia Public Service Commission’s consumer advocate Byron Harris

“We’ve seen how Wall Street’s investments can backfire. Like Frontier today, Wall Street once put its confidence in Global Crossing and that led to a disastrous bankruptcy. We’re concerned that the Rochester-area and other existing Frontier properties may be starved to fund this expansion.”

– John Pusloskie, President of CWA Local 1170 in Rochester, N.Y.

“Today’s approval is a welcome and important step. Our goal is to gain the approval of the FCC so that we can close the transaction and begin bringing its benefits to consumers and businesses.”

– Maggie Wilderotter, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Frontier

West Virginian media covers the conditional approval

A handful of television stations covered the conditional approval, most without much depth.  West Virginian newspapers covered the fight between Verizon and Frontier and the unions and consumer groups, but no paper really provided in-depth coverage into the challenges of West Virginia broadband and what precisely Frontier is capable of providing to solve it.  Consumers will discover soon enough that West Virginia has yet again gotten the short end of the online stick.  Only this time, they better not wave it around too much — it might exceed your monthly stick-waving allowance.

WOWK-TV in Charleston delivered the most substantial report on the sale, including this brief interview with PSC spokeswoman Sarah Robertson.  (2 minutes)

http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WTAP Parkersburg Verizon-Frontier Deal Approved 5-14-10.flv

WTAP-TV in Parkersburg ran this brief in-studio report about the Verizon-Frontier approval.  (1 minute)

http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WDTV Bridgeport Verizon Sells Land Lines to Frontier 5-14-10.mp4

WDTV-TV in Bridgeport explained the requirements of the conditional approval.  This was the only report on the approval that included the opposition’s perspective.  (1 minute)

The U.S. Copyright Group sells its services: "Congratulations! By reviewing our site you have decided to take the first step down an efficient, no-hassle and no-cost path to recovering losses due to illegal downloading and stopping film piracy. With well over seventy combined years of legal and technical experience, the US Copyright Group will work for you at no cost." For those they accuse of piracy, a quick and easy $1,500 cash settlement will make the nightmare go away.

Stop the Cap! already deals with a variety of ISP-invented Internet Overcharging schemes, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more profit-making schemes out there.  For 50,000 movie downloaders who grabbed copies of Steam Experiment, Uncross the Stars, Gray Man, Call of the Wild 3D, or Far Cry, chances are a letter like this sent to Verizon customers was in the mail a few weeks ago, warning your identity was about to be disclosed:

Dear Customer:

This is to notify you that Verizon has received a deposition subpoena requiring the production of records associated with the following IP address:

(xx.xx.xx.xxx)

Verizon has no information as to the purpose of the deposition subpoena or has the nature of the action or investigation being undertaken. Any questions you have should be directed to the party who issued the deposition subpoena.

Please be advised that, unless Verizon is served with a motion for a protective order or a motion to quash by 12:00pm on May 13, 2010, Verizon intends to produce the records by the date specified in the deposition subpoena. Motion papers can be served upon Verizon via fax number xxx-xxx-xxxx.

If you are a Time Warner Cable customer, chances are your letter never arrived.  That’s because the Internet Service Provider is fighting back against what it considers requests that have grown “out of control.”

A group of Washington, D.C. lawyers calling itself the U.S. Copyright Group has developed a profit-making business scheme seeking quick cash settlements from those accused of downloading copyrighted movies created by independent producers.  The group has filed thousands of requests for identities of those behind the IP addresses logged while downloading movies produced by its clients.  While this isn’t new — the record industry used to file lawsuits to discourage piracy — the U.S. Copyright Group is among the rare breed that treats the offense of copyright infringement as a for-profit business opportunity.

Only the Group’s methods may in fact cost every consumer, pirate or not, higher broadband bills as providers deal with tens of thousands of demands for identification.

Time Warner Cable is among the ISP’s that have had enough.

They’re upset after being included in the U.S. Copyright Group’s latest trawling effort against those who downloaded Uwe Boll’s Far Cry.  Critics say the only real crime was the movie itself.  But Time Warner Cable faces combing through 809 IP addresses identified as theirs in hopes of identifying the presumed-guilty offenders, who will later receive U.S. Copyright Group’s legal threats and offers for a settlement.  For a provider that says it receives only 567 IP identity requests a month, almost entirely from law enforcement officials, the prospect of dealing with 809 more over a single obscure movie is daunting.

Time Warner wants the requests quashed — telling the court if it has to reply to this volume of requests, it will not be able to fulfill urgent law enforcement requests that pertain to suicide threats, child abduction, and even terrorism.  Besides, at an average cost of $45 per request, someone will have to pay.  That someone is eventually you – all to fulfill the profit motivations of a group of DC lawyers.  Even worse, the group demanded compliance within 30 days, quite a demand for four full-time workers (and one temp) who make up the ISP’s Subpoena Compliance team.

