North Carolina residents get pro-industry "push poll" calls.
Silly rabbit, tricks are for kids. A certain company or group of companies is apparently spending some of the money that could be spent on better things (DOCSIS upgrades?) to run a disingenuous “push polling” scam on the residents of Wilson, North Carolina. A “push poll” incorporates propaganda or misinformation in an attempt to influence or alter the view of respondents under the guise of conducting a poll. People receiving calls are given misleading suppositions and then polled on how they feel about them.
Our friends at Save NC Broadband report calls going out that include questions that cannot possibly be answered without siding with commercial providers. I can only guess a few samples:
“Do you believe that your hard earned tax dollars should be used to pay for a socialist broadband Internet scheme that is designed to kill jobs in your community and destroy a tax-paying, capitalist company?” Answer “yes if you hate America” or “no if you are not a traitor to the American dream.”
“If you knew that a local town or city was run by anti-American forces in league with communists that wanted to use government funding to control your Internet connection, would you be in favor of this government controlled network that might spy on you or are you opposed?” Answer “in favor of a Communist takeover” or “as an upstanding American, I would have to be opposed.”
You get the idea, even if I over sprinkled some hyperbole on top for added flavor. Alright, I poured it on….
If you live in Wilson or Salibury, you may be getting a call. Tell the pollster you realize they’re working for big cable and telco interests and hang up the phone.
Later this week, the folks in league with the push polling firm hired to pull this scam will no doubt use some of the results in their effort to convince North Carolina legislators that there is no need for municipal broadband.
Don’t be a sucker for big cable and telco broadband that is terrified of competition. Keep on your elected officials and tell them to oppose HB 1252, and make sure you call or write today because the bill comes before the Public Utilities Committee on Wednesday.
Also this week, we’re hearing from our readers who are starting to get replies from their elected officials. StoptheCap! reader Shawn shares a particularly arrogant reply he got from Big Cable’s BFF, Rep. Ty Harrell, who helped introduce this horror show:
Thanks for your email. I appreciate hearing from you. I am to assume that you have read the bill, correct? Based on that assumption, you do realize that Wilson, and all of the other municipalities that have been reported on, have been exempted from the bill, correct?
Further still, you do realize that the bill does NOT prohibit any municipality from offering broadband services or any kind, correct?
Again, thank you for your email.
Warmest wishes,
Ty Rep. Ty Harrell NC State House, District 41 16 W. Jones Street Room 2121 Raleigh, NC 27601-1096 919.733.5602 [email protected]
Here is my suggested reply:
Thanks for your reply to my recent letter asking you to reconsider support for HB 1252. I appreciated hearing from you, too. I am to assume that you have fully contemplated the impact of your proposed bill, correct? Based on that assumption, you do realize that I have a lot of questions about how much you and your staff know when I learned that a Time Warner staff member and an attorney who represents the industry had to answer questions on your behalf posed in last week’s session in the Science & Technology Committee, correct?
Further still, you do realize that this pro-industry legislation, while not outright banning municipal broadband, turns the mechanics of building and running one into an Olympic event of Herculean proportions, which basically amounts to the same result — prohibiting them, correct?
And lastly, you do realize that if you should see fit to continue pushing this anti-consumer legislation, there is absolutely no chance whatsoever that you will have my vote, or those of my friends who agree with me, come the next election.
I urge you to reconsider your position on this important legislation and perhaps shelve or withdraw it until its fullest implications can be explored and weighed.
Again, thank you for your reply.
Warmest wishes,
An actual consumer who is unlikely to get a check from a telecom lobbyist in the near future.
(Leave off that last line and replace it with your own signature, of course.)
Get Busy North Carolina!
A sample letter is available to use as the basis for your own personal e-mail or call. You can use this resource to find your own representative/senator by clicking on House/Senate from the menu bar at the top. Here is the e-mail contact list for North Carolina representatives:
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
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Mr. Kim then suggests he doesn’t necessarily like his electricity or water rates, but he conserves because there is a penalty for unrestrained use. Actually, there isn’t really a penalty at all. Gas, electric, and water service are sold on a true metered basis. There are no “bucket plans” for these services. They are also utilities, and their rates are either regulated outright, or carefully monitored in the limited competition models some states have for these services.
