Don't allow a "dollar-a-holler" mouthpiece for the broadband industry to speak on your behalf. Get on the phones and send those e-mail messages today!

H.129, Rep. Marilyn Avila’s (R-Time Warner Cable) anti-broadband bill has been moving full speed ahead as she hurries it through the state legislature before consumer outrage gets a chance to block it.  Tomorrow morning, it will make a stop at the Finance Committee, where we expect the bill’s broadband-killing language will remain largely intact, thanks to hard work from Time Warner Cable and their astroturf friends.

While Ms. Avila is e-mailing copies of a so-called “independent article” about H.129 written by a man who received a $20,000 check from Time Warner Cable and works for a telecommunications company-funded think tank to her colleagues, you need to be e-mailing, tweeting, and calling your friends and neighbors and get everyone to call or write the individual members of the Finance Committee immediately.

Here are the points you need to raise:

1. Please vote NO on H.129, an unnecessary bill that does nothing to improve broadband in North Carolina;
2. H.129 is sponsored by the state’s biggest cable and phone companies to protect their anti-competitive markets and guarantee high rates for slow service indefinitely;
3. The fastest broadband at the fairest prices in the state comes from 21st century fiber optic networks that will be driven out of business if this bill becomes law;
4. Although Ms. Avila and Chairwoman Howard promised to protect and exempt existing community broadband networks from the terms of this bill, they have not yet kept their promise;
5. If the companies supporting this bill delivered broadband at the speed they are rushing H.129 through the legislature, North Carolina would not have a broadband problem;
6. If rural communities cannot solve their own broadband problems, who will?  The companies that refused to provide appropriate service yesterday, today, and will continue to not do so tomorrow?

Make sure you remind your legislator this is not a Republican of Democratic issue — it’s a consumer issue, it’s an issue for every rural community, and it’s an issue for the future economic well-being of a state that needs digital economy jobs.

Finance Committee Members

(click each name for contact information)

Other stories of interest:

1. Breaking News: NC Anti-Community Broadband Bill Passes One Committee, On to the Next
2. Action Alert: North Carolina Anti-Municipal Broadband Bill Moved to House Utility Committee
3. North Carolina Call to Action: Call Your Legislators Now!
4. North Carolina Action Alert: Anti-Municipal Broadband Bill is Back & Better Than Ever (If You Are Time Warner Cable)
5. Second Victory in North Carolina: S1004 Dumped to “Study Committee”