Greenlight, the broadband provider owned and operated by the city of Wilson, N.C. today announced that it will begin offering gigabit Internet connectivity services to its customers by this July.

“In January, the Federal Communications Commission issued a challenge to communities to provide gigabit service by 2015, and we’re proud to answer that challenge now. We are excited to launch our gigabit service and allow our customers to be the first in the state to experience such high speed Internet access,” said Will Aycock, general manager of Greenlight. “Ultra-high speed Internet will help position Wilson for the future and will provide our businesses and residents with the tools they need to succeed.”

In January, the Federal Communications Commission Chairman issued the “Gigabit City Challenge” which challenged providers to offer gigabit service in at least one community in each state by 2015. Gigabit services are approximately 100 times faster than average high-speed Internet connections.

Greenlight was formed in 2008 to offer an independent, locally owned and operated option for television, telephone and Internet broadband connectivity for Wilson residents. Since then, Greenlight has grown to offer services to more than 6,000 residential customers and businesses and the Wilson County School System. In addition, Greenlight provides free wireless Internet access throughout the downtown Wilson area.

The community-owned broadband provider far out-delivers broadband performance from competitors Time Warner Cable and AT&T. Neither the cable or telephone company was willing to upgrade service in Wilson so the city decided to launch its own public network and manage its broadband future itself.

Unfortunately, many cities in the Tar Heel State cannot follow Wilson’s lead. The state’s dominant commercial cable and phone companies lobbied the Republican-controlled legislature for legislation that makes it nearly impossible for other public broadband providers to emerge.

The gigabit option will become available this summer on the community’s fiber to the home network.

Other stories of interest:

1. Happy Rate Increase Tuesday: Time Warner Cable Back for More from North Carolinians
2. America’s Best Broadband Is Publicly Owned: See How It Transforms Chattanooga, Tenn.
3. Back to Kansas City: Google Fiber Now Going in the Ground; TV Service Also Announced
4. Leverett, Mass. Fed Up With Poor Broadband; Town Wants Its Own Gigabit Network
5. Chattanooga: America’s First Gig City Opens the Door to Innovation, Jobs With U.S. Ignite

Cable operators and publicly owned utilities in Tennessee are battling for control over the prices companies pay to use utility poles, with facts among the early casualties.

The subject of “pole attachment fees” has been of interest to cable companies for decades. In return for permission to hang cable wires on existing electric or telephone poles owned by utility companies, cable operators are asked to contribute towards their upkeep and eventual replacement. Cable operators want the fees to be as low as possible, while utility companies have sought leeway to defray rising utility pole costs and deal with ongoing wear and tear.

Little progress has been made in efforts to compromise, so this year two competing bills have been introduced by Republicans in the state legislature to define “fairness.” One is promoted by a group of municipal utilities and the other by the cable industry and several corporate-backed, conservative front groups claiming to represent the interests of state taxpayers and consumers.

Some background: Tennessee is unique in the pole attachment fee fight, because privately owned power companies bypassed a lot of the state (and much of the rest of the Tennessee Valley and Appalachian region) during the electrification movement of the early 20th century. Much of Tennessee is served by publicly owned power companies, which also own and maintain a large percentage of utility poles in the state.

Some of Tennessee’s largest telecom companies believe they can guarantee themselves low rates by pitching a case of private companies vs. big government utilities, with local municipalities accused of profiteering from artificially high pole attachment rates. Hoping to capitalize on anti-government sentiment, “small government” conservatives and telecom companies want to tie the hands of the pole owners indefinitely by taking away their right to set pole attachment rates.

The battle includes fact-warped editorials that distort the issues, misleading video ads, and an effort to conflate a utility fee with a tax. With millions at stake from pole attachment fees on tens of thousands of power poles throughout the state, the companies involved have launched a full-scale astroturf assault.

Grover Norquist’s Incendiary “Pole Tax”

Conservative Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform wrote that the pole attachment fee legislation promoted by public utilities would represent a $20 million dollar “tax increase” from higher cable and phone bills. Even worse, Norquist says, the new tax will delay telecom companies from rushing new investments on rural broadband.

Norquist

In reality, Americans for Tax Reform should be rebranded Special Interests for Tax Reform, because the group is funded by a variety of large tobacco corporations, former clients of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and several wealthy conservative activists with their own foundations.

Norquist’s pole “tax increase” does not exist.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) provides guidelines and a formula for determining pole attachment rates for privately owned utilities, but permits states to adopt their own regulations. Municipal utilities are exempted for an important reason — their rates and operations are often already well-regulated.

