Phillip "My Essay Would Never Get Accepted" Dampier

Wonder where Time Warner Cable is spending this year’s rate increase?  Look no further than Time Warner Cable’s all-new Research Program on Digital Communications.

For a 25-35 page essay on the topics that interest Time Warner Cable’s lobbying and Re-education campaigns, the cable operator will fork over a whopping $20,000 “stipend.”

Why?  They get to use an ostensibly “independent” researcher from a major university or non-profit group to promote their agenda with the veneer of credibility.  It’s not Time Warner Cable that suggests Internet Overcharging schemes are warranted — it’s this researcher guy from a respected university who said so.  Net Neutrality should be opposed not because we have a vested interest in doing so, but because this non-profit group catering to a minority or disadvantaged group says it will harm their members.

Copies of the “dollar-a-holler” essays get spread around Washington to influence public policymakers and other legislative movers and shakers, and inevitably become talking points in the public policy debate.  Long forgotten is who paid for them.

What kinds of questions does Time Warner Cable want answers to?

• How are broadband operators coping with the explosive growth in Internet traffic? Will proposed limits on network management practices impede innovation and threaten to undermine consumers’ enjoyment of the Internet?
• How can policymakers harmonize the objectives of preventing anticompetitive tactics and preserving flexibility to engage in beneficial forms of network management?
• Regarding these issues, describe a vision for the architecture of cable broadband networks that promotes and advances innovation for the future of digital communications.
• How might Internet regulations have an impact on underserved or disadvantaged populations?

See below for my exclusive tips and strategies to help would-be applicants succeed in getting their essay proposals approved!

Some companies have paid stipends to researchers to consider market trends, new product possibilities, and be on top of the next biggest thing.  This isn’t that.

This “research program” is being overseen by Fernando R. Laguarda, Vice President, External Affairs and Policy Counselor at Time Warner Cable.  Laguarda joined Time Warner Cable last April from Wiltshire & Grannis LLP, a boutique law firm involved in telecommunications policy strategies as part of its practice.  The firm describes, among its strengths, a “first-rate understanding of the law and policy with a keen understanding of the political and public relations forces that shape public policy battles to help fashion innovative, winning strategies.”

Time Warner Cable admits he’s there to help Time Warner re-educate lawmakers and the public about Time Warner Cable’s agenda.  From their press release announcing his hiring (underlined emphasis ours):

Laguarda will play a significant role in helping the company develop and advance its policy positions, and will assume primary responsibility for working with third party policy influencers, including think tanks, academics, public interest and inter-governmental groups, and diversity organizations.

“Fernando is an accomplished attorney who comes to Time Warner Cable with a unique mix of experiences and he will bring a fresh perspective to the many policy issues we will be addressing,” said Steven Teplitz, Senior Vice President, Government Relations, adding “he knows our business extremely well and will play an essential role in helping to advance Time Warner Cable’s advocacy agenda.”

Time Warner Cable is taking a page from Verizon and AT&T, who back research “think tanks” and have contributed heavily to organizations that suddenly declare a burning interest in their corporate policy agendas.  Take a look at Broadband for America’s member roster for a review of how that game is played.

Time Warner Cable customers are probably wondering why they are paying for this.  After all, $800 a page for essays that “will provide new information, insights, and practical advice” is mighty pricey.

Ordinary consumers are not invited to apply.  Had we, my essay proposal would have been, “Time Warner Cable Should Stop Wasting Customers’ Money on Bought-And-Paid-For Essays and Instead Use the Money to Upgrade Their Network.”  I was even planning on including some nice graphs and charts and stuff.

I would remind the nation’s second largest cable operator it earns billions from selling broadband.  Instead of blowing $20k-an-essay down a Washington public policy rathole, it could instead spend it on solving their burning network management issues with simple, cost-effective upgrades that deliver better service to customers.

Since I don’t qualify — I’m just a Time Warner Cable customer, what do I know, I’ll be a giver and not a taker and share free advice with would-be applicants.

1. Since Time Warner Cable doesn’t want a breakdown of your expenses or need to know what you are going to do with the $20k, you are going to spend most of your time and effort first learning what policy positions the cable company wants you to parrot in order to improve your chances of being a big winner.  Remember, Time Warner isn’t going to give you the whole 20k upfront.  According to their FAQ, one half of the award ($10,000) will be issued at the start of the project.  The second installment ($10,000) will be made only after your advocacy essay is delivered.  There’s a built-in incentive to tow the line.

2. You can’t write on just any topic.  You have to write about one of the company’s pre-selected topics, which is why I’m out of the running for this already.  If you’ve been paying attention to the policy debates about Internet Overcharging, Net Neutrality, and Network Management, you are already half-way there!  You know what side of the issue the cable company is on, so don’t blow your chances by saying things like “a free and open Internet should never discriminate against the traffic carried on it,” or “at a time when the broadband industry earns billions in revenue and recently increased rates for customers again, the idea of implementing usage limits or usage based billing would make Tony Soprano awe at its audaciousness.”

Polly wants a stipend

(Statements in green keep you in the running.  Statements in red will likely get your proposal introduced to the circular file.)

• Reputable equipment manufacturers predict Internet growth so great, it threatens a vast “exaflood” which could bring the Internet to its knees.  Without wise network management and traffic control measures, just like those used on any big roadway, a cataclysmic global traffic jam is inevitable.
• Network Neutrality should be a given for any provider because no company wants to make money by slowing down someone’s content.  That would be like extortion — pay us or we put the brakes on you.
• Network management techniques guarantee your call from grandma will be crystal-clear, your movie download from your cable-partnered movie service will always play worry-free, and by organizing online traffic, Internet chaos is reduced.
• There is nothing wrong with cable companies colluding with one another to preserve the industry’s flexibility to manage its own traffic, even if it means putting some questionable, independently-owned traffic at the back of the line.  Nobody wanted to view that anyway.
  
• Today’s cable broadband provider is investing billions of dollars to improve network capacity and deliver customers an unparalleled online experience.  The cable industry has pioneered innovation in cable network programming they own, operate and distribute to assure quality and excellence.  Now, by taking that same formula for success to online content, and cutting out unnecessary middlemen, the industry can do for broadband what it created for cable television.  Now that’s a win-win for everyone!
• Internet regulations have unintended consequences.  It means providers have to funnel large contributions to interest groups, or place a company employee on a group’s advisory board, so that the industry can rest assured that groups with an interest in maintaining valued contributions will advocate anything we ask, starting with “these regulations are bad for our groups and our members.”
• Unnecessary Internet regulations will create widespread depression and anxiety for investors.  That means money to expand broadband availability in underserved or unserved communities will dry up faster than the Mojave Desert.
• If the cable industry doesn’t get its way on this, it will punish consumers like the credit card industry did after “credit card reform.”  Word to the wise.

An article from McClure magazine, circa 1906, has a lot to say about today's broadband regulatory battles. We've been here before.

Yesterday, while browsing through some of the sources I review for story ideas, I encountered yet another one of those tired “free market solves everything” pieces from Randolph May, filled with the usual memes about keeping government regulation and oversight out of broadband.  May, like his pro-business friends, always believes that markets are self-correcting, and that providing checks and balances for the de facto duopoly most Americans have for broadband service would ultimately harm them.  Besides, if a provider gets out of hand, its competitor will pounce on the opportunity.  Sometimes that happens, but often it does not.  For investors, there is more money to be made going along to get along avoiding price and service wars.  Indeed, when competition gets too hot and heavy, Wall Street brays that “consolidation” is required to deal with all of the revenue-losing-harm healthy competition causes.  Just today, those calls are heard in the prepaid wireless market as analysts continue their relentless pounding that Leap Wireless’ Cricket must merge with MetroPCS to create cost savings, and stop price erosion (your savings).

I want to focus on May’s unintended, but disastrous comparison of American telecommunications regulation with that of the railroad industry of the 1800s:

“This form of regulation was first adopted at the federal level in the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887, which created the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate the railroads. In 1910, the ICC was given authority to regulate newly-emerging telephone companies as common carriers, and this authority was transferred to the FCC when it was created in 1934.

By the 1980s, the railroads were largely deregulated and the ICC was abolished in 1995. And towards the end of the last century, with the emergence of competitive choices, the FCC began to relax even the regulation of POTS, or plain old telephone service, provided by formerly monopolistic telephone companies. So it was no surprise when the FCC decided to reject public utility-style regulation for the then new broadband Internet service providers.”

May is obviously no student of history, and the introduction of railroads into this argument gives me my “free market” ability to pounce on his out of hand rhetoric.  The irony is that this debate takes place over the open and free Internet that May and his friends are willing to entrust to a handful of corporate providers who provide most of the connectivity in this country.  They wouldn’t interfere with traffic if it meant making a pile of extra profits selling “preferred partnerships,” would they?

There are obvious metaphors between the railway industry of the 1800s and the broadband industry of 2010s.  Many of the challenges are remarkably similar, especially if one considers broadband a sort of digital railroad that is becoming increasingly important to the economy and job growth.

May is lucky that nobody but those who love studying history are likely to notice he completely ignored the rationale for the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887.  Railroad robber barons had by this time put such a stranglehold on the industry, entire cities prospered or withered based on what a railroad executive decided was the appropriate price for service on a schedule good enough for that community.  If you lived in a city with a strong railroad system with fast lines, competition, and a healthy choice of destinations, your city generally enjoyed economic success. If you lived in an uncompetitive city deemed a railroad backwater by a provider, you paid extortionist pricing to move your goods on a limited schedule that sometimes was followed, other times not.