For those receiving advance warning that their identity is about to be disclosed, the settlement offer package that is certain to follow weeks later leaves little doubt about what outcome the Group wants for these cases — a quick settlement and no time inside an actual courtroom.

Making your copyright infringement allegation go away with a $1,500 confidential settlement is as easy as writing your credit card number in the appropriate box. You can even earn reward points!

The group even offers an online, easy-to-complete PDF settlement form with spaces to enter your Visa, Mastercard, or Discover card number to pay the $1,500 settlement.  You don’t even have to admit you did anything wrong, as long as they get their money.  If you regret your decision later on, however, look out.  If you open your mouth in public or online to disparage the agreement or your participation in it, you automatically owe a $15,000 penalty (plus costs) for breaching confidentiality.  You also sign away your rights to challenge the group in court, even if it later turns out you were wrongly identified.

While the U.S. Copyright Group cashes settlement checks they only had to ask to receive, the group doesn’t seem to mind increasing everyone else’s costs.

Ars Technica notes Time Warner thinks the entire approach to these lawsuits may be invalid:

Filing lawsuits can be expensive; Most federal courts charge a $350 filing fee per case, along with a new set of paperwork. Each case also creates another docket to keep track of, making thousands of cases an administrative nightmare.

Instead of going this route, plaintiffs have gone the RIAA route, simply filing mass lawsuits against groups of “John Does,” in some cases by the thousands. But, says TWC, channeling its inner Ray Beckerman, “It is not evident from the complaint in this case that there is anything common to the 2,094 defendants that would justify joining them in a single litigation… Courts facing these identical circumstances have repeatedly held that a plaintiff may not join in a single action multiple defendants who have allegedly downloaded or facilitated the download of copyrighted material at different times and locations.

“Thus, if the plaintiff wants to sue these 2,094 defendants, it owes this court 2,094 separate filing fees, and it must file individual actions. Plaintiff then would be unable to combine together a single, massive discovery request with which to burden non-party ISPs such as TWC.”

Third, plaintiff lawyers keep expanding the scope of their subpoenas. The first complaint filed alleged 426 infringing IP addresses belonging to TWC subscribers. But when the company finally received a subpoena, it found requests for 809 IP addresses.

Taken together, said TWC, these “discovery abuses” mean that the judge should quash the subpoena. Alternately, the judge should limit the plaintiff to 28 TWC subpoenas each month.

Regardless of your views on piracy, compliance on the terms the U.S. Copyright Group demands raises the prospect of increased costs for providers like Time Warner Cable — the same increased costs used repeatedly as justification for rate increases.  Turning copyright compliance into a for-profit business may enrich a select group of DC lawyers, but ultimately every broadband customer could pay the price.

One out of every four American families has now cut the cord on their landline phone service.

With cellular bills increasing, many people are deciding the traditional phone line that has been them for decades is no longer worth the expense, especially if you spend most of your time reaching for your cell phone to make or receive calls.

But is dropping landline service such a great idea?

Here are some things to consider:

PRO

• Reduced expense for the family budget
• If you don’t use it much, why pay for it?
• Many cable companies offer less expensive “digital phone” products that can be bundled with your cable and broadband service
• Skype, Google Voice, and Voice Over IP services can often knock phone service costs down to just a few dollars a month
• Portability

CON

• 911 emergency services have a harder time identifying your location
• Call sound quality is usually lower than traditional landlines
• Your telephone directory listing will become unavailable unless you make special provisions to keep it
• The costs for cell phone service are often higher than basic landline service
• Monitored alarms and certain other services require either a landline or added-cost wireless technology
• During periods of unrest or bad weather, call volumes can increase exponentially causing disruptions to cell phone service

Telephone companies are increasingly desperate to hold on to their customers, and many remind departing customers the chance to retain their landline service at dramatically lower pricing.  Many companies offer budget, non-flat rate calling plans for less than $10 a month, but you’ll pay between 8-11 cents for every local call.  Others offer calling allowances of 250 or fewer local calls per month.  A few larger cities have calling plans that charge by the minute.

If you are considering dropping your landline, be sure to consider all of the options and alternatives before disconnecting service.

WCPO-TV in Cincinnati provides additional insight into landline disconnections and your alternatives.  (2 minutes)

Arris WBM760 DOCSIS 3 Cable Modem

Time Warner Cable is demonstrating 290Mbps downstream coupled with 90Mbps upstream broadband in its booth at the 2010 Cable Show in Los Angeles.  A Time Warner Cable insider told CED magazine it was the first public showing of the company’s ability to provide faster service outside of a lab environment.

The new high speeds are achieved using DOCSIS 3 technology which can bond multiple “channels” on a cable system together to create additional bandwidth.

The demonstration relies on an Arris CMTS and cable modems manufactured by both Arris and Motorola, which are connected to Time Warner’s Los Angeles cable headend.

CED notes Time Warner Cable has plenty of room for broadband speed growth.