Stop the Cap! found that pole attachment revenue ends up in the hands of the utility companies that own and keep up the poles, not the government. Municipal utilities stand on their own — revenue earned by a utility stays with the utility. Should a municipal utility attempt to gouge other companies that hang wires on those poles, mechanisms kick in that guarantee it cannot profit from doing so.

A 2007 study by the state government in Tennessee effectively undercut the cable industry’s argument that publicly owned utilities are overcharging cable and phone companies that share space on their poles. The report found that “pole attachment revenues do not increase pole owners’ revenue in the long run.”¹

The Tennessee Valley Authority, which supplies electricity across Tennessee, regularly audits the revenues and costs of its municipal utility distributors and sets end-user rates accordingly. The goal is to guarantee that municipal distributors “break even.” Any new revenue sources, like pole attachment fees, are considered when setting wholesale electric rates. If a municipal utility overcharged for access to its poles, it will ultimately gain nothing because the TVA will set prices that take that revenue into account.

Freedom to Distort: The Cable Lobby’s Astroturf Efforts

Freedom to distort

Another “citizens group” jumping into the battle is called “Freedom to Connect,” actually run by the Tennessee Cable Telecommunications Association (TCTA). Most consumers won’t recognize TCTA as the state cable lobby. Almost all will have forgotten TCTA was the same group that filed a lawsuit to shut down EPB’s Fiber division, which today delivers 1,000Mbps broadband service across the city and competes against cable operators like Comcast and Charter Cable.

One TCTA advertisement claims that some utilities are planning “to double the fees broadband providers pay to the state’s government utilities.”

In reality, cable companies have gone incognito, hiding their identity by rebranding themselves as “broadband providers.” No utility has announced it plans to “double” pole attachment fees either.

TCTA members came under fire at a recent hearing attended by state lawmakers when Rep. Charles Curtiss (D-Sparta) spoke up about irritating robocalls directed at his constituents making similar claims.

“What was said was false,” Curtiss told the cable representatives at the hearing. “You’ve lost your integrity with me. Whoever made up your mind to do that, you’re in the wrong line of work.”

TCTA — Tennessee’s cable industry lobbying group, released this distorted advertisement opposing pole attachment fee increases.  (1 minute)

The Chattanooga Free-Press’ Drew Johnson: Independent Opinion Page Editor or Well-connected Activist with a Conflict of Interest?

Johnson (Times Free Press)

In its ad campaign, the TCTA gave prominent mention to an article in Chattanooga’s Times-Free Press from Feb. 27: “Bill Harms Consumers, Kills Competition.”

What the advertisement did not say is it originated in an editorial published by Drew Johnson, who serves as the paper’s conservative opinion editor. Johnson has had a bone to pick with Chattanooga’s public utility EPB since it got into the cable television and broadband business.

That may not be surprising, since Johnson is still listed as a “senior fellow” at the “Taxpayers Protection Alliance,” yet another corporate and conservative-backed astroturf group founded by former Texas congressman Dick Armey of FreedomWorks fame.

Johnson’s journalism credentials? He wrote a weekly column for the conservative online screed NewsMax, founded and funded by super-wealthy Richard Mellon Scaife and Christopher Ruddy, both frequent donors to conservative, pro-business causes.

TPA has plenty to hide — particularly the sources of their funding. When asked if private industry backs TPA’s efforts, president David Williams refused to come clean.

“It comes from private sources, and I don’t reveal who my donors are,” he told Environmental Building News in January.

Ironically, Johnson is best known for aggressively using Tennessee’s open records “Sunshine” law to get state employee e-mails and other records looking for conflicts of interest or scandal.

Newspaper readers may want to ask whether Johnson represents the newspaper, an industry-funded sock puppet group, or both.  They also deserve full disclosure if the TPA receives any funding from companies that directly compete with EPB.

The Institute from ALEC: The Institute for Policy Innovation’s Innovative Way to Funnel AT&T and Comcast Money Into the Fight

Provider-backed ALEC advocates for the corporate interests that fund its operations.

Another group fighting on the side of the cable and phone companies against municipal utilities is the Institute for Policy Innovation. Policy counsel Bartlett D. Cleland claimed the government is out to get private companies that want space on utility poles.

“The proposed new system in HB1111 and SB1222 is fervently supported by the electric cooperatives and the government-owned utilities for good reason – they are merely seeking a way to use the force of government against their private sector competitors,” Cleland said. “The proposal would allow them to radically raise their rates for pole attachments to multiples of the national average.”