By the time America had caught on to these abusive practices, railroad barons were secretly charging lower prices and quietly providing rebates to their preferred partners, mostly big businesses, and overcharging everyone else.  They even charged completely different rates for different products.  If you transported tobacco you paid more than transporting flour.  Farmers paid one price to transport crops, lumber suppliers paid something entirely different to move wood.  If you were a friend of the railroad industry, and important to their lobbying efforts, you got a pass to travel fare-free.

It took years for Americans to finally achieve the railroad equivalent of Net Neutrality.  That’s because the railroads were politically savvy, and maintained their own version of astroturfing — an army of business leaders and supporters provided favors and money to parrot railway talking points in the media and before Congress, all while claiming they were ordinary Joe’s.  Railroads supplied generous campaign contributions to members of Congress, and so much money was spread around, it eventually turned into railroad industry graft with the Crédit Mobilier scandal of 1872.

An entire class of “ordinary citizens” and business leaders pleaded in the printed press not to regulate the railway system.  It would create “unintentional consequences,” would “hurt jobs,” “ruin the economy,” and would be contrary to the laissez-faire policies of the time, which allowed a completely unregulated railway system to “prosper.”  Besides, railroads had “transformed the transportation infrastructure” of America and created economic benefits, all from “millions railways invested to improve railway lines.”  Regulation would “discourage that investment.”

Americans might have believed that had the record of abuse by the railway industry not grown into a bulging dossier of unfair pricing and anticompetitive activities. Rural communities were charged high prices for slow, erratic railway service because they rarely had a second choice.  Businesses refused to locate in communities where a monopolistic railway charged high prices and provided poor service.

But even legislative reform in 1887, designed to stop railway abuses and charge fair pricing, left enough loopholes in place for the railroad industry to continue its ways for years to follow.  Court findings of wrongdoing were ignored by the industry, at least until they could successfully appeal them to federal district courts, which tended to favor business points of view in their rulings.

Sound familiar?

Ray Stannard Baker

But one need not take my word for it.  In 1906, McClure’s magazine published the story of Danville, Virginia and its railroads by Ray Stannard Baker, a popular investigative reporter (known then as a ‘muckraker’) for the magazine.  While you may be unfamiliar with Danville, located in south-central Virginia, history dealt it several interesting cards in the 1800s.  Its Richmond and Danville Railroad was immortalized in the song “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” telling the story of how the Confederate army’s hopes of defending Richmond in the waning days of the Civil War were dashed when the Union cavalry destroyed the railroad tracks.  General Lee’s army retreated to Danville — the last declared capital city of the Confederate States of America.

As the era of Reconstruction began, Danville threatened to become as well known as Richmond to the east and Lynchburg to the north.  All three communities enjoyed the benefits of competitive railways — providing stable, affordable, and plentiful service between all three cities and points beyond.  With excellent railways, an economic boom followed, and the communities prospered from manufacturing, cotton, and tobacco products, all transported on the railway system to eager buyers.  What was once a city of 5,000 rapidly grew to 20,000.  Danville because a world leader in tobacco production and distribution and built what was once one of the world’s largest textile mills — Dan River Industries, which survived until 2008 when the company declared bankruptcy.

Yet Danville remains completely unknown to most, a forgotten city whose early boom ended when a railway monopoly arrived and strangled the community to a former shadow of itself, perhaps never to completely recover.  The effects were long-lasting.  Today, Danville is a challenged city of 44,000 and declining.  Lynchburg, in contrast, prospered through the manufacturing era, often called the “Pittsburgh of the South,” and has successfully transitioned into one of America’s “top 10 digital cities,” supporting its population of 73,000.  Richmond towers over both, with 200,000 city residents in a community well-known nationwide.  Both of those cities enjoyed competition from railways and built a substantial economic base from that that paid dividends in the decades that followed.

Of course, in 1906, the final chapter of America’s annoyance with railroad robber barons had yet to be written.  Fights over pricing and service continued for years, as communities depended on railroads for their economic well-being.  Ultimately, the Eisenhower Administration’s decision to undertake a national highway system, built by and supported with public funds, was symbolically the end of an era that allowed a handful of corporate executives and railroad trusts to determine the fate of entire communities, all based on the kind of railroad service they would enjoy.  The highway system gave rise to the trucking industry, with air service from municipally-backed airports picking up some of the more urgent business.  Railroads had to compete like they never had before.

The article, lengthy yet surprisingly accessible for contemporary audiences, is provided below in a slightly condensed form.  The more you read, the more you realize those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.  Folks like Randolph May are counting on America’s ignorance of the challenges faced by our great-great grandparents, who would find familiar themes in today’s competitive and regulatory broadband battles, and who ultimately wins control of the lines and the traffic that crosses them.

The railroad industry asked people to trust them, and said notions of discriminatory pricing and access were nonsense, because they didn’t make economic sense.  But they very much did, especially when alternatives were limited, if they existed at all.

… Continue Reading

Americans have got it all wrong.  Their ‘faster is better’ obsession over broadband speed threatens to harm jobs and hurts those looking for work.

Those are the views of Stuart N. Brotman, a senior fellow at the Digital Policy Institute, which calls itself “a vehicle for faculty research that coalesces around the arenas of law, regulation, economics, intellectual property, and technology as these relate to public policy issues of local, state and national interests.”

Brotman argues that while broadband speeds matter, regulators should not be focused on speed as much as considering how broadband can help Americans find jobs.

The Agriculture and Commerce Depts. are tasked with administering $7.2 billion in stimulus funding for broadband by Sept. 30. As they decide where to place the bulk of those funds, which remain unawarded, government officials should show preference to grant and loan applicants that can use broadband to reach displaced workers more quickly.

There also need to be more funds made available to, and a greater focus on, public institutions, such as libraries, community centers, job training facilities, and adult education sites, where broadband spending may have the largest impact on jobs.

Greater broadband competition, which the FCC recognizes is essential to promote more infrastructure development and more varied pricing, also will be helpful. So, too, will be more efficient use of our spectrum resources, particularly those that have been controlled by colleges, schools, and other educational institutions for decades. Those airwaves can be better deployed to deliver high-speed wireless broadband services or leased to private-sector companies offering them.

Large telecommunications providers couldn’t have said it any better.  They have repeatedly argued broadband speeds are besides the point.

Brotman

AT&T last fall wrote the Federal Communications Commission, suggesting residential customers would do fine with broadband speeds that let them “exchange emails, participate in instant messaging, and engage in basic web-browsing.”  For AT&T, speed was less important than setting “a baseline definition of the capabilities needed to support the applications and services Americans must access to participate in the Internet economy—to learn, train for jobs, and work online….”

Verizon echoed AT&T, asking the Commission to retain the current minimum definition of broadband speed at 768kbps downstream and 200kbps upstream.  That allows them the chance to participate in stimulus funding projects that set the broadband speed bar low, especially in the rural areas Verizon wants to spend less on or is trying to sell-off.

“It would be disruptive and introduce confusion if the Commission were to now create a new and different definition,” Verizon said in its letter to the FCC.

Some of the smaller telecommunications companies also believe broadband speed should be de-emphasized.

Embarq, before completing a merger with CenturyTel (now CenturyLink) told the FCC 1.5Mbps broadband service has become “the most common offering.”  Embarq called that “consistent with an emphasis on economic development and jobs as many important applications, such as video conferencing are arguably possible only with 1.5 Mbps service and above. Any higher speed threshold, however, would risk defining as unserved the large number of satisfied customers of 1.5 Mbps service, which seems implausible.”

Embarq underlines the real reason providers are concerned about broadband speed — they’re not delivering it.  Once legislators or the Commission increases minimum broadband speed levels, many of these companies may find themselves below the threshold, guilty of “just enough speed to scrape by” in non-competitive markets.  That could lead to the prospect of facing federally-funded stimulus projects from others in their service areas, now deemed “unserved” or “underserved.”

Brotman further advocates that funding be focused on those that can deliver results “quickly.”

Embarq would agree with him there as well, stating “funds through grants directly to broadband providers rather than loans or other measures as this will have the greatest and quickest impact in bringing broadband to the hardest-to-serve areas.  …there is no time to wait for complete broadband maps or block grants to states for redistribution.”

Telecommunications companies would also do well by Brotman’s suggestion that federal funding for broadband projects reaching public and community service institutions should be emphasized.  As communities often request companies provide those services at a deep discount or free in return for franchise agreements or other licensing provisions, that’s money AT&T, Verizon, and others need not spend out of their own pockets.  Getting free airwaves swiped from educational institutions to deliver wireless broadband also benefits AT&T and Verizon, who are in that business as well.

When a “policy institute,” “research group,” or other seemingly unaffiliated entity starts rehashing telecommunications industry talking points, it’s time to start digging.

Buried on page five of a PDF file describing the work of the Digital Policy Institute, one comes to a section titled, “DPI Impact and Influence.”  DPI doesn’t list their financial supporters or partnerships as such.  Instead, they call them “national, collaborative relationships.”  Who does DPI collaborate with?

• AT&T
• Embarq
• National Telecommunications Cooperative Association (rural telco lobbyists)
• Verizon
• …among others.

Imagine my surprise.

But that’s not all.  Stuart N. Brotman Communications counts (or counted) among his clients AT&T, Cox Cable, National Cable and Telecommunication Association, and the New England Cable TV Association.

Perhaps Business Week would have done a better service to readers had they also disclosed that.

Fool me once... can't get fooled again!

After astroturfing their way to a statewide video franchising bill in 2007 that made AT&T millions and saved consumers nothing, the company is back again looking for more legislative goodies from the Wisconsin legislature.