Your water company bears the minimal cost of pumping a gallon of water from a body of water or aquifer. It then resells that water at a per gallon rate marked up to cover all of the overhead and expenses it has, sets a little more aside just in case of a non-rainy day, and delivers it to you at a rational, non-gouging price. If you don’t want to pay, you leave the faucet off. On the Internet, the faucet drips… all the time. The only way you are assured of not paying is to unplug your modem, never check your e-mail, and avoid websites with ads, because those are now now on your dime, especially when Time Warner marks up its wholesale cost by 1000% or more for that data. It’s like getting a glass of water but handing half of it to the stranger walking by your house, who also wants you to pay him a dollar on top of that.
Time Warner is also, like many cable providers, hip deep in a conflict of interest on broadband consumption. Cable has a vested interest in forcing you to “conserve” your connection, particularly by not using those services which directly compete with its business models. Streaming video online offers the customer the possibility of foregoing a cable TV package altogether. A Voice Over IP telephone provider on the Internet makes Time Warner’s Digital Phone product redundant. A Netflix set-top box that streams movies and other video programming in competition with premium/pay per view channels represent just one more service that panics many in the upper floors at Time Warner Cable’s headquarters.
Ironically, it was the very same cable companies that are whining about Exafloods and a crisis of costs who have contributed to the demise of “long distance.” Time Warner, among others, are now pitching cheap unlimited calling plans to customers who will never pay for another long distance call. In the wireless industry, price skirmishes have already broken out with carriers marketing true unlimited calling plans or calling circles which, for most people, mean no more airtime minute watching.
When I renew my Verizon Wireless contract this December, I will be handed a new phone and the option of a better plan with more minutes at or below the price I am paying now. By that time, there is every likelihood Time Warner will be asking me to pay three times more ($150 a month) for precisely the same level of service I am receiving now for around $50 a month. One of these companies is responding to the reality that bandwidth costs are declining, and are reducing rates and offering more. The other is taking advantage of a very limited competitive market and wants to triple charges claiming they are on the edge of broadband bankruptcy — only they’re not when you read their financial reports. Guess which is which.
I am also glad you are asking real people these questions, because companies like Time Warner certainly aren’t. Any reader here can recite poll after poll. The overwhelming majority of broadband customers, even those who are not defined “at the moment” as “abusers” of the network are content and satisfied paying one monthly fee for their service. They don’t want your plan, the industry’s plan, buckets, limits, caps, overlimits, or whatever else the marketing people decide to call the equivalent of Internet rationing at top dollar pricing.
We are consumers. We are customers. We are not industry insiders and we don’t write for industry trade publications. We don’t get a paycheck from this industry. Indeed, this industry raises our bill year after year, delivers inconsistent messages about why we are now being asked to pay for “buckets of broadband,” yet still denies us the ability to choose the channels we want for our own video package, paying just for what we want.
We also are empowered and educated enough to use this incredible tool called the Internet to research the assertions some make and simply expect others to accept at face value. We now read financial reports and statements. We verify. We also discover the language of the lobbyist, the marketers, the astroturfers, and the executive elements that are now attempting to sell consumers on their scheme to pay considerably more for the exact same thing, or less. Then we compare that with the glowing results given to shareholders, and we see the chasm between the two messages. We realize what we are being sold: a soon-to-be-even-more-inflated bill of goods.
Frankly, you don’t have to be a genius to recognize that looking at a gas gauge, worrying about overlimit fees, and being stuck paying $100 more a month for broadband is not going to make anyone outside of this industry happy.
The first time a consumer gets a bill from a company with a plan like Time Warner’s, they are going to kick the bucket.
Anyone who doesn’t recognize and admit the real potential of market abusive pricing and policies in a limited competitive marketplace isn’t being completely honest, especially when the players do not offer roughly equivalent levels of service. If the future of broadband in this country is to be unregulated virtual duopolies, then perhaps consumers need to insist on common carrier status for those networks, allowing equal access to a variety of competing providers, with oversight to guarantee fair wholesale pricing and access.