The facts don’t match Cleland’s rhetoric.

In reality, the state of Tennessee found in their report on the matter in 2007 that Tennessee’s pole attachment fees are “not necessarily out of line with those in other states.”²

In fact, some of the state’s telecom companies seemed to agree:

• EMBARQ (now CenturyLink) provided data on fees received from other service providers in Tennessee, Virginia, South and North Carolina. In these data, Tennessee’s rates ($36.02 – $47.41) are similar to those in North Carolina ($23.12-$52.85) and Virginia ($28.94 – $35.77). Rates were lower in South Carolina.
• Cable operators, who have less infrastructure on poles than telephone and electric utilities, paid even less. Time Warner Cable provided mean rates per state showing Tennessee ($7.70) in the middle of the pack compared to Florida ($9.83) and North Carolina ($4.86 – $13.64).

In addition to his role as policy counsel, Cleland also happens to be co-chair of the Telecommunications and Information Technology Task Force of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Members of that committee include Comcast and AT&T — Tennessee’s largest telecom companies, both competing with municipal telecommunications providers like EPB.

¹ Analysis of Pole Attachment Rate Issues in Tennessee, State of Tennessee. 2007. p.23

² Analysis of Pole Attachment Rate Issues in Tennessee, State of Tennessee. 2007. p.12

Other stories of interest:

1. Time Warner Cable Blames Pole Fee Increases They Won’t Pay for Future Rate Hikes
2. EPB Faces Blizzard of Bull from Comcast, Tennessee “Watchdog” Group
3. Americans for Prosperity Pro-Corporate Front Group Behind Calls Harassing NC Residents
4. Let the Fuhr Fly: Big Telecom Front Group Says Cut Community Broadband to Help Mitigate ‘Fiscal Cliff’
5. AT&T and Time Warner Cable’s Unnecessary Temper Tantrum in Kansas City

Time Warner Cable objects to publicly-owned broadband networks because they represent “unfair” publicly-funded “competition,” despite the fact TWC is also on the public dole.

The next time a cable operator or phone company claims community-owned broadband providers deliver unfair competition because they are government-funded, remind them that quite often that phone or cable company also happens to be on the public dole.

Take Time Warner Cable, which this week won a $5,266,979 grant courtesy of New York State taxpayers to extend their cable system to 4,114 homes in rural parts of upstate New York just outside of the cable company’s current service areas. That equals $1,280.26 in state tax dollars per household. For that public investment, Time Warner will reap private profits for shareholders from selling broadband, cable-TV, phone, and home security services to its newest customers indefinitely.

Now unlike some of my conservative friends, I am not opposed to the state spending money to wire rural New York. It is obvious cable and phone companies will simply never wire these areas on their own so long as Return on Investment conditions fail in these places. What does annoy me are the endless arguments we hear in opposition to public broadband from these same companies, claiming with a straight face that community-owned networks represent “unfair competition” because they are publicly funded. Time Warner Cable is no stranger to public taxpayer benefits itself, having won millions in tax abatements and credits in North Carolina, Ohio and a cool $5 million courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. N.Y. Taxpayer.

Many of the nation’s private telecommunications companies have plenty of love for federal, state, and local officials who have passed favorable tax laws and policies at their behest:

• AT&T not only did not pay any federal taxes in 2011, it actually secured a $420 million taxpayer-subsidized refund;
• Local governments have granted rights-of-way red tape cutting, tax credits and abatements in return for siting important facilities in select areas and hiring an appropriate number of employees to work in them;
• State laws that have made life easy for telecom companies, including statewide video franchising;
• State laws that make life difficult for their would-be competitors, especially public broadband networks.

So let us end the silly rhetoric about public vs. private broadband being a question of fairness. This is really a question about who controls your broadband future,  your community or big telecom corporations.

In states like Georgia, elected politicians like Rep. Mark Hamilton want those decisions made by Comcast (Pennsylvania), Windstream (Arkansas) and AT&T (Texas). His bill would make it next to impossible for a local community to do anything but beg and plead the phone company to deliver something, anything that resembles broadband service. For a good part of rural Georgia (and elsewhere), the answer has always been a resounding “no,” at least until the federal government steps up and kicks in your money to help defray the costs of extending Windstream or AT&T’s sub par DSL service that slows to a crawl once the kids are out of school.