This time, they want near-total deregulation of their landline telephone business.  The reason?  Their overpriced, uninspired service has caused 50 percent of their customers to disconnect, preferring to rely on cable “digital phone” products, cell phones, or Voice Over IP services like MagicJack or Vonage.  AT&T has succeeded in driving away so many of their customers, the company is left with just 675,000 landlines in the entire state.

The answer?  Deregulation!

Of course, no regulation prevents AT&T from investing in Wisconsin to win back their former customers with better service at lower prices.

AT&T apparently feels it can’t compete tied down with state consumer protection rules and those ‘oversight pests’ that make sure the company lives up to appropriate service standards.

This time, like last time, your legislative cruise director is Sen. Jeff Plale (D-South Milwaukee), a chief sponsor of Senate Bill 469, along with most of the Republican party in the state legislature.  Plale’s a special case in point — a very grateful recipient of AT&T campaign cash, and he’s no stranger to the phone giant.  In 2007, Plale accepted $1,000, the maximum allowed, from AT&T just a week before introducing the aforementioned statewide video franchising bill.  But the check from AT&T’s PAC is always just the start of the Money Party, because AT&T executives and their spouses also joined the conga line of campaign contributions on their own, spreading around money to Republican and Democratic legislators and the governor.

“It [was] impossible [in 2007] to not see the connection” between AT&T’s campaign cash and its push for the deregulation bill, Mike McCabe, executive director of the non-profit Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which monitors campaign donations, told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

AT&T’s campaign gifts starting in 2007 were also unusual because company officials had not been “particularly active” givers prior to the video franchising bill, McCabe said. “The giving is targeted.”

It still is.

Plale

The Big Money Blog, covering the atrocities committed by Wisconsin legislators hungry for campaign cash, reports that those who played along with AT&T got rewarded handsomely with contributions.  Those who voted no had their contribution checks reduced or cut out altogether.

Of course Plale can’t see the connection, probably because all that money is blocking his view.  He told the newspaper he had no idea why AT&T would max out their contribution to his campaign, despite only getting a fraction of that amount prior to the introduction of the video franchise bill.

Who does he think he’s kidding?

He’s got plenty of nerve to be back asking for more “legislative relief” just a few weeks after the verdict is in for the video franchising “competition” bill that was supposed to save Wisconsin consumers money.  It didn’t.  In fact, the rate increases just kept on coming.  While I’m sure that provided financial relief to AT&T, consumers gained little, if anything.

The reaction among the elected officials who promised all those savings?  Mild surprise and disappointment — a veritable ’shucky darn’ and shrug of the shoulders.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports consumer groups are outraged.

They worried that less regulation could lead to less investment in the companies’ infrastructure.

That’s critical, said Charlie Higley, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board, because competitors of AT&T and other local phone companies often rent portions of the network and sell their own services over it.

He said freer oversight would allow local phone companies to hide financial information and “evade appropriate regulation.”

Union representatives also were critical of the legislation, saying that deregulation steadily has driven down employment in the industry.

Despite that, Plale and most of the Republicans are in for a penny, in for a pound with AT&T.

Professor of telecommunications at the University of Wisconsin Barry Orton looked through the notes on how the bill was drafted and discovered all of the requests and language came from telecommunications industries.  There was absolutely zero consumer input in the bill.

Color me surprised.  We’ve watched telecommunications companies in North Carolina custom-write legislation and find elected officials more than happy to get such legislation introduced, especially when campaign contributions smooth the way.  In Kansas, negotiations between legislators and company officials appear to have been conducted in secret, with charges from consumer groups that legislators withheld meeting notes.

Despite the evidence these AT&T-sponsored bills don’t help consumers, Plale carries on.  He argues the bill is needed because telecommunications services are evolving too fast to ’shackle companies with outdated regulations.’

Back for a second helping from the Wisconsin Legislative Buffet

“The 1930s models have outlived its usefulness,” he said.

Perhaps his constituents will think the same about him after their phone bills go up as quickly as their cable bills.

If the legislation doesn’t work out for you, Plale suggests you simply “switch providers.”  “[Customers] can switch to Verizon, or Sprint or Time Warner,” he said after a recent hearing on the measure. “It’s really not an issue anymore.”

Really?  What about the tens of thousands of rural Wisconsin residents that depend on AT&T for telephone and broadband service?  They don’t enjoy good reception from cell phone providers and cable television is an idea that will never come to their rural neighborhoods.  Plale can afford to pay the premium prices cell phone companies charge (AT&T should just give him a free phone).  Many cash-strapped consumers in his state cannot.

Unfortunately for rural Wisconsin, their only choice will likely be AT&T for some time to come.  For those consumers stuck with one choice, it’s not comforting to know Plale’s bill makes sure the state government can’t intervene when your phone line goes out, your bill is wrong, or you can’t get service installed.

Orton warns passing AT&T’s deregulation bill will leave the phone company essentially unregulated.  He told the Badger Herald phone companies would be less accountable under the bill, leaving the state ill-equipped to be sure all rural areas of the state were provided with adequate service.

“The phone companies argue that because of competition, they shouldn’t have regulation anymore,” Orton told the newspaper. “[They also argue] if consumers don’t like their service, they can go to another provider. But the problem is that in some places there aren’t any more providers.”

You really couldn’t do worse as a legislator than to openly admit your hand is wide open to receive AT&T campaign contributions while you advocate against the best interests of your own constituents.  It doesn’t get more shameful than that.

If you live in Wisconsin, get on the phone with your representatives in the State Assembly and Senate and tell them in no uncertain terms you oppose the giveaway deregulation bill for AT&T.  Let them know you’re watching their vote closely, particularly after the 2007 statewide video franchise bill debacle made sure you were left with less money in your wallet than before they passed it.

For months now, several groups purporting to represent the interests of minorities have busily been attacking Net Neutrality as beside the point for the poor and unserved consumer who has been left out of the broadband revolution.  To varying degrees, several of these groups have been spouting broadband industry talking points to the Federal Communications Commission, members of Congress, and the public at large.

For them, and the profitable broadband industry they indirectly represent, providing access at affordable prices is much more important than making sure providers don’t lord over the network they provide to customers.

Access vs. Openness

Consumers are perplexed by this either/or proposition.  For us, both issues are vitally important.  In urban, income-challenged areas, affordability is a crucial issue.  In rural areas, access to anything resembling broadband comes before worrying about the price.  For all concerned, making sure the Internet is not subject to corporate content control, either through direct censorship or through the far-more-common practice of pricing and policy controls, is just as important.

Providers have their self-interest on display when they promote broadband expansion — they want to receive the public dollars available from the broadband stimulus package to pay for that expansion.  Of course, every step of the way they have their fingers all over the process, from broadband mapping that protects incumbents from potential competition, defining what constitutes broadband to be as slow and as cheap to provide as possible, to implement usage rationing through Overcharging schemes like usage limits and usage-based billing, and to advocate for public policy that keeps the Money Party of fat profits running as long as possible without oversight.

The entry of minority interest groups into the debate is nothing new.  Groups of all kinds, including many who one would think wouldn’t have an opinion on Net Neutrality, are all part of the discussion.  Debates ensue, statements are fact-checked, back and forth discussion ensues.  What disturbs me is the small handful of groups who are willing to deal the race card when their own views and statements are challenged and they are threatened with losing the argument. Ill-equipped to argue the merits of their case in detail and withstand the scrutiny of fact-checking, some have introduced race into the debate to obfuscate the issues.

While I don’t doubt their sincerity and passion advocating for increased access and affordability, too many of these groups hurt their own case by accepting generous contributions (or advisory board members) from the telecommunications industry.  Consumers who witness the near total alignment of views between these groups their corporate benefactors are right to be concerned.  Many are asking if those views represent true conviction or “a dollar a holler” advocacy.

The Black Agenda Report, which created this graphic, ponders the same questions many consumers are asking

As Stop the Cap! documented just a few months ago, Broadband for America is a great example of industry-funded astroturf in action.  Large numbers of groups with no apparent connection to the broadband policy debate have found their way onto the roster of members.  From a cattle association to a Native American group that also has a burning interest in sharing their views about corporate jet landing rights, the one thing in common with virtually every last one of them was a financial contribution and/or board member working for big cable or telephone companies.  Thus far, debating a cattle association has not brought charges of being anti-cow, although I suspect consumers are anti-bull.  Debating the merits of Net Neutrality with Native American groups has not brought charges of anti-Native American bias.

Stop the Cap! itself has been on the receiving end of racial rhetoric offered by one of the anti-Net Neutrality advocates out there, Navarrow Wright.  Wright is a former corporate executive at Black Entertainment Television, and spends his days now as a self-proclaimed social media and branding expert. Last year, after exiting as CEO of Global Grind, a hip hop social network, Wright launched Maximum Leverage Solutions, which claims to be a full service consulting firm specializing in social media strategy and Internet Consulting.

Just a few months later, Wright suddenly discovered a big interest in the concept of Net Neutrality.  While he doesn’t disclose his client list, would it surprise anyone if a telecommunications company hired his services for their own “social media strategy?”

Since last fall, Wright has been generating a mix of provider talking points, Google bashing, and attacking groups that support Net Neutrality.  He’s called supporters of an open Internet “digital elites,” the FCC a player of “dangerous games” by ignoring the anti-Net Neutrality public, Free Press a group that wallows “in crazy claims and race-dividing rhetoric,” and tries to connect support for Net Neutrality as somehow representing opposition to increased broadband adoption.

Challenging and debunking his talking points isn’t difficult — they are precisely the same ones the broadband industry has used for several years now.  We invited Wright to a full, in-depth discussion about the merits of Net Neutrality and broadband adoption.  We even got the discussion started, but that’s exactly where it ended.