The company is achieving the speeds using 8 x 4 channel bonding. With TWC’s top tier rated at 50/5 Mbps, the demo shows speed increases of greater than fivefold on the downstream and 18-fold on the upstream.

The TWC engineer compared the MSO’s achievement with the 300 Mbps that Bell Labs demonstrated on DSL recently.

“What they’ve got is something in the lab that goes 10 feet, and what we’re showing is live from our headend 22 miles away. We can compete (using) DOCSIS,” he observed.

Such developments are all part of a larger company plan to develop and market additional services the nation’s second largest cable operator can upsell to its customers.  For now, 290Mbps service is more theoretical than practical at Time Warner Cable’s likely pricing.  But it illustrates cable remains technologically ahead of what most phone companies can deliver over non-fiber-to-the-home networks.

MediaPost’s MediaDailyNews reports Time Warner Cable is about to begin market testing a new super-deluxe package that moves beyond the “Triple Play” packages common in the cable industry today.  Targeting wealthy, premium cable customers, Time Warner’s new “Homesuite” service would include all the bells and whistles:

• Multiple DVRs for several rooms in the house, with can eventually be connected together to let you start a recorded show in one room and finish it in another;
• A full range of premium channels at a bundled discount price;
• Faster DOCSIS-3 broadband with free Wi-Fi in and outside the home;
• Enhanced digital phone service, perhaps with more calling features;
• Concierge-like customer service, which could allow Homesuite customers to jump to the front of the queue for everything from service installation, repair and customer service.

Other options might include access to Time Warner’s wireless mobile broadband (rebranded Clearwire service), extended hours for service calls, discounts on pay per view, more deluxe set top boxes, and in some areas, even home security systems.

For Chief Operating Officer Landel Hobbs, the idea of selling $100 a month Triple Play package promotions just isn’t good enough anymore.  Time Warner Cable, MediaPost speculates, is now looking at $250 a month as a potential target price for Homesuite clients.

Time Warner Cable customers in Charlotte, North Carolina will be the first guinea pigs for super premium cable.  Are there enough customers around in Charlotte to pony up $250 a month for service?

TWC has conducted a customer “segmentation” study allowing it to identify opportunities for up-selling. “Our analysis indicates that certain of our large and profitable customer segments continue to hold substantial untapped opportunity,” Hobbs said earlier this year.

TWC says in a recent government filing that it’s likely to continue to lose video subscribers, but is expecting to make up for it by persuading customers to take DVR service, premium channels and other add-ons.

Charlotte is a key market for TWC — a Time Warner Cable Arena is located in the city center. After launching there, “Homesuite” would presumably then roll out in other TWC principal areas, which include Ohio, New York, Southern California and Texas. The working “Homesuite” moniker could be altered.

Telekom Malaysia

A scheme to impose usage limits and speed throttles on Telekom Malaysia’s broadband customers was beaten back just a day after the plan was announced.

Malaysia’s largest telecommunications company announced the limitations at the same time in introduced new speed tiers and new pricing for them.

Customers were not pleased when they discovered TM’s UniFi broadband service came with high prices and usage caps:

TM UniFi Broadband Packages

• 5/5Mbps Service RM149/$46.73 now capped at 60GB per month.
• 10/10Mbps Service RM199/$62.41 now capped at 90GB per month.
• 20/20Mbps Service RM249/$78.09 now capped at 120GB per month.

In comparison, residents in nearby Singapore can buy 100Mbps service, with no limit, for RM200/$62.73 per month.

Those who exceed the limits would find their speeds throttled to about 10 percent of the speed they purchased, for the rest of the month.

Telekom Malaysia CEO Datuk Zamzamzairani Mohd Isa said the measures were part of its Fair Usage Policy.

Dato’ Zamzamzairani

“This policy is a standard industry practice to ensure that all subscribers get to enjoy the same web surfing quality,” he said.

Only it’s not standard industry practice, despite that often-heard excuse.  In countries where usage limits are common, those limits are being eased or discontinued as broadband expansion and competition drives the unpopular usage limits out of the market.

Malaysians weren’t willing to wait.

The social media firestorm of protest that followed the announcement forced the company to back down just one day after announcing the Internet Overcharging scheme.

An announcement on Twitter, noting customer feedback, stated “no volume cap 4 all #unifi packages 4 now.”  The company did say it would continue to “reserve the right to enforce a download limit to ensure all UniFi subscribers receive equal service quality,” but that type of language has been standard in service provider agreements for years.

Company officials told The Malaysian Insider customers “may abuse” the service, which is why they wanted the cap.

But customers feel they deserve value for money — the price being charged can be considered high for many countries in Asia even without the cap.

The Star newspaper notes:

With the latest announcement by Telekom Malaysia, many people are rejoicing. Among them is communications consultant Justin Then, who said he’s happy to note that Telekom Malaysia listens to consumers.