Windstream waited for the federal government to kick in $7.28 million in taxpayer dollars before it would agree to extend its DSL service to rural customers in its own home state of Arkansas.

You have to wonder about the Republicans in Georgia these days who used to fight for local and state control over almost everything. It should be instinctive for any conservative to want out-of-state pointyheads out of their business, but Rep. Mark Hamilton, himself a business owner, seems content forfeiting those rights to companies headquartered hundreds of miles away. If it was the federal government telling Georgia what kind of broadband service it deserves, do you think Mr. Hamilton would be so amenable? Unfortunately, should Hamilton have his way, for the foreseeable future, residents and business owners in Gray, Sparta, or Eatonton to count just a few will have broadband just the way the state’s phone companies want it — super slow DSL, dial-up or satellite fraudband.

Other stories of interest:

1. Anti-Competition, “1.5Mbps is Good Enough for You” Broadband Bill Before Georgia Legislators
2. Georgia’s Rural Towns Up in Arms Over Anti-Community Broadband Bill Pushed by Windstream
3. North Carolina Taxpayers Underwrite $5 Million for Time Warner Cable’s Charlotte, N.C. Headquarters and Data Center
4. Big Telecom to Georgia: Your Improved Community Broadband Bothers Us
5. Tech Companies, Consumers, Communities Push Back Against Georgia Anti-Broadband Bill

Residents in mountainous western North Carolina have been frustrated by broadband availability maps from the Federal Communications Commission that suggest broadband service is plentiful and fast. But on the ground, customers trying to sign up for Internet access the FCC says is readily available is anything but.

The FCC’s National Broadband Map has been repeatedly criticized by broadband advocates for relying on voluntary data supplied by Internet Service Providers — data that has often proved incomplete, exaggerated, or just plain inaccurate.

Wally Bowen, executive director of Asheville’s Mountain Area Information Network (MAIN), wants to show the FCC its broadband map is out of touch with the real world. MAIN has announced a new website that will let western North Carolina residents test and report the real broadband speeds they are getting from providers to the FCC. If no broadband service is available at all, residents can report that as well.

“Based on our experience, we believe the FCC is underestimating the scope of this problem,” said Bowen, an advocate for Internet access in rural areas. “The FCC’s estimate is based primarily on data provided by the cable and telephone companies.”

With a growing amount of federal money available to wire unserved areas, phone and cable companies may have a vested interest exaggerating their coverage areas and Internet speeds to stop would-be competitors from entering their territories and building new networks. New providers could find a very enthusiastic customer base of more than 48,000 aggravated residents in 16 counties in western North Carolina that have no broadband options at all.

“This new website empowers citizens to compare their real-life experience with the FCC data, but more importantly, it dissects the broadband problem, provides ideas for solving it, and shows citizens how to add their voices to the policy debate,” said Bowen.

Bowen believes profit-minded private companies are unlikely to ever be enthusiastic about wiring rural communities when larger profits can be earned in larger cities.

“Solving this problem isn’t rocket science,” said Bowen. “We’ve seen this movie before. Seventy-five years ago, for-profit electric utilities left rural America in the dark, so Congress passed the Rural Electrification Act and allowed local communities to solve the problem themselves by creating nonprofit electric cooperatives.”

But federal funds are off-limits if another provider already claims to offer service in an area, no matter how poorly they deliver it. Many large cable and phone companies have also worked to ban community-owned broadband networks from ever getting off the ground with the passage of corporate-sponsored bills passed by state legislatures. That leaves rural residents waiting endlessly for the telephone company to get around to providing some level of broadband service.

Problems with Frontier Communications’ DSL in the region tells the story:

Paul Manogue lives in an area considered “served” by Frontier Communications. The phone company sold him 3Mbps service, but after installation, Manogue found Frontier locked down his DSL modem to 1.5Mbps, the fastest speed his telephone line could comfortably handle. Today, Manogue pays $60.98 for 1.5Mbps service that has since further degraded. Today his top speed is 1Mbps or less, even though his monthly bill remains the same. His broadband connection does not come close to the 4/1Mbps minimum speed the FCC expects from today’s rural broadband networks.

“We have been bluntly told [by Frontier] that the level of service we receive is what we pay for,” Manogue told MAIN. Manogue has no other options.

Bill Duffell of Burningtown thinks Frontier broke its promise to deliver broadband where Verizon, his old provider, refused. He is still waiting, along with a number of other residents, for even basic DSL.