Wright is also incredibly defensive about the issue of industry-backed mouthpieces and astroturf efforts in general.  Suggesting Wright’s views are inaccurate brings his resume in response, which I suppose was designed to impress readers with suggestions of his built-in expertise, belied by his silence on these issues prior to last year.  In Wright’s original comment, he took our comments about economically disadvantaged Americans and made it an issue of color:

Our piece:

The letter represents the groups’ concerns that broadband for many in America is simply not available, especially for the economically disadvantaged.  They’ve been swayed by industry propaganda to characterize Net Neutrality as a threat to addressing the digital divide by making service ultimately even more expensive.

His response:

Phil, I know (at least I hope) your intent wasn’t to suggest that people of color have been “swayed by industry propaganda” and aren’t capable of thinking for ourselves on technology issues.

James Rucker, executive director of Color of Change added to the debate in late January, wondering why some civil rights groups are only too willing to support discredited industry talking points and advocate against Net Neutrality.

Rucker discovered the same thing we did.  Challenging these groups to explain their positions brings forth repetitious inch-deep talking points and total silence when a rebuttal is offered.  If pushed, they obfuscate with claims their views are being disrespected, when in reality they are only being fact checked.  Perhaps inconvenient, and even slightly embarrassing, but it’s completely appropriate for consumers to ask whether a conflict of interest exists when a group advocates for the positions of the same industry that is sending them big contributions.

The risk, of course, is to tie an organization’s good name to demonstrably false provider propaganda that some groups are willing to repeat, nearly word for word.

Take for instance Wright’s claim that Net Neutrality will force providers to spend money they would otherwise invest for the benefit of the rural, the downtrodden, and the unserved:

That brings me to the other corporate interests: the Internet service providers. It is the ISPs who must invest in, upgrade, maintain and build out the networks that allow us to receive these cool applications. While I don’t find the network side as sexy as the content side, I do know that we have to have it and ISPs need capital to build and maintain it. So the question remains who is going to pay for maintenance and upgrades to the network if Google gets a free ride? Basic economics tells us that if government requires ISPs to give Google a free ride, there’s only one other place to look for the money: consumers like you and me. What’s more, there are those who want to make it even more unfair by insisting that your big-bandwidth-using neighbor should not have to pay more than you, even if all you want to do is check email and watch some YouTube. Who will all of this hurt the most? Low-income consumers.

The only color that really matters here is green

Wright doesn’t know his American telecom history.  Let’s discuss this fiction:

1. Bruce Dixon, a writer for the Black Agenda Report says it better than anyone: “Phone companies invented the digital divide more than a century ago as their core business model, preferring to extend service to affluent areas where they could levy premium charges, rather than building networks out to reach everybody.”  The cable television industry “franchise” requirement came as a direct result of cable industry redlining, the practice of wiring wealthy neighborhoods for cable while bypassing urban and rural areas deemed “unprofitable.”  It’s the same story for broadband, and Net Neutrality is beside the point.  The number crunchers look for Return On Investment (ROI) when considering who gets on the right side of the digital divide.  If they can’t make a killing on you, they’re not going to provide you service.  If you can’t afford their asking price, which is increasing regardless of Net Neutrality, why serve you?  Ultimately it is consumers who overpay for these networks, priced well above cost, generating literally billions in profits.  Why ruin a good thing with altruistic broadband expansion at a fire sale price?
2. Regardless of what Google is doing, providers are seeking new ways to further monetize broadband service, enriching themselves even further.  Prices go up even as the costs to provide the service go down.  The old chestnut about the next door neighbor being a usage piggy is just more of the same “us vs. them” propaganda from providers who want consumers to fight amongst themselves while they run to the bank with the money.  Grandma doesn’t want her broadband service limited either, and she’s way too smart to believe a provider promising dramatic savings for less service from companies that jack up her rates year after year.
3. The best way to guarantee affordable access to broadband service is to develop a national broadband plan that provides the same kinds of “lifeline” services already available for economically disadvantaged phone customers, legislative policies that force markets open to additional competition, government oversight to ensure providers are required to provide service throughout their respective service areas, and stimulus or Universal Service Fund assistance for projects that assure access to those who simply will never pass ROI tests.  Or we can solve everything by not passing Net Neutrality?  Please.
4. Google doesn’t have a free ride.  First, consumers -pay- providers for connectivity.  Ultimately, they are the customers — content producers are not.  Nothing prohibits an ISP from offering hosting services to content producers at competitive prices.  If Google, Amazon, Netflix, or Hulu want to host their content on servers owned by Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner, or AT&T, nothing stops them.  Google pays for its own connectivity to the Internet.  Customers pay for accessing it.  Now providers want to get paid again.  It’s like triple-charging for snail mail – you pay for a stamp to mail it, the person you wrote pays to receive it, and the airline that flew the letter cross country has to pay to transport it.

Remember, it’s the content that drives broadband adoption. ISP’s honestly don’t fret as much about traffic as they claim.  They just care whether they can own it, control it, and profit from it.  The evidence to back this up comes from cable and phone companies in a big hurry to stream video content over their TV Everywhere projects.  Nothing consumes bandwidth like online video, yet there they are enthusiastically embracing it.  They have to, because if they don’t control it, it could eventually lead to people dropping their cable TV subscriptions in favor of online viewing.

Wright’s blog promotes another industry favorite — the dreaded phony “exaflood” which threatens to bring chaos and disorder to our online world… unless we totally deregulate broadband and let them do whatever they want to “solve it.”  That’s more of the same.  We’ve seen the results of that for more than a decade now, and the very digital divide that Wright complains about comes as a direct consequence to letting broadband providers serve, or not serve customers as they please at the prices they want.

Wright and other civil rights groups can throw as many race cards as they like against consumers who see right through their corporate-backed agenda.  That’s because consumers know Net Neutrality isn’t an issue of black or white.  The only color that really matters here is green.

Exasperated consumers fed up with a two party system feasting on big corporate campaign contributions buying legislative favors from Washington have a point.  With a Supreme Court decision ripping the limits off the corporate ATMs installed in the halls of Congress, corporate interests will now spend more than ever to keep their agendas front and center among lawmakers.

Some consumers demand an end to the money-influence machine in Washington with public financing of campaigns, an allotment of free advertising, and strict ethics laws to prohibit corporations from buying favors from elected officials.  Others have joined a “tea party” movement that believes a wholesale slashing of the size of the federal government will help accomplish the goal of keeping government out of our lives.

The demand for real change is sincere, even if the proposed solutions differ. The debate comes after years of watching common-sense, pro-consumer public policy get watered down or blown out of the water after lobbyists descend on the Capitol like locusts swarming a field of wheat.

It’s unfortunate that those swarms don’t just wreak havoc on lawmakers — they’ve also quietly infested the “tea party” movement that advocates reform.

It’s akin to the Boston Tea Party being sponsored and organized by the East India Company.

After this weekend’s “tea party” convention in Nashville, it’s more apparent than ever that teabags come with corporate strings attached.

Perhaps that shouldn’t be surprising, considering the modern reincarnation of the “tea party” was channeled by a business news network. About a year ago, CNBC reporter Rick Santelli ranted on air about the federal government bailing out Americans underwater on their mortgages after the housing market collapsed.

“We’re thinking of having a Chicago tea party in July,” Santelli offered.

For Stop the Cap! readers, the names and groups affiliated with the “tea party” movement are already familiar.  FreedomWorks’ Dick Armey (R-TX), the former House majority leader in Congress openly considers himself a leader in the movement.  But his day job involves creating fake “grassroots” campaigns for corporate interests, including Verizon and AT&T.  Phil Kerpen from Americans for Prosperity promptly registered “taxpayerteaparty.com” and joined the movement while continuing to represent the broadband industry against Net Neutrality and against municipal broadband network competition.

Kerpen’s group should be called “Americans for the Prosperity of Big Telecom.” They oppose Net Neutrality to the degree Kerpen appeared twice on Glenn Beck’s Fox News show, mostly as an enabler of Beck’s paranoid rantings about Net Neutrality.  After two sessions of Beck’s chalkboard conspiracy theater, the host had Kerpen nodding in agreement to the proposition that Net Neutrality was Maoist.  The group also harassed North Carolina residents with robocalls opposing municipal broadband service that would bring fiber optic connectivity to residents.

Americans for Prosperty's Phil Kerpen on Glenn Beck's show opposing Net Neutrality

Wherever common-sense pro-consumer public policy threatens to become law, the corporate-backed lobbying groups take the anti-consumer view and hoodwink consumers into supporting the corporate agenda.  Trying to convince Americans they are better off taking the anti-consumer position takes a lot of money.  You can’t argue your position beneath your corporate banner.  That’s too transparent.  It’s much more effective to spend tens of millions on creating fake “grassroots” groups with no visible ties to their corporate benefactor.  You need to fund so-called “independent” research groups to cook up phony reports that prove pre-conceived corporate positions.  Writing big fat checks to elected officials can’t hurt either.

Billions in profits are at stake.  In 2008 it was the oil industry and the ridiculous spike in energy prices.  Millions were spent to keep oil and gas interests free from meddlesome Washington and their pesky investigations.  In 2009, the health care industry spend tens of millions of dollars to fight health care reform, while Wall Street bankers tried to keep up with tens of millions of their own to preserve the special favors they earned from being “too big to fail.”

Right after big oil, health care, and banks comes the telecommunications industry.