“Capping our high speed Internet access doesn’t make sense, if the Government wants Malaysians to seek out knowledge and be innovative,” he said.

A Twitter user, who asked to be identified only as Flo, said she’s glad Telekom Malaysia has decided not to employ the cap for now.

“We are paying a premium for technology that offers super high bandwidth, so a daily cap shouldn’t be applied. There’s no value in that; we would be better off with regular broadband,” she said.

One caveat.  As has been the case with a handful of U.S. providers seeking to monetize your broadband usage, rescinding usage caps today doesn’t guarantee they won’t be back tomorrow.  Indeed, TM has yet to remove them from their website, instead inserting in the fine print, “The monthly download volume policy will not be implemented until further notice.”

http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Malaysia Telekom UniFi Promotional Video.flv

TM’s slick promotional video unveiling the faster UniFi broadband packages asks y0u to “imagine.”  We did… imagining how in the world we can accomplish all of the things they show in the video with the company’s proposed arbitrary usage limits and speed throttles.  Imagine actually getting the service you paid to receive without a provider imagining how much use = “abuse.”  (6 minutes)

Sen. David Hoyle (D-NC)

Retiring North Carolina state senator David Hoyle wants to save North Carolina cities from themselves.  Proclaiming that “cities are getting into the broadband business with little or no experience and competing with private enterprise who pay the taxes,” Hoyle continues his push to put a stop to municipal broadband projects in North Carolina.

A week after Hoyle and a few allies on the Revenue Laws Study Committee pushed forward a draft bill that would require public referendums that could be triggered even when making basic repairs to community-owned fiber networks, IndyWeek reports Hoyle doesn’t exactly come to the debate with clean hands.

Rebekah Cowell, in a piece called “Hoyle to municipal broadband: Drop Dead,” notes Time Warner Cable’s PAC contributed $6,000 to Hoyle’s final campaign in 2009.

Hoyle told Cowell he is not swayed by Time Warner Cable’s deep involvement in pushing the legislation forward, despite the generous contribution to his campaign coffers.

“The lobbyists don’t influence me,” he said. “I’m in the pocket of the people that provide jobs for this state, and Time Warner Cable employs 8,500 in this state, and I can’t imagine any one that would want to compete with that.”

Time Warner Cable told IndyWeek it doesn’t philosophically oppose municipal broadband projects, and claims Hoyle’s bill would only apply to a city that chooses to take taxpayer money to build a competing network as if it were a private provider. “We just believe that they should have to operate under the same rules as the private provider,” Melissa Buscher, director of media relations at Time Warner Cable told Cowell. “We do believe people in the community should have a say-so in how large amounts of public monies are spent.”

Buscher

Yet the legislation proposed by Hoyle actually impacts projects that receive no public taxpayer dollars.  Under his proposal, any municipal project seeking private bondholders has to endure an endless series of referendums on everything from initial system approval, construction, refinancing debt, extending service, upgrading the network, and even when basic system repairs are needed.

Time Warner Cable’s concern for public tax dollars only seems to extend to their potential competitors.  The cable operator itself gratefully accepted public tax dollars from the state Department of Commerce, the city of Charlotte, and the county of Mecklenburg to construct a $29 million dollar headquarters building in Charlotte.  Even in smaller communities, the cable operator enjoyed benefits from taxpayers who didn’t have a “say-so in how public monies are spent.”  In December, Marble Cliff Village Council approved an economic development agreement with Time Warner Communications including a five-year tax abatement worth $100,000.

North Carolina’s phone companies also benefit from state taxpayers.  As IndyWeek reports:

A 2009 analysis by Democracy North Carolina [shows] two telecommunications companies, AT&T and Embarq, both benefited from tax breaks on the purchases of telephone equipment that costs the state an estimated $31 million annually in lost revenue. In 2008, political action committees for AT&T and Embarq contributed $140,500 and $151,250, respectively, to legislative candidates, statewide candidates and party committees.

Hoyle apparently has no problem with losing that tax revenue.

Hoyle’s claims that municipal broadband projects hurt North Carolina consumers are untrue in cities like Wilson, the only community in North Carolina that successfully avoided a Time Warner Cable rate increase this year.

Time Warner customers in Wilson are benefiting from Greenlight’s competition. According to a December 2009 presentation before the House Select Committee on High Speed Internet Access in Rural and Urban Areas, Time Warner raised its prices for basic service in the Triangle—as much as 52 percent in Cary—but did not impose any rate hike in Wilson. Nor did the company increase prices in Wilson for the digital sports and games tier, while Triangle customers paid 41 percent more.

Cable and broadband consultant Catharine Rice of Action Audits gave the presentation; she advocates for municipalities that want to build their own networks.

The bill could hurt Wilson’s Greenlight service, even though it’s been installed. “The way the legislation is worded, and how I interpret it,” says Ovittore, “is that if the city of Wilson … had a resident who was digging in their yard—let’s say putting a new mailbox in—and accidentally damaged a strand of fiber, before that strand could be repaired the city would have to go through a referendum and vote, spending endless taxpayer dollars.”