“Frontier promised to bring high-speed Internet access to remote areas of western North Carolina within three years,” he said. “They have not done this and now tell me there are no plans to bring high-speed Internet to the area. Internet access via satellite costs me $129.99 per month with Exede/WildBlue and is weather dependent.”

Allen in Madison County says Frontier delivered tolerable service until six months ago, when his speeds began to drop.

“The breaking point was when I was going to upload a 30 minutes video and found out it was going to take over 13 hours to upload.” Allen says. “I called Frontier and they [told me I was] ‘in a high volume area.’”

Anyone considering launching a competitive broadband service to improve the online experience of Manogue, Duffell, Allen and others will not qualify for any federal assistance because Frontier, the incumbent provider, already provides DSL broadband. Frontier also receives significant aid from the Connect America Fund — up to $775 to extend broadband to each individual home or business it earlier deemed unprofitable to serve. Each additional connection risks slowing down every other connection in the immediate area if Frontier does not maintain regular upgrades.

Two of the largest phone companies in the country — AT&T and Verizon — have both refused CAF money altogether. AT&T sees a bigger financial opportunity disbanding their wired telecommunications networks in rural America and forcing customers to switch to more costly (and much more profitable) wireless data services.

“The refusal of Connect America funding by the big carriers, plus their plans to abandon their wired networks in rural areas, is a policy earthquake that’s been ignored by corporate media,” Bowen said.

Other stories of interest:

1. Travesty: North Carolina’s Telecom Companies Oppose 4Mbps Broadband Service in Rural Areas
2. North Carolina: Welcome to the Home of America’s Worst Broadband Service
3. A Look at Broadband Numbers in the United States: DSL Hurting Phone Companies
4. The Truth About North Carolina’s Community Networks Told in Four Minutes
5. Frontier’s Wilderotter Claims W.V. Among Top-5 Broadband States; Facts Say Otherwise

The Man from A.L.E.C. represents premiere members Time Warner Cable and AT&T.

The News & Observer has printed a rebuttal to a guest editorial from Christopher Mitchell and Todd O’Boyle accusing the two of misleading readers about the true state of North Carolina’s broadband.

The author, John Stephenson, is director of the Communications and Technology Task Force at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Considering North Carolina’s largest broadband providers — AT&T and Time Warner Cable — are both card-carrying members of ALEC, his response mouths their words.

Nearly 300 million Americans have access to at least one and, in most cases, two or three broadband providers. Moreover, wireless and satellite providers continue to invest in 4G wireless technology and new satellites that can now offer speeds rivaling wired broadband.

By contrast, government-owned broadband has demonstrated mixed results at best and abject failure at worst. Cities’ attempts to build and operate their own broadband networks have been marked by poor results, huge debts and accounting gimmicks that threaten taxpayers.

In North Carolina, broadband “consultants” persuaded cities like Salisbury and Mooresville to ignore basic economics and to compete against private providers. But the broadband networks recorded deficits and were forced to tap other sources of financing. Despite these losses, as many as three dozen North Carolina cities appeared ready to go down the same dangerous path.

Stephenson’s rebuttal regurgitates the usual Time Warner Cable and AT&T talking points — the same ones used to convince North Carolina legislators to ban community broadband (with contributions to their campaign coffers stapled to the back).

Fact: North Carolinians typically have at most two choices for broadband, the telephone and cable company. Only a few cities were lucky enough to construct community-owned alternatives before the hammer fell in the General Assembly. Stephenson’s alternatives include satellite broadband, which delivers slow speeds and a paltry usage allowance or wireless 4G broadband that will set you back a fortune. North Carolina’s largest providers AT&T and Verizon Wireless sell service with a starting monthly cap of 1GB. Anything more costs more. These are hardly comparable choices to wired broadband.

Fact: Community broadband in cities like Wilson and Salisbury dramatically outperform Time Warner Cable and AT&T and deliver a fair deal instead of temporary promotions and endless rate hikes from the cable/telco bully boys. Stephenson uses the case of Mooresville to trash community broadband, which is a weak example. That city bought a decrepit cable system from bankrupt Adelphia Cable and had to spend a fortune to rebuild it. It’s now on track to deliver for local residents. Those communities would have been better off with a fiber to the home system, but the rebuilt cable system still delivers more competition than Time Warner and AT&T ever gave one-another.

Stephenson also ignores the debts the cable and phone companies piled up when they first built their networks. It is the cost of getting into the telecommunications business. Cable companies needed 10, 20, or even 30 years to pay off construction costs. Community providers got into telecommunications with the knowledge it would take time to pay back the initial debt, but they hope to do it without gouging customers.