Last Friday, Verizon had the dubious distinction of appearing on USA Today’s top-20 big spenders.  The only good news is the company only spent $17,820,000 in 2009 on their lobbying efforts.  That’s down from 2008, when Verizon spent $18,020,000.

Not to be too outdone, the cable television industry handed over part of your rate increase to their own lobbying machine.  In 2008, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association spent $14,500,000.  But your rates went up in 2009, and so did their total spending on an army of lobbyists — $15,980,000 worth.

That buys a lot of plastic grass.

Where does the money go?  Among Verizon’s benefactors and friends:

Consumers for Cable Choice: Common Cause notes Verizon spent $75,000 in just one year on this group, which fights for statewide cable franchises, mostly benefiting phone company cable TV from Verizon and AT&T.  While this short cut may bring consumers a choice in providers, it doesn’t bring them any savings.

FreedomWorks: Adamantly opposed to Net Neutrality, FreedomWorks also backs those statewide video franchises, thanks to generous fees paid by AT&T and Verizon to take those views.

The Progress and Freedom Foundation: They define “progress” much differently than consumers.  Opposed to a-la-carte pricing for cable television packages (letting you choose and pay only for the channels you want), P&F also hates Net Neutrality and the concept of government issuing franchises for cable and telco TV in the first place.  Let them dig up your streets and backyards without oversight!  The group receives so much corporate telecommunications money, it would be easier to list the companies that don’t cut them a check.

The American Legislative Exchange Council: They exchange Verizon’s money in return for strong opposition to Net Neutrality.  They are at the forefront of opposition to municipal broadband networks, with a staff of lawyers who “helpfully” draft legislation for state lawmakers to ban such networks.  Part of the broadband protectionist racket, ALEC makes sure even unprofitable, unserved areas stay that way.  ALEC believes Net Neutrality will harm states’ economies, which would be true if a state was defined as a corporate broadband provider.

New Millennium Research Council: They “develop workable, real-world solutions to the issues and challenges confronting policy makers, primarily in the fields of telecommunications and technology.”  This so-called “think tank” issues suspect reports mostly for the benefit of Congress, which some members use as cover when voting against their constituents and for the provider.  You’re certain to hear elected officials railing against pro-consumer policies quoting liberally from these industry-backed “think tanks,” which provide a patina of independent legitimacy to corporate-backed propaganda. Need to scare people with stories about an overburdened Internet that will crash and burn without “network management” that slows service and enriches providers?  No problem! (That the group has had Verizon employees working for them doesn’t hurt either.)

Broadband for America: This relatively new group is infested with Verizon and AT&T contributions from top to bottom.  In addition to direct contributions from big telecom interests, virtually every single public interest non-profit group on their roster has an AT&T or Verizon lobbyist on their board of directors, or accepts generous contributions from the telecom industry.

Frontier of Freedom: Another so-called “free market” group advocating deregulation, FF doesn’t disclose its donors and considers itself independent, but a familiar pattern belies that.  Frontier of Freedom advocates statewide video franchises and has even run advertising promoting telco-friendly legislation in states like Texas.  The cable industry was displeased because Frontier of Freedom used to represent their best interests but suddenly flipped sides in 2005.  Money talks.

MyWireless.org: “MyWireless.org is a national non-profit consumer advocacy organization” the site declares, without bothering to disclose it is really a sock puppet of the cell phone industry’s trade group CTIA – The Wireless Association.  Ostensibly interested in stripping taxes and government-mandated surcharges off of cell phone bills, the group also opposes Net Neutrality and consumer protection laws.  It’s a bit difficult to call yourself pro-consumer when you oppose a California and Minnesota consumer Bill of Rights that would have required a 30 day penalty-free trial of cell phone service, expanded a toll-free complaint hotline, set minimum service standards, and required easy-to-understand billing.

NetCompetition: Another front group bought and paid for by the industry it seeks to zealously protect.  Adamantly opposed to Net Neutrality, NetCompetition also spends its time Google-bashing and attacking Free Press, seen as one of the strongest advocates for Net Neutral policies and consumer protection from provider abuses.  Their member page explains everything.

The unfortunate part of all this is that many participants of the “tea party” movement seem blissfully unaware of the corporate manipulation of their movement, all happening barely beneath the surface.  Millions of dollars are flowing into the bank accounts of astroturf groups doing all they can to channel public anger against Washington into something they can use to benefit their corporate backers.  The end result may be the ultimate feedback loop — consumers already angered by Washington not listening to their needs and concerns compounded by providers picking their pockets.  That bitter tea may be easy to brew but impossible to swallow.

Phoney Baloney: The National Cable & Telecommunications Association, the cable industry lobbying group, ran this hissyfit ad to combat Verizon and AT&T outmaneuvering the cable industry over statewide video franchising laws. (1 minute)

The issue of copyright enforcement is a thorny one, and Stop the Cap! doesn’t spend a lot of time dwelling on it, except when it sneaks its way into our issues.

CNET News started a brush fire yesterday when they quoted a Verizon representative who claimed the company had been kicking off users who use peer to peer (typically torrent) software to exchange copyrighted material.  The gist of the piece was that Verizon has been receiving copyright infringement notices from copyright enforcers and they’ve been notifying their customers to stop or risk service suspension.

“We’ve cut some people off,” Verizon Online spokeswoman Bobbi Henson told CNET. “We do reserve the right to discontinue service. But we don’t throttle bandwidth like Comcast was doing. Verizon does not have bandwidth caps.”

With that purported admission, the story was off and running.  We received several news tips about it from readers.

But this morning, Henson claims she was misquoted and the company has not actually suspended anyone’s account, but reserves the right to do so.

For now, anyway, it appears there has been no policy change at Verizon.  The company dispatches canned e-mail messages to account holders targeted in copyright complaints asking them to stop the infringing activity.  Verizon claims most don’t have to be warned twice.  That’s a commonly found policy at most providers.

The movie and music industry have reduced the number of lawsuits it brings against alleged violators, but that doesn’t mean they’ve given up the fight.

Instead, both industries have launched lobbying and astroturf efforts to inject copyright protection into the broadband expansion and Net Neutrality debates.  The Arts+Labs “think tank” was a perfect example of that, trying to conflate Net Neutrality with piracy in the music industry’s dog and pony show performance at the New York City Council Technology In Government Committee hearing regarding Net Neutrality.

The industry hopes it can insert something akin to a “three strikes” provision into telecommunications law that would bar repeat copyright violators from having Internet access. Unfortunately, history has shown that the bar has been set so low as to what represents “proof,” a mere allegation under these policies could be sufficient to put your finances and potential broadband access in peril.

Dick Armey, head of FreedomWorks, a notorious industry-backed astroturf group, was a big proponent of Wisconsin's "statewide video franchise" bill pushed by AT&T

Wisconsin residents, in 2007 you were promised more competition, lower prices, and better service from your pay television and broadband provider.  Two years later, two things are certain:

1. The Wisconsin Video Competition Act was didn’t exactly deliver what was promised to consumers by those pushing the legislation, but paid off handsomely for the one company lobbying the hardest for its passage — AT&T.
2. You had a lower bill in 2007 than you now have in 2009.

A new audit released by the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau exposes the truth AT&T’s astroturfing friends never wanted you to know: despite the passage of a new law in December 2007 that promised increased competition and lower rates, the average basic cable rate in Wisconsin actually increased an average of 21 percent over the past two years.

The Bureau analyzed ten providers’ monthly charges for basic and expanded basic service in 17 Wisconsin municipalities at two points in time—July 2007 and July 2009—using data reported to us by the providers. Over this two-year period, charges for basic service increased an average of 21.2 percent, and charges for expanded basic service increased an average of 11.5 percent. The reported data do not suggest that competition has had a substantial effect in reducing either basic or expanded basic video service charges or in slowing their rates of growth during the period we reviewed.

Wisconsin consumers were promised something very different.  So just how did Wisconsin get snookered into passing legislation that was supposed to help consumers, but in reality just helped AT&T?

Dick Armey, chairman of FreedomWorks, an industry-backed astroturf group that heavily promoted the bill, emphatically promised the Competition Act would bring prices down.  On November 19, 2007 Armey wrote:

The Wisconsin Video Competition Act would allow consumers to take advantage of new technologies by streamlining the franchise application process for potential providers. When companies compete to provide service, consumers win through more choices, lower prices and better service.

Unfortunately for consumers, the Video Competition Act was little more than a custom-written giveaway to AT&T.  From the bill’s earliest draft language crafted by lobbyists working with legislative aides, to the big budget sales job employing 15 lobbyists and a major media budget, AT&T ran the show from start to finish according to Madison’s Capital Times newspaper.

TV4US counts AT&T among its corporate sponsors

TV4US (also known as WeWantChoice.com), an AT&T-supported astroturf group, ran television ads around Wisconsin promoting the bill.  In May 2007 the group sent every state legislator binders filled with what it claimed were the names of their constituents who wanted “an end to the cable monopoly” and competitive choice.  As The Center for Media & Democracy discovered, several people named, including two state lawmakers, didn’t support the bill and hadn’t given permission for their names to be included.

TV4US ran this ad across Wisconsin in 2007, promoting “cable competition.”

TV4US’ primary press contact Lizanne Sadlier just also happened to be employed by lobbying firm Fleishman-Hillard, which “has built its reputation by using strategic communications to deliver what its clients value most: meaningful, positive, and measurable impact on the performance of their organizations,” according to a press release from the group.

Fleishman-Hillard and AT&T are well acquainted with each other.  In fact, the PR firm was instrumental in rebranding the phone company as “the new AT&T” after the SBC-AT&T merger.  To this day, AT&T has several company bloggers actually employed by Fleishman-Hillard.