A public referendum could also be required if Wilson wanted to connect an additional household to their existing system, Ovittore said.

Hoyle says that of the $30 million to build the network, Wilson used $12 million of it from the utility account. “People there are raising hell about their electricity bill, and it’s just not right,” he said.

Brian Bowman, Wilson’s public affairs manager, said the city borrowed the $28 million on the private market. As for Hoyle’s $12 million figure, Bowman said, much less—only $3.6 million— had been set aside from the electric fund by City Council in 1989; it was re-designated in 1999. “It has always been part of our funding package,” he said. As for the electric bills, Bowman said they were higher earlier this year because of the particularly cold winter, not the cost of the network.

Wilson accomplished its municipal broadband system without spending a nickle of taxpayer money.  Other North Carolina communities considering similar projects would run into overwhelming problems overcoming Hoyle’s telecom-friendly legislation because of its referendum requirements.

Hoyle told IndyWeek he doesn’t see the need for such projects anyway, claiming fast broadband is already universally available across the state.

“I’ve heard that BS, and it’s just not true—period,” he said. “Anybody that needs service has got served in this state and will continue to get served.”

Hoyle’s words sound a lot like those of Time Warner Cable, which also contends broadband availability is not an issue. “Based on a map of the state done in 2009 by Connected Nation, more than 92 percent of homes in North Carolina have broadband available to them,” said Buscher. “A vast majority of those have two wireline providers, some have wireless providers, plus satellite offers broadband to literally every home in the state. This isn’t an availability issue. Anyone who wants Internet service can get it today.”

Those claims are dubious. Chatham County Commissioner Tom Vanderbeck has advocated for rural broadband access since 2006 in an area where pockets still have only dial-up and DSL. Vanderbeck was recently appointed by the General Assembly to serve on the e-NC Authority, which promotes statewide rural broadband. He calls Hoyle’s bill anti-competitive, one that would discriminate against local government.

[...]

“Requiring a vote, when you have deep pockets that can fight it and put up as much money as they want, while making the project sound like a waste of taxpayer dollars—that would be a tragedy,” she adds.

Anyone who proclaims satellite fraudband represents a credible broadband competing alternative should be forced to use it.

Connected Nation, which Buscher relies on for her numbers, has a board dominated by telecommunications company executives, particularly AT&T.  With their private provider-stacked leadership, they can draw the maps anyway they please, particularly in ways that suggest there isn’t a broadband problem in North Carolina… or anywhere else.  Not as long as they are running it.

[Editor's Note: While not a traditional story we'd normally cover, this one has implications for every satellite and cable customer, and was unusual enough to bring to your attention.]

Intelsat's Galaxy 15, pictured above, has gone rogue

A satellite now drifting out of control threatens to interfere with dozens of American cable networks as it intrudes into a neighboring satellite’s assigned slot.  Intelsat’s Galaxy 15 positioned at 132ºW is on the move, less than one degree away from its next door neighbor,  SES World Skies-owned AMC 11 (131ºW).  Intelsat technicians lost control of the satellite on April 5th, and although the satellite continues to operate at full power, capable of delivering a hundred of more digital television signals to viewers on Earth, Intelsat can no longer keep the satellite in its assigned position.

Communications satellite failures are not as rare as their owners wish.  Solar storms have the power to wipe out a $250 million dollar investment required to build, launch, and operate a satellite in mere minutes.  Intelsat speculates a solar storm may be responsible for Galaxy 15 going rogue.

The majority of communications satellites are locked into a geostationary orbit, which means a satellite dish can be fixed to point to a particular satellite and never require repositioning.  Satellites are equipped with small jets that can be fired to maintain a satellite’s position.  Without them, orbiting satellites would begin to drift, and in a neighborhood where only a degree or two separates satellites, it doesn’t have to drift far to create major problems.

The result of Galaxy 15′s unplanned adventure is imminent interference to its next door neighbor, AMC 11. Since both satellites share the same frequencies, that guarantees as long as Galaxy 15 is powered up, a mix of the two satellite’s signals is guaranteed.

“That fact means that there is likely to be some kind of interference,” Yves Feltes, a spokesman for AMC 11 owner SES World Skies, told The Associated Press. “Our aim is to bring any interference down to zero.”

Nearly every signal on AMC 11 is a digitally compressed, encrypted cable network intended for the United States.  By May 23rd, if the companies do nothing, the interference will increase the digital signal error rate high enough to blank out the channels for the duration.

Intelsat engineers intend to continue efforts to re-establish contact with the satellite.  If they don’t succeed, the satellite will next intrude on Ciel 2 and EchoStar 14 (129ºW) which deliver programming for DISH Satellite Network customers, Galaxy 13/Horizons 1 (127ºW) which delivers international channels and several feeds of HBO, Starz, and other cable networks, and AMC 21 (125ºW), used mostly by PBS.