ALEC routinely pits community providers against private ones as “government funded unfair broadband competition.” But the group ignores the fact cities like Charlotte have doled out tax incentives and other goodies to Time Warner Cable for building its new headquarters there. AT&T is not doing too bad either, securing statewide video franchising and effective permission to drop its ugly U-verse cabinets on public easements all over the state.

The fact is, the only disruptive force in North Carolina’s broadband market comes from community-owned providers trying to break up the comfortable telco-cable duopoly that charges nearly the same prices for the same yesteryear service. That’s a story The Man from A.L.E.C. cannot afford to tell you.

Other stories of interest:

1. Call to Action: AT&T and ALEC Still Pushing to Banish Community Broadband in S.C.
2. Time Warner Cable’s Rate Hikes Reach the Carolinas: Still $58/mo for Standalone Broadband
3. The Truth About North Carolina’s Community Networks Told in Four Minutes
4. Anti-Community Broadband N.C. State Rep. Marilyn Avila’s Fun Weekend in Asheville: Did You Pay?
5. FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn Calls North Carolina’s H.129 A “Broadband Barrier”

North Carolina has achieved a new low. It is now tied with bottom-rated Mississippi as America’s least-connected state, at least in terms of broadband adoption.

Christopher Mitchell and Todd O’Boyle add up the cost to the state’s economy from years of broadband neglect from dominant providers like Time Warner Cable, AT&T, and CenturyLink.

Although the largest cities in the state do reasonably well, suburban and rural North Carolina continue to suffer with slow or no service at all, thanks to last-generation cable and spotty DSL service that has not kept up with other states.

Mitchell and O’Boyle blame much of the problem in their editorial in the Charlotte News & Observer on two factors: a lack of competition and a legislature that cozied up to corporate dollars to pass an anti-competitive community broadband ban in 2011.

After state legislators collected more than $1 million in campaign donations from Time Warner Cable and AT&T, the General Assembly passed a law in 2011 that effectively barred communities from building their own networks. These corporations are members of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a national organization that drafts business-friendly “model bills” to push a corporate agenda in statehouses across the country.

The impetus for that effort was the city of Wilson’s decision to build its own network after existing providers declined to improve their services. The city’s globally competitive fiber optic network offers Internet connections far faster than possible on DSL or cable – and it is far more reliable.

Because it is owned by the city, the Wilson network keeps its prices affordable. And because locals now have a choice, Time Warner Cable priced its services more competitively in Wilson than in nearby towns without meaningful competition.

Time Warner Cable, AT&T and CenturyLink waged a multiyear lobbying campaign to secure the 2011 bill. They claimed it encouraged fair competition, but their real goal was to eliminate consumer choice, as documented in a new report by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and Common Cause: “The empire lobbies back: How national cable and DSL companies banned the competition in North Carolina.”

As a result, although Time Warner Cable has invested in a data center and billing operation in the state (and received taxpayer-funded tax breaks in the process), average consumers are still receiving service that lags far behind community-owned fiber networks in cities like Wilson and Salisbury.

AT&T’s response to a call for investment was news it told 75 of its Greensboro-area workers to either move to Alabama or start looking for work somewhere else.

Both authors argue that North Carolina’s state legislature has decided to outsource the state’s broadband future to a handful of out-of-state corporations that have been able to increase rates, trickle out service improvements, and keep true competition at bay.

Christopher Mitchell works for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and Todd O’Boyle is affiliated with Common Cause.

Other stories of interest:

1. Making a Difference: We’re Making Progress on NC’s Anti-Community Broadband Bill
2. Anti-Community Broadband N.C. State Rep. Marilyn Avila’s Fun Weekend in Asheville: Did You Pay?
3. Wilson, North Carolina Builds Its Own Municipal Fiber Optic System When Others Didn’t Step Up
4. Big Cable Tries to Squash Municipal Competition: Round One
5. N.C.’s Fastest & Cheapest Broadband Comes from Community-Owned Networks Some Want to Ban

AT&T has told more than 75 call center workers in the Triad they have three weeks to either start looking for another job or consider relocating to Birmingham, Ala. if they wish to remain employed by the telecom giant.

The holiday layoff took workers partly by surprise, but some told a local Fox affiliate they felt something was coming when they noticed AT&T stopped updating the affected workers’ training to handle customer calls.

The Communications Workers of America called the announcement devastating news for career employees and their families during the holiday season. The union is trying to get AT&T to extend the deadline to give workers more time to consider their options.