In March of 2007, the Wisconsin Merchants Federation turned up at a state hearing about the Competition Act. This struck several observers as odd, considering the WMF primarily concerns itself with retail store tax policies and strengthening retail theft laws. The WMF seemed well-prepared to articulate the proposed law’s benefits, which included, according to them:

• increased competition in the video entertainment business;
• creation of good-paying jobs;
• bring (literally) hundreds of millions of dollars in capital investment to our state.

PR Watch wanted to know exactly what prompted the WMF to not only testify about a non-issue for retail stores, but also who wanted the group to get involved, and who exactly belongs to the WMF.

WMF’s David Storey told PR Watch that his group sees AB 207 / SB 107 as an economic development issue. “Where consumers have choices, not only are the consumers served, but the economy in general is served. The economy is made stronger,” he explained. “And this is all about consumer choice in the video entertainment field.”

Storey said that no particular member had asked WMF to support AB 207 / SB 107, but that he was personally interested in the issue, as the former Deputy Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Commerce. Asked for a list of WMF members, Storey responded that one was not available, but that information would hopefully be added to the WMF website in the future.

One thing that is clear is that many of WMF’s partners in lobbying for AB 207 / SB 107 have ties to the telecom industry. The Coalition of Wisconsin Aging Groups, which is a member of the Wisconsin Video Choice Coalition, has received funding from AT&T and from SBC Wisconsin, which is now part of AT&T. The group also offers “discounts on assistive devices for the telephone such as volume amplifiers from the AT&T Special Needs Center.” Another Wisconsin Video Choice Coalition member, the Wisconsin Technology Council, lists AT&T among its major sponsors. Fellow coalition member Women Impacting Public Policy is a Washington DC based group that receives funding from AT&T and Verizon, among other corporate sponsors.

In August 2007, WMF turned up at a press event with other bill supporters to promote the results of a poll conducted by the Mellman Group, which isn’t a respected polling firm but rather a Washington, DC public relations firm that “develops effective communications strategies that lead people to choose our client’s product or service, join their organization, hold their opinion, or vote as we would like.” ^[1] (13 minutes, video begins at ten second mark)

In short, no matter where consumers turned during the push for the Wisconsin Video Competition Act, that big AT&T logo was always somewhere in sight.

Before the legislation was passed, some were warning Wisconsin the dog and pony astroturf show wasn’t actually working for the best interests of Wisconsin consumers, but were instead looking out for the best interests of AT&T.  Charles Uphoff is chair of the Fitchburg Broadband Telecommunications Commission, and wrote this back in 2007:

Lobbyists for telecommunications giant AT&T have been pressuring Wisconsin legislators to pass sweeping changes in the laws regulating cable TV with a million-dollar media campaign and behind the scenes arm-twisting that would make Karl Rove blush.

Under the guise of promoting increased consumer choice, lower cable rates and high-paying union jobs, AT&T is trying to steamroller bills that would prohibit any meaningful regulation of video service rates; eliminate funding for public access, educational and government channels; and effectively guarantee statewide franchises for the telecom giant in perpetuity.

Among the more astonishing features of this dubious legislation is a provision that specifically prohibits the state or local municipalities from reviewing franchise transfers. While initial applicants would have to establish their legal, financial and technical qualifications to obtain a statewide franchise, once granted, statewide franchises can be literally transferred to anyone — even politicians. Video franchise holders wouldn’t even have to inform the affected communities until 10 days after the transfer had been completed.

[...]

So how about the claim being made in the TV ads that cable rates have gone up 246 percent and the “Video Competition Act” would increase choice and save consumer millions? It sure sounds good, but these assertions are, at best, misleading. In the city of Fitchburg, for example, the basic cable rate has risen less than 6 percent over the past 10 years and is currently at $8.19 a month. Admittedly, premium packages have risen much more sharply, largely driven by the cost of content providers like the NFL Network, MTV and ESPN, but AT&T would be facing the same kind of costs if they want to include these offerings.

So if you are expecting whopping decreases in your cable TV bills if this legislation passes, don’t hold your breath. In fact, the ability of municipalities or the state to even regulate basic cable rates would be gone.

What’s happening in Wisconsin isn’t an isolated incident. Wholesale deregulation of the video services industry under the guise of fostering competition is being pushed in legislatures all across the country, backed by big money and conservative ideologues like former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, a Texas Republican whose right-wing “think-tank” has been pushing this legislation since before it had a bill number. Weeks before most members of the Wisconsin Legislature had even seen the bill, Armey’s Freedom Works Foundation was trying to line up sponsors. Major contributors to Dick Armey’s cause include AT&T, Verizon and Exxon-Mobile.

Sadly, the recent trend in video services and telecommunications has been toward increasing the concentration of ownership and control of the media, resulting in fewer consumer choices and less competition, not only in terms of price, but also in terms of ideas. The opinions expressed here are strictly my own, but it seems to me that in the arena where competition is most important to our democracy and our future, the competition of ideas, the net effect of these bills will be to decrease competition through the elimination of public access as a vehicle for information, dialogue and discussion of things that matter to our communities.

Despite playing fast and loose with the facts, the astroturf groups, aided by AT&T’s generous campaign contributions to Wisconsin state legislators helped grease the way towards passage of the Video Competition Act, which was signed into law in December 2007.

But rate increases for consumers aren’t the only problem impacting Wisconsin residents.  Collateral damage for those interested in public affairs television programming is now also becoming apparent.

One of the biggest opponents of the statewide video franchising law has been the Wisconsin Association of PEG Channels (WAPC).  “PEG” stands for public access, educational, and government access channels found on virtually every cable system in the country.  These non-profit channels are provided in the public interest to give subscribers access to customer-produced video programming, local government public meetings and hearings, and educational programming from local schools and universities.  They are traditionally financed by the cable system as part of their franchise agreement.  In return for tearing up local streets and yards, systems give something back to the community by making room for these public access channels, and often also provide equipment and training to assist in program production and distribution.

The Video Competition Act was no friend to PEG channels.  By moving to statewide video franchise agreements, local communities no longer had much say over their public access channels, and the bill’s passage quickly provided a convenient opportunity to bury PEG channels, kill their funding, or outright renege on local agreements.

AT&T’s U-verse doesn’t make it easy for video customers to find PEG channels.  In Wisconsin, the channels are housed on a website that appears on screen on channel 99, the equivalent of TV Channel Siberia for the remote control channel surfer.  From there, consumers have to navigate a series of menus on their remote control to find the right channel.  Mike Ryan, director of West Bend Community Television, discovers just how ponderous this procedure is, even for those dedicated to finding his channel.

In the case of Charter Cable, they’ve managed to go one step further and help destroy one city’s public access channels.

Funding for the Wausau Area Access Channels had been provided in part by the franchise agreement between the City of Wausau and local cable provider Charter Communications. While Wausau Access Channels served the greater Wausau area, only the City of Wausau franchise agreement provided any funding.

When the state passed the Competition Act replacing local franchise agreements with a standard state wide franchise, Wausau PEG support fees were eliminated after a three year sunset. That sunset would occur December 31, 2010. The City of Wausau has not received any PEG support fees from Charter Communication during the three year sunset period.

Apparently unwilling to meet even a three year commitment, Charter Cable’s non-payment led Wausau mayor Jim Tipple to announce Monday that the city would not continue to fund the station in 2010 because of budget constraints.

“We realize this is a tough decision, not only for the city of Wausau but for the entire community,” Tipple said.

The City of Wausau is pursuing legal remedies against Charter. PEG fee revenue had funded 60% of the station’s annual budget of $100,000.

“The City does not want the channels to go dark, but it can no longer fund them alone,” said John Jordan, Wausau Access Coordinator.

“We are stunned to hear about the closure of the Wausau community channels. It is hard to believe that residents of Wausau will no longer be able to see and participate in community television. We warned this could come with the passage of the Video Competition Act. We just didn’t expect it quite this soon,” said Mary Cardona, WAPC Executive Director.

On January 1, 2011, more stations will be in Wausau’s position. On that date, all dedicated PEG fees end as a result of the passage of the Video Competition Act.

WSAW & WAOW-TV, both in Wausau, Wisconsin headlined their newscasts with news that the community’s public access channels were on the chopping block. Loud Volume Alert (4 minutes)

The Cable Consumer Repair Bill (AB606) recently introduced by Representative Gary Hebl (D – Sun Prairie) could resolve serious problems with the Video Competition Act that took effect in January 2008. Since then, cable companies and AT&T have moved community channels to out of the way locations on the line-up, subjected the channels to interference problems, imposed transmission equipment costs, and withdrawn a commitment to provide dedicated revenue for public, education, and government access stations.

Of course, the industry players don’t like it one bit.  “Wired Wisconsin,” a non-profit group claiming to seek cutting edge broadband technology for Wisconsin, who unsurprisingly counts AT&T as a “partner,” thinks Hebl’s bill will gut the Competition Act.

“Even though the VCA was passed less than two years ago, we’ve already seen a great deal of progress under the bill.  It’s generated real competition, helped improve prices, created hundreds of new jobs, spurred millions in investment in infrastructure, improved customer service and expanded consumers’ access to new video providers, services and features all across the state,” said Wired Wisconsin’s executive director Thad Nation.

The state’s audit of cable pricing would seem to belie Nation’s views. That he holds them should come as no surprise.  After all, Nation is the former executive director of TV4US, the AT&T-backed astroturf effort that helped enact the law Nation seeks to defend.