Current occupants of AMC 11 can potentially be relocated to other satellites for the duration, although that could create nightmares for cable systems nationwide forced to adjust reception equipment for dozens of popular cable channels.

ABC News’ Good Morning America ran this story on the zombie satellite and its potential impact on cable viewers nationwide.  (2 minutes)

The list of potentially impacted channels on AMC 11 is enormous:

Cable Networks

(East and West refers to individual feeds intended for the east coast and west coast of the United States, the latter delayed three hours)

• Hot Choice (Adult movies/Pay-Per-View)
• In Demand 1-7 (Pay-Per-View)
• Lifetime East & West
• Lifetime Movie Network
• Lifetime Real Women
• Hallmark Channel US East & West
• Hallmark Movie Channel East & West
• C-SPAN & C-SPAN Radio
• E! East
• The Style Network East
• G4 TV East
• Food Network East & West
• DIY Network USA
• Fine Living Network USA
• HGTV East
• Great American Country
• QVC HD & QVC USA
• A&E East & West
• History Channel – East, West & en Español
• The Military Channel
• Crime & Investigation Network USA
• The Weather Channel
• NESN (New England Sports) NE, Maine, Alternate, Boston & Providence
• Catholic TV
• MTV West, MTV 2 East, MTV Jams, MTV Hits, & MTV Tr3s East
• VH1 East & West, VH1 Classic East & VH1 Soul
• CMT East, West & Pure Country
• Nickelodeon East & West, Nick Jr USA, TeenNick, NickToons USA, & Nick Too
• Logo East
• The Learning Channel (TLC) East & Canada
• Discovery Familia, Discovery en Español, Discovery Health Channel East & West, Investigation Discovery USA & Discovery Kids USA
• HD Theater
• TV Land East & West
• Spike TV East & West
• Comedy Central East & West
• Showtime East, Showtime 2 East, Showtime Showcase East, Showtime Beyond East, Showtime Extreme East, Showtime Next East, Showtime Family East, & Showtime Women East
• The Movie Channel East & The Movie Channel Xtra East
• Flix East
• The Science Channel
• Planet Green
• Fit TV
• BBC America
• CNBC World
• Bravo East
• Chiller
• Mun 2 East
• TeleFutura East & West

Broadcast Networks & Stations

• The CW
• Telemundo East & West
• Univisión East & West
• WNBC-TV New York

(Channel List Courtesy: LyngSat)

http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/The Galaxy 15 Zombie Satellite -- 2010.05.flv

Spacevidcast Daily got a bit more technical about the satellite mishap, and how it might get resolved.  (3 minutes)

While the Federal Communications Commission hand-wrings over how far to dip its toe into the shark-infested water of corporate-controlled broadband, Finland has launched a major investigation over charges of price-fixing and collusion by the country’s major broadband providers.

The Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority (FICORA), equivalent to the Federal Communications Commission or the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, started the investigation over what it calls “gross overpricing” after receiving complaints from TeliaSonera that it was forced to pay outrageously high “local loop” prices to the former state-owned incumbent telephone company, Elisa Oyj.

The “local loop” refers to a part of a telecommunications network used for providing broadband subscriptions to end-customers. When an operator sells broadband outside its own operating area, it must lease part of a local loop from the operating area’s telecom operator. The sound pricing of the local loop market is a prerequisite for telecom operators to be able to compete in each other’s operating areas and thus be able to provide inexpensive broadband services to consumers.

“The authority has discovered flaws and problems in the pricing of several telecom operators, and there is even reason to suspect that unlawful activity occurs in the broadband market,” FICORA said in a statement.

Within three months, Elisa must reduce its pricing to a level based on actual costs and deliver new price tariffs and cost calculations to FICORA. According to FICORA’s calculations, the unreasonability of pricing is significant. For example, the monthly price of a local loop must be reduced by more than 20 percent.

“The objective of the provisions is to prevent operators with significant market power from enjoying a monopolistic pricing capability, promote competition and thereby ensure versatile and reasonably-priced telecom services for citizens,” FICORA states.

Finland telecommunications law does not allow corporate providers to gain the upper hand over consumers.  FICORA aggressively oversees the Finnish broadband market to ensure no individual company or group of companies can collude to set prices artificially high, discourage competition, or deliver sub-standard service in non-competitive areas.

Finland was the first country in the world to declare broadband a universal right, and every citizen should have access to at least 1Mbps service no later than this July.  By 2015, Finland plans to deliver universal access to at least 100Mbps service.  Finland is a world leader in broadband adoption — as of 2007 a full 79 percent of Finns regularly access the Internet.  With universal access a national priority, FICORA referees the private marketplace to make sure the Finnish people benefit the most from the broadband revolution.