Local AT&T workers have had a tough year at the company, with difficult contract talks and technicians complaining about the company’s policy to allow customers to have AT&T U-verse installed on Christmas Day.

CWA’s Local 3902 chapter, which represents AT&T workers in the Triad, claims the company has systematically tried to drive its workers out of the middle class with benefit and pay reductions and a race to the bottom mentality cutting labor costs and demanding longer work hours for less money:

[CEO Randall] Stephensons’ philosophy is as old as time. It is a belief that he is entitled and workers are not.  It has been called “wage slavery” and worse. People rose against it. Governments that stood by it have been toppled.

In America, the people began to say no more beginning in the late 1880′s. It took the Great Depression of the 1930′s to cause our great-grandparents to finally hit the streets. CWA began to see real successes in the 1950′s. A strike that lasted 72 days in 1955 set the stage for our best days. The strike itself did not win much, but it left a scar AT&T did not soon forget. Contract negotiations after that were easier. That period lasted through 1980. In that period we won solid pensions and no-premium healthcare. By 1980 we were a solid part of the middle class and thought we would be always.

By 1981 we had begun to lose our way. Those hired during the boom of the ’70′s did not want to hear of  the prior struggles. They just happily enjoyed the hard won gains of the generation before them. They began to vote against their own interests. They began to believe that AT&T and BellSouth loved them and would always take care of them. That is the period we find ourselves in today. But we are beginning to see it for what it is.

During this period we have lost most of our pension gains. We are again paying a large part of our healthcare. Our wages are stagnant. Workers are fired almost at will. AT&T is out of control. Politically, they control the state legislatures who deregulate the industry. They run roughshod over the American worker. They contract out and off-shore at will. It has been a devastating period for CWA and for all unions.

WGHP in Greensboro covered the sudden holiday announcement AT&T was letting go at least 75 North Carolina workers by the end of December unless they agreed to relocate to an AT&T call center in Birmingham, Ala.  (2 minutes)

Other stories of interest:

1. WGHP Greensboro – Greensboro to Time Warner: “This is Not Fair; It’s Bordering on a Monopoly”
2. WFMY Triad – Greensboro Mayor Looking for Competitor for Time Warner
3. Verizon Workers on Strike in Northeast: Employees Face Up to $20K Benefit Cut if Verizon Wins
4. AT&T Workers in Nevada, California and Connecticut Call Two-Day Strike
5. AT&T’s Unionized Workers Show Up Wearing “WTF” Stickers; Company Sends Them Home

Eight channels are missing from Raleigh-area televisions.

Time Warner Cable dropped eight analog channels from its lineup in Raleigh recently, advising customers they will need either a digital transport adapter (DTA) or standard set top box to get those channels back.

But one Raleigh customer tells Stop the Cap! those DTA boxes are hard to come by at the moment, forcing some to get costly set top boxes instead.

“We have been told three times by Time Warner Cable there is a multi-week wait for the free boxes, but we can get all the set top boxes we want today, for more than $6 a month each,” complains Rachel, who has three TV’s that need a box solution. “You think they would have waited for enough equipment before they took the channels away.”

Now missing from the analog lineup: C-SPAN, CMT, Oprah Winfrey Network, VH-1 Classics, Discovery Fitness & Health, Lifetime Movie Network, TruTV and the Golf Channel.

Jim DuBreck thought he had nothing to worry about when Time Warner sent him a postcard alerting him those eight channels were only going to be available in digital starting this month. He told ABC11 he already has a digital TV. Time Warner did not tell him that was not enough to keep watching.

DuBreck later learned the cable company not only converted the channels to digital, it also encrypted them. His digital TV would still need either a set top box or DTA. Only he is still waiting for the five DTA boxes for his own televisions.

Time Warner told the station they have seen a much higher demand than anticipated for the adapters. So, there may be some temporary delays before receiving one. DTA boxes are free for two years, set top boxes are not.

Customers better get used to it. Time Warner is gradually converting their systems to digital lineups, so as time goes by, more analog channels will disappear.

Time Warner Cable explained why:

“Moving analog channels to digital frees up capacity in our network to bring customers faster internet like we just did last week when we boosted the speeds of our standard internet service by 50 percent. Providing channels digitally also allows us to offer customers more because it’s dramatically more efficient: We can deliver up to four HD channels, or as many as 12 standard-definition digital channels, using the same capacity as it takes to carry one analog channel.”