“On balance, the law hasn’t been good for consumers but has been very good for the companies that wanted it. Two years from now, I don’t think you will be able to say that consumers saved a lot of money if any at all,” Barry Orton, a telecommunications professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Has the bill brought about any savings for Wisconsin consumers?

“We haven’t seen it. I think the short answer is ‘no,’ ” said Curt Witynski, assistant director of the League of Wisconsin Municipalities, which represents 582 local governments.

“I think the public relations effort of AT&T and others was remarkable in convincing state legislators that this law would bring about all kinds of competition, and that consumers would benefit from it. But that hasn’t been the case,” Witynski added.

Indeed, with additional rate increases announced this week by AT&T’s U-verse, the much-heralded savings promised by AT&T and its various astroturf elements have become only more elusive for the hard-hit consumer struggling through ongoing economic challenges.  Those challenges aren’t exactly the same for AT&T, which increased its dividend payment to stockholders and has plenty left over to continue astroturfing its way to statewide video franchises in other states it serves.

Mark A. Jamison

Stop the Cap! reader Joe sends along news of another one of those guest opinion hit pieces on Net Neutrality that pop up regularly in the media.  This one, The Internet is Never Neutral, printed in today’s Sun-Sentinel in south Florida, comes from Mark A. Jamison and Janice Hauge, a dynamic duo who have co-written several papers that always manage to turn up favorable conclusions for big telecommunications companies, including these page-turners:

• “Bureaucrats as Entrepreneurs: Do Municipal Telecom Providers Hinder Private Entrepreneurs?”
• “Subsidies and Distorted Markets: Do Telecom Subsidies Affect Competition?”
• “Dumbing Down the Net: A Further Look at the Net Neutrality Debate.”

The two are also working on other papers purporting to study regulatory policy and competition issues.  Let me illustrate my psychic powers by guessing they’ll find regulatory authorities to be obstacles to the well-oiled telecommunications machine and competition will be most hearty if there are no pesky regulations to hamper it.  We’ve seen how well that has worked so far for consumers in North America.

Remember Al Gore calling the Internet the information superhighway? The metaphor wasn’t and isn’t perfect, but it is instructive. Suppose we applied net neutrality to our transportation system — there would be no high-occupancy vehicle lanes during rush hour, no car-only lanes on interstates, and no toll road as an alternative to I-95 in South Florida. Transportation would be more costly and provide less value.

Forcing net neutrality would have similar results. Time-sensitive information, such as stock market transactions, would wait in line behind football game highlights.

Jamison, who is a former manager at Sprint Communications, and Hauge miss the entire point of the Internet’s biggest strength: its equal treatment of traffic from the smallest blog to Amazon.com.  Assuming providers, earning billions in profits even as their costs decline, invested appropriately in those networks, there would be no need for high-occupancy vehicle lanes and toll roads.  These kinds of “traffic management” techniques are proposed because provider dollars don’t keep up with consumer demand.  Social engineering tries to throttle traffic downwards by discouraging it with toll fees or manage it with special high cost lanes reserved only for those willing to pay or follow arbitrary rules governing their use.  More often than not, those premium lanes go underutilized while the rest of us remain stuck in the slow lane.

Net Neutrality would not impede network management that enhances the efficiency of traffic, except when it comes at the expense of someone else’s traffic. Net Neutrality also throws up a roadblock against providers who would plan to cash in with enhanced connectivity services that cannot exist unless  a market is created to sell them.  It’s similar to providers in Canada limiting your access to broadband, then throwing a penalty fee on your bill… unless you sign up and pay for their “insurance” plan to protect you from those charges.

Want to run a video streaming application on the Internet?  Pay for a broadband provider’s deluxe delivery insurance, and customers will be able to watch that video without buffering.  The alternative is to be stuck waiting because your video is being delivered on an artificial “slow lane.”

If you are thinking that it sounds like net neutrality restricts innovation and hurts customers, you’re right. Our research has shown that net neutrality limits innovation, contrary to the claims of the net neutrality proponents. How can this be? Imagine a one dimensional network — one that does nothing but carry information from point to point, which is how the old Internet has worked. What kinds of content providers flourish in that context? Those big enough to distribute their software across the net and those whose software takes advantage of the great bandwidth that they don’t have to pay for.

Their research makes numerous assumptions that might prove accurate in a laboratory environment, but simply discounts provider mischief in their efforts to maximize profits and minimize costs.  Providers have earned countless billions providing this “one dimensional network” to consumers.  It’s the one bright spot in a lackluster telecommunications sector.  Those who innovate new broadband applications have flourished.  Some providers who have not want to innovate in a different way – by inventing new Internet Overcharging schemes to profit from the service without actually improving it.  When their interests are at stake in owning and managing their own content services, bandwidth suddenly becomes plentiful.  The TV Everywhere project will potentially provide a value-added service to cable and telco TV providers, all made possible in marked contrast to their argument that other producers’ video content is clogging their networks.

Another naked fallacy in the authors’ argument is that content providers don’t pay for the bandwidth to host and distribute their content.  They do — to the companies that host their content and provide connectivity to the Internet.  That’s the job of web hosting companies.  Internet service providers simply want to be paid extra for doing their job – providing connectivity to consumers who pay $4o or more a month Free Press found costs about $8 to provide, and then also charging content creators a second time to facilitate delivery of that content.  That’s akin to charging a phone customer for placing a long distance call and also demanding to bill the person who answers.

Now, suppose that the network can offer enhancements that improve customers’ experiences. Content providers whose sites would not benefit from such enhancements could ignore the offering. But there will be some content providers who could improve their services by buying the enhancements, such as priority packet delivery. These sites become better without net neutrality and offer customers more service. In other words, there is more innovation and greater customer welfare without net neutrality than with it.

Promises, promises.  Just getting these providers to upgrade broadband speeds to consumers has been a never-ending quest.  Many consumers are willing to pay for “improved service” in the form of faster connections to the Internet.  Consumers are not willing to pay more for artificially limited service, be it through throttled speeds or usage caps.

At the conclusion of their study, which assumes providers will not leverage their duopoly in most American markets to increase pricing/revenue and reduce costs by limiting demand on their networks, they readily admit they did not take into account several possible scenarios:

One issue is how the offering of premium transmission might affect the network provider’s incentive to change the standard transmission speed. At least AT&T has committed to not degrade service for any network user, but it is unclear how such a commitment would be enforced.

Secondly, we do not analyze the effects of peer-to-peer communication, which is growing in importance on the Internet.

Thirdly, we do not consider the effects of vertical integration by the network provider and whether this would provide an incentive for foreclosure.

The PURC is part of the University of Florida, but also receives private corporate funding

Because the broadband industry fights any attempt to regulate their service, it is unlikely any such promise from AT&T would be enforced.  What AT&T defines as “degraded” service is open to interpretation as well.  As broadband demand is dynamic and growing, should AT&T leave standard transmission speeds exactly as they are today, that non-premium service would be degraded through inattention to broadband growth.  Peer to peer communication is largely a story from the first round of the Net Neutrality debate in 2006-7.  A more significant amount of traffic is now attributed to online video.  Finally, not considering vertical integration in the cable and telephone industry is a fatal flaw.  The history of telecommunications regulation has largely been written during periods when the cable and telephone industry abused their market position to overcharge consumers for service, lock up content distribution channels, and forestall competition wherever and whenever possible.

Frankly, Jamison and Hauge’s world view only innovates new, even fatter profits for providers like AT&T.  Perhaps some of those profits can go towards even greater funding for the Public Utility Research Center, where Jamison serves as director and Hauge as a Senior Research Associate.  The PURC, part of the University of Florida, just happens to have, among others, AT&T and Embarq Florida as sponsors, and both companies have seats on the PURC Executive Committee.

Sun-Sentinel readers don’t have that information because it’s not included in the disclosure at the bottom of the piece.  Following the money would shed a lot more sun on this important debate.

Phillip Dampier

Lobbyists, corporate executives, and several interest groups are busy lobbying the newest additions to the Federal Communications Commission in an all-out effort to stop Net Neutrality.

The Hill newspaper today reports Mignon Clyburn, daughter of House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.), is particularly under pressure to reject Net Neutrality.  The Hill reports industry lobbyists believe that if her father is amenable to their position, his daughter might also be.  To date, several hundred letters from minority groups and organizations, many opposed to Net Neutrality, have been filed with the FCC.

After reviewing dozens of those letters, it’s readily apparent many are the fruits of AT&T and Verizon lobbying labor, because several adopt both companies’ anti-Net Neutrality talking points, often word for word.

Even the newest Republican commissioner, Meredith Attwell Baker, is under a lobbying assault.

The thinking on K Street is that Baker’s views on net neutrality may not be set. Lobbyists and corporate executives have sought out Baker before the FCC votes on a final rule sometime next year.

“They are trying to get in there and remind her where she comes from to shore up her vote for the anti-net neutrality camp,” said one lobbyist working on the issue.

While the special interest blitz attempts to kill Net Neutrality, one pro-Net Neutrality advocate got into a dispute with some of the minority interest groups opposing Net Neutrality, which was gleefully covered by the broadband industry trade press. Public Knowledge got a bit too close to a nerve of several of these groups who put their logos on a letter sent to the FCC opposing Net Neutrality.  The letter represents the groups’ concerns that broadband for many in America is simply not available, especially for the economically disadvantaged.  They’ve been swayed by industry propaganda to characterize Net Neutrality as a threat to addressing the digital divide by making service ultimately even more expensive.  Some of those groups fired back against Public Knowledge, offended by some of the language used on their blog they felt suggested minority groups were naive and possibly even “selling out” the people they represent.  A few public exchanges later led to an apology from Public Knowledge if feelings were hurt and a plea from Free Press to put aside some of the personal disputes and rhetoric and argue the merits of the issue pro or con.