The Authority has warned other operators to either voluntarily review their pricing, or face the potential consequences of further investigations extending into the summer and autumn of this year.

WIVB-TV in Buffalo covered the latest Digital Phone outage in its newscast

Last Friday, Time Warner Cable customers across the country found their Time Warner Cable Digital Phone service wasn’t working.

Although the company claimed the outage began at around 8:30am, some Buffalo residents noticed service was out when they got up at 5:30 that morning.  Service was not fully restored for all customers until lunchtime.

According to WGRZ-TV, Time Warner Cable refused to make a spokesperson available to appear on camera, but the company later did issue a written statement which made news across the state.

“Several thousand Time Warner Cable Digital Home Phone customers in the Northeast may have experienced an intermittent service outage early Friday morning. Engineers have now deployed a fix and customers who were experiencing this issue have had service fully restored,” wrote Time Warner Cable spokesman Jeff Unaitis.

Unaitis also claimed the outage did not impact the majority of their “Digital Phone” customers, although newsrooms heard otherwise from upset customers.  In fact, the outage impacted customers across the country.

This is the second time in three months the company suffered a major phone service outage in its Northeast division.

Last Friday’s disruption caused more than 60,000 Time Warner Cable phone customers in the Carolinas to be without service.  Southern Californian Time Warner Cable customers were also unable to make or receive calls.

When asked whether customers would be given credit for the outage, Unaitis hedged:

“This morning’s outage was intermittent, did not impact the majority of Digital Home Phone customers, and was resolved before noon. Therefore, we will work with customers on a case-by-case basis if they believe they were affected by the disruption in service.”

In other words, customers experiencing outages have to specifically request credit from the company or they won’t get it.  You can request credit online by visiting the Time Warner Cable website, selecting your area, and then using the link to Customer Support to access the Contact Us section of the website.  You can also call your local Time Warner Cable office.

WIVB-TV in Buffalo ran this brief report on their noon newscast to alert area residents about the widespread phone outage impacting Time Warner Cable.  (1 minute)

NoNetBrutality characterizes itself as a "grassroots campaign," but new evidence suggests it's actually just another telecom industry-backed astroturf group pretending to represent consumer interests.

On April 12th, a new voice joined the opposition to Net Neutrality reforms.  That was the date someone registered the domain name NoNetBrutality.com.  Just a few short days later, the group launched a basic website with a mission:

NoNetBrutality.com is a grassroots campaign with a triple mission. It seeks:

(1) to raise public awareness for the imminent threat of government take-over of the internet,
(2) to bring all net neutrality opponents together under one common banner,
(3) to petition the FCC not to go ahead with its attempts to regulate the internet.

NoNetBrutality.com was initiated by six liberty-minded activists from six different countries who fear that the current attempts of the U.S. government to restrict access to the internet might soon be followed by other governments if we don’t fight these flawed and dangerous ideas now – before they take root elsewhere.

The NoNetBrutality.com campaign was created by Kristin McMurray (United States), Yolanda Talavera (Nicaragua), Vincent De Roeck (Belgium), David MacLean (Canada), Huafang Li (China) and Aykhan Nasibli (Azerbaidjan), and formally launched in Washington D.C. on April 14th, 2010.

The group’s talking points about Net Neutrality are eerily in lockstep with those distributed by large phone and cable interests who oppose net freedom:

Net neutrality will take away incentives to invest and innovate – that means the internet will stop improving. Do you really want an internet czar to run the worldwide web and bureaucrats in charge of cyberspace?

Net neutrality will literally put the internet in “neutral.” Demand for Youtube, Bittorrent and streaming will grow, but who will pay for additional bandwidth if they aren’t allowed to charge for it anymore? Less options and less freedom for the consumers will be the ultimate consequence of these flawed ideas.

The FCC and others aim to regulate the internet in the same way as they control the television… There’s the real censorship! What will be the next step? Once the government has the mechanism in place to restrict internet access and to set prices, it is only a tiny step towards content control and taxes on internet use.

Everybody agrees that the internet is a resounding free market success story. If it isn’t broken, why fix it?

You know what that means — that “grassroots campaign” is in reality yet another corporate-backed astroturf campaign desperately trying to hide its true backer — the telecommunications industry.

Here’s what NoNetBrutality left out of its “facts”:

1. YouTube is owned by Google, which is a strong believer in Net Neutrality.
2. No online service has suffered more at the hands of Internet Service Providers’ throttles than Bittorrent.  Net Neutrality would ban those throttles.
3. The group ignores the multi-billion dollars in profit the broadband industry earns today from Internet service that is increasing in price at the same time costs to provide it are rapidly falling.
4. The FCC proposes no content controls for broadband — only consumer protections to prohibit providers from manipulating broadband traffic for money.
5. Everyone does not agree that the Internet is a “resounding free market success story.”  In fact, the United States has lost its former lead on Internet speed and adoption, and today is still dropping.  We now have worse service than many Asian and East European countries, and providers are trying to test new Internet Overcharging schemes t0 limit consumption and increase prices even higher.  That’s success?  Only for them.