WTVD in Raleigh helps Time Warner Cable customers understand where some of their analog channels are going.  (3 minutes)

Other stories of interest:

1. Time Warner Cable Begins Digital Cable Conversion in Upstate New York
2. Time Warner Cable Will Abandon Analog Cable Within 5 Years – Converting to All-Digital Systems
3. Time Warner Cable Starts the Transition to All-Digital Cable, Beginning in Maine
4. Time Warner Cable Moves Channels Out of the Way to Add More Channels, DOCSIS 3 by Year’s End
5. Maine Madness: Time Warner Cable’s Mandatory Digital Upgrade Still Irking Customers

Two North Carolina men subcontracted by Comcast to perform repairs in sections of New Jersey hard-hit by Hurricane Sandy spent their Thanksgiving trying to rob a drug store instead, authorities say.

Hillside police told The Star-Ledger 28-year-old David Dockery of Morganton and 34-year-old Jerry Lee Williams of Hickory were arrested Thanksgiving night and charged with burglary and criminal mischief.

Police say the pair attempted to burgle the CVS Pharmacy on Long Avenue by breaking the drive-thru window. Authorities were alerted by an alarm.

A pair of officers found both men in a white cargo van on railroad tracks behind the store. Police speculate the two were searching for prescription drugs.

Other stories of interest:

1. Mediacom Employees Jailed After Customer Dispute; Company Supervisor Shoved Officer, Complaint Alleges
2. Comcast Installer Subjects 24-Year Old Florida Woman to “Exposure of Sexual Organs”
3. AT&T: Prosecution for iPad ‘Hackers,’ But Law Enforcement Beats Them, Arresting One on Drug Charges
4. Another Ridiculous Online Surveillance Bill; ‘If You’re Against It, You’re Pro-Child Porn’
5. Why You Don’t Want the Verizon Guy Transferring Your Risqué Photos to a New Phone

Time Warner Cable would like to thank the city of Charlotte and the state of North Carolina for the generous handouts of taxpayer-funded corporate welfare that helped make their newly-christened $82 million data center possible.

In return, Charlotte residents pay the nation’s highest cable bills, according to a piece in the Charlotte Observer.

Time Warner Cable maintains a cozy relationship with state and local officials — friendly enough to help win the company a state Job Development Investment Grant worth up to $2.9 million in public tax dollars in return for hiring 225 workers in their eastern national data center. Critics contend Time Warner was going to need to hire workers with or without the grant.

According to WhiteFence, the average Charlottean paid $51.18 for standalone high-speed Internet services in October.

The group surveys pricing from utility providers nationwide and builds a national price index for different services, including broadband.

No city pays higher prices that Charlotte, N.C., according to the group. The WhiteFence Index also shows Internet pricing is rising steadily, up from less than $40 charged this past May.

The Libertarian Party of North Carolina is probably the biggest opponent of corporate welfare handouts in the state:

By taking money from the taxpayers and giving it to businesses in the form of “corporate incentives,” our state and local governments are playing a game of Reverse Robin Hood. They are robbing from the poor and giving to the rich. The Libertarian Party of North Carolina denounces all corporate welfare programs as fiscally irresponsible and calls for their immediate abolition.

Millions of dollars are taken every year from our taxpayers and stashed into various funds and programs at all levels of government. The purpose of these funds is supposedly to attract businesses to our area and help them expand, under the theory that this will create jobs and promote general prosperity.

This theory has two fundamental defects. First of all, the government has no place in deciding which jobs should be created and maintained. A free market is infinitely better equipped to respond to the economic needs of businesses and consumers. When the government starts funding already successful companies, it becomes harder to compete in the marketplace if you have a new company with an innovative idea or service.

More directly, we can not have general prosperity until we rid ourselves of our excessive tax burdens. The first cause of economic prosperity is when consumers have money to spend. But we have less and less spending money, as governments take more and more from our paychecks. And then they use that money taken from us as legal bribes to entice their corporate favorites to come to North Carolina.

Other stories of interest:

1. North Carolina Taxpayers Underwrite $5 Million for Time Warner Cable’s Charlotte, N.C. Headquarters and Data Center
2. Call to Action: North Carolina’s Big Telecom Corporate Welfare Bill Being Fast-Tracked
3. Follow the Money – North Carolina Moratorium Watch 2010
4. It Takes Nerve to Attack Community Broadband in N.C. This Week, But GOP Vice-Chair Tries Anyway
5. Americans for Prosperity Pro-Corporate Front Group Behind Calls Harassing NC Residents