We agree with Free Press that personality disputes and pointless name calling don’t work and serve only to distract from the issues at hand. These groups advocating against Net Neutrality should be open to receiving additional information that doesn’t come from the broadband industry, particularly arguments that debunk those fear-mongering industry talking points.  Perhaps those groups will be amenable to changing their position once they gather additional facts.

But we also feel the first rule of politics must always be to “follow the money” and that is true for non-profits, for-profits, and government interests.  There must be full disclosure of the financial support and board membership of all of the groups claiming to represent consumer and minority interests.  Consumers, and more importantly members of the groups themselves, deserve to know where the money is coming from and if their boards have members working for or with the telecommunications industry or its friends.

For example, in our own research of the background of 100+ members of Broadband for America, we found instances of telecommunications industry involvement in virtually every single group.  If one chooses to believe that is a coincidence and still feels comfortable with that organization, so be it.  However, if one is concerned to learn that in several cases those ties were being scrubbed from interest groups’ websites, or were not openly disclosed to members, learning about that could be a cause of concern.  People should have the right to make an informed decision.  Some of the groups complaining about Public Knowledge are also members of Broadband for America and have telecommunications industry money backing them.  There is nothing wrong, in my judgment, in making sure that information is out there for readers to consider.

Be aware that while pro-Net Neutrality groups ring their hands over potentially offending one another, opponents are wasting no time mass mailing anti-Net Neutrality correspondence to the FCC.  Let’s remember our first priority is to fight for Net Neutrality.  If a group is offended, send them flowers, apologize quickly if you must, and be done with it.  Don’t entertain the trade press.

Navarrow Wright on BlackWeb 2.0 called proponents of Net Neutrality “digital elites” and then condensed many of the industry talking points that are common to many of the anti-Net Neutrality letters heading to the FCC:

The risk that a regressive pricing mandate that net neutrality rules could impose will shift online costs to the poor is real.

The risk that over-regulation will depress deployment and access is real.

The risk that restrictions on network management will reduce the quality and reliability of Internet service for light users — students, the poor on fixed incomes, the elderly, and community organizers who rely on Internet access to reach their communities – is real.

Wright doesn’t bother to provide any evidence to back up these claims.  Underlining the word real does not make it reality.

We recognize these talking points from the broadband industry’s lobbying efforts against Net Neutrality.  The industry scare tactic about raised prices is exactly the same one they use to justify Internet Overcharging schemes like forced consumption billing and usage caps, despite earning healthy profits and enjoying a decline in their traffic costs.  Read the financial reports from the major players about broadband profits for yourself.  Don’t take our word for it.

Net Neutrality simply demands the status quo — open and equal access to everyone, including the economically disadvantaged Wright is concerned about.  If Wright is concerned about the cost of broadband services for the economically disadvantaged, giving the providers the right to monetize content delivery in new ways, it will lead to even higher prices than we cope with today.

Industry rate hikes come in spite of Net Neutrality, and we call on Wright to join our effort to demand increased competition so these kinds of price increases become untenable.  Time Warner Cable, the nation’s second largest provider, is busily increasing prices for Road Runner service right now in several regions, even without the “imminent threat” of Net Neutrality.

Net Neutrality is hardly “over regulation,” and the empty rhetoric about it depressing investment, deployment, and access has been made every time this industry has faced the prospect of some oversight.  Wright should remember the industry used the same arguments to resist universal wiring requirements made in franchise agreements to guarantee that income challenged neighborhoods had the same access to cable and telephone broadband services as wealthy suburbs.  In their fight to obtain quick and simple statewide video franchising, they argued that without it, it would discourage investment, deployment, and access to competition.  Regulating rates?  Same argument.  The Discovery Institute, which has produced suspect studies on demand for the industry, paid for by the industry, provides an excellent example of “we’ve heard this song before” in comments they made to the FCC back in 2006 to try and reform cable franchising:

V. LEVEL-PLAYING-FIELD REQUIREMENTS ARE ANTICOMPETITIVE

Build-out requirements were an appropriate quid pro quo for the telephone, cable and wireless companies who received an exclusive franchise. An exclusive franchise ensured the viability of average pricing by eliminating the risk of cherry-picking by a competitive entrant, and allowed providers to serve the most profitable customers first who could then, in turn, subsidize the cost of serving everyone else.

Competitive entrants already have an incentive to expand their networks: They must produce consistent revenue gains, and the cost of adding additional users declines as a network grows. But unless flexibly and intelligently applied, a build-out requirement threatens the entire undertaking by creating the possibility that the initial investment will be effectively lost if, for whatever reason, it just isn’t possible to meet the deadline. The evidence that cities possess the inclination to perform this thoughtful and delicate task is entirely conjectural.

Build-out is typically not required of competitive entrants, because it imposes costs that may not be recoverable in a competitive market. Exceptions are Personal Communications Service (PCS) providers and Eligible Telecommunications Carriers (ETCs). However, these examples are clearly distinguishable. As the Commission has noted in another context, the grant of a PCS license confers on the licensee an exclusive right to use a designated portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. In that decision, the Commission rejected a Texas build-out requirement applicable to competitive entrants in the local exchange market.

ETCs are required to provide service and advertise their rates throughout the area for which they seek Universal Service support, but an ETC has the right to resell another carrier’s services. There is no suggestion in the current proceeding that telephone companies seeking to offer video services should have the right to resell the services of the incumbent cable operator, nor should there be. However, in view of the fact that telephone companies cannot be assured of the capital needed to build out their advanced services networks, a resale requirement would probably be the only practical way ensure that a competitive entrant could serve every household.

Build-out is not the same thing as redlining. Redlining is illegal, but by its terms, 47 U.S.C. 621(a)(4)(A) does not require build-out. It merely imposes a reasonableness requirement on the amount of time locally-enacted build-out requirements provide for the competitive entrant to serve every household. There is no Congressional mandate for build-out.

Since cable operators are not required to offer voice services to every household, it is not clear why telephone companies should be required to offer video services throughout their service area. There is no way to predict whether competitive entrants will have access to sufficient capital or be able to gain enough market share to make build-out requirements objectively reasonable. These risk factors suggest that build-out requirements would be anticompetitive.

It is also utter nonsense to suggest network management restrictions will reduce the quality and reliability of Internet service for light users.  In fact, the industry’s proposed “light user” solution is a consumption billing scheme that includes usage allowances and limits, overlimit penalties for exceeding them, and consumers forced into limited use plans, often for little or no savings over existing under-marketed “lite” plans.

Most providers currently tier broadband based on speed.  If a consumer wants to get “light service,” they can purchase a discounted lower speed package perfectly adequate for most web use, and never have to worry about how much they choose to use it.  They want to continue offering speed tiers, but also limit customers’ use of their accounts, giving them a paltry usage allowance and then subjecting them to steep penalties for exceeding it.  Residents in Rochester, New York fought back against two such schemes advocated by Time Warner Cable and Frontier Communications, the local phone company.  It is under the guise of “network management” that these Internet Overcharging schemes were born.  A word to the wise – this price gouging hurts the economically disadvantaged far more than wealthy suburbanites.

I also point Wright’s attention to the broadband situation in Canada, which has adopted the viewpoint of our provider friends.  There, Internet usage is limited by allowances, with fees of $1-5 per gigabyte for exceeding them.  Net Neutrality is not protected, and certain Internet services are “network managed” with speed throttles, reducing their speed by 90% or more, making their use untenable.  Yet, Canadian broadband dropped in global broadband rankings, service providers increased prices anyway, and the digital divide Wright is worried about has not been addressed.  In fact, it’s arguably worse, because the industry won efforts to also limit and ration wholesale broadband access used by independent service providers to create competitive, lower-priced alternatives.

Does that make Wright stupid or a “sell-out?”  Of course not.  It means we have a lot of information to share with Mr. Wright and others like him.  As consumers ourselves, we believe in getting affordable broadband access to disadvantaged communities, and support Universal Service Fund reform and appropriate stimulus funding, or providing municipally built networks to introduce needed competition to get quality, affordable broadband service into urban and rural homes that are woefully underserved.  The industry advocated “don’t regulate us” approach has been in place since the 1990s and has not come close to solving the problem.

It’s our view broadband service is rapidly becoming as important as water, gas and electric, and telephone service, and must be provided to every American that wants a connection, at an affordable price.  When private providers won’t do that, it’s time to follow the same path we took to assure electrification of this country decades earlier, with public projects to get the job done.

We think every person should check out these issues for themselves.  As a consumer, confronting Internet Overcharging schemes was what got this site started, and once I examined the facts about the profitable state of broadband, and the quest to make it even more profitable at consumer expense, I got angry and involved.  That doesn’t make me an “elitist.”  It makes me an informed and involved citizen.

We have always told providers this isn’t personal and we respect the work done by the employees to serve their customers.  Most of us are customers ourselves.  We will debate policy matters and advocate for our position, and try and bring supporting evidence to the table, and let the best argument win.  Along the way, disclosing who represents who and where they money comes from is part of that debate.

It will remain our policy to expose industry connections in organizations that purport to advocate for consumer interests, particularly when those connections are not routinely disclosed.  Consumers have a right to know whether the industry is writing checks to ostensibly independent groups, or have executives seated on their governing boards, potentially influencing their public policy positions.  To not provide this needed information would sell out our readers, and not living up to the standards we set for ourselves.

For the record, Stop the Cap! has zero industry money backing us.  We are 100% consumer-funded and have no involvement in any online business or telecommunications company.