So who is NoNetBrutality.com and Kristin McMurray, the American creator of the campaign?

McMurray's day job is to develop and run social media campaigns for corporate interests seeking to build support for their public policy agenda

Kristin McMurray is a social media strategist — a hired gun for corporate interests that want social-network-street-cred but don’t exactly know how to create an authentic-looking campaign that fulfills their corporate agenda.

McMurray has a history with corporate-backed conservative think tanks, particularly Americans for Limited Government, a group the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity reports is 99 percent funded by three unnamed sources.  The group has routinely denied requests to identify where their backing comes from.  She also was hired to run a campaign for a climate change denial group.

McMurray tracks her site visitors carefully with Alterian’s SM2, a social media monitoring and analysis solution designed for PR and Marketing professionals. Alterian SM2 “helps you track conversations, review positive/negative sentiment for your brand, clients, competitors and partners across social media channels such as blogs, wikis, micro-blogs, social networks, video/photo sharing sites and real-time alerts.”

Grassroots this isn’t.

Accidental Evidence: The Consequences of An Exposed PowerPoint Presentation

Someone left their PowerPoint slides laying around for anyone to pick up and review.  That turned out to be about as foolish as the guy who left his field test version of Apple’s newest iPhone in a bar.

Now the truth can be told.

Think Progress managed to obtain a copy of the presentation, and it says quite a bit about just how much grassroots are actually growing at NoNetBrutality.com.  Let’s put it this way, if you were allergic to actual grass, you’d have no problems at all rolling around in NoNetBrutality’s astroturf.

It turns out NoNetBrutality is the creature of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation and Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, itself heavily backed by corporate interests.

And you thought it was “six liberty-minded activists from six different countries.”  Not so much.

Atlas, which counts among its proud moments a corporate strategy to protect Big Tobacco, helps corporations coordinate their front group strategies.  Norquist takes corporate agendas and spins them into grass roots efforts in return for money.  He was caught up in the Jack Abramoff scandal when the disgraced lobbyist promised one of Norquist’s front groups $50,000 in exchange for “grassroots” support.

Of course, you aren’t supposed to know any of this.  Groups like NoNetBrutality are designed to hide their true ties and claim they are run by ordinary concerned citizens making their individual voices heard.  Too bad that PowerPoint presentation blew the lid off by telling a much different story.

One of the PowerPoint slides that wasn't supposed to become public knowledge

Net Neutrality is like what China does: “Putting policemen on every corner, on the street or on the Internet.” — Grover Norquist

Norquist’s bizarre interpretation of Net Neutrality shines through in NoNetBrutality’s own campaign.  On one of the PowerPoint slides, NoNetBrutality even cooks up a Chinese blog to underline Norquist’s world view that Net Neutrality can be compared with Chinese government censorship.

Every astroturf group has a target audience.  NoNetBrutality is no different:

Target Groups

• Libertarian like minded Internet users and video gamers
• Fiscal and Social Conservative Activists, Campaigners and Think Tanks
• Internet Service Providers and Communications companies
• Policy makers (Legislators, Regulators, Public officials)

For groups like NoNetBrutality, getting corporate and conservative support means being a cog in the wheel at Grover’s infamous Wednesday strategy sessions.  One of the PowerPoint slides calls attention to just how important these meetings are in the effort to coordinate opposition to consumer-friendly broadband reform.

Now that the cat is out of the bag, outraged consumers have invaded the group’s primary social media outlets.  Their Facebook page is now loaded with comments from those upset about the fact the entire effort is little more than another bought-and-paid-for deception effort from the telecom industry.  Twitter is now used more to expose the group than to promote it.

The ironic part is that the very group that seems so alarmed by the prospect of “government censorship of the Internet” has no problems censoring its own Facebook page to remove posts that it determines are “off topic” or “not polite.”

[Update Wednesday 3:20pm -- This "group" came out of the closet this morning as a "class project" funded by Atlas, and attacked Think Progress for overreaching as to the group's own importance in the Net Neutrality debate.  You can read my extended thoughts on today's developments in the Comments section.  In short, I think today's revelations may actually do even more damage to their credibility than earlier thought.  What does it say about a group of people willing to attend a "school" (and the "school" itself) that actively teaches how to develop and launch highly-deceptive fake grassroots campaigns designed to fool consumers?  Today they are downplaying the entire affair as "funny," but if you were a visitor to their website, would you be laughing to learn the group isn't really run by "six liberty-minded activists from six different countries" but rather those budding to learn the craft of sock-puppetry?

I think it's sad some people have a moral code that says intentional deception in a public policy fight is just fine.  When you lie to your supporters and opponents about who you really are, and then say it's "funny" when you come clean later,  they are left with little more than to ponder whether you were lying to them then or lying to them now.]