Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski has gotten the message.  After a report earlier this week in the Washington Post that the chairman was contemplating leaving broadband unregulated, without Net Neutrality protections, thousands of calls and e-mail messages poured into FCC headquarters protesting the report and asking for action.  Many also called their members of Congress and the White House demanding the administration keep its word on broadband reform policies.

Late Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal published news that Genachowski had apparently changed course:

In a move that will stoke a battle over the future of the Internet, the federal government plans to propose regulating broadband lines under decades-old rules designed for traditional phone networks.

The decision, by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, is likely to trigger a vigorous lobbying battle, arraying big phone and cable companies and their allies on Capitol Hill against Silicon Valley giants and consumer advocates.

Breaking a deadlock within his agency, Mr. Genachowski is expected Thursday to outline his plan for regulating broadband lines. He wants to adopt “net neutrality” rules that require Internet providers like Comcast Corp. and AT&T Inc. to treat all traffic equally, and not to slow or block access to websites.

The Journal’s framing language about “decades-old rules” aside, the decision by the chairman to reclassify broadband as a “telecommunications service” was the only way forward for an agency who had its authority cut from beneath it by a recent court decision.

The news that Genachowski was considering leaving things as-is, totally deregulated, met with opposition from both leaders of the House and Senate Commerce Committees which have jurisdiction over the FCC.  Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California) and Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) wrote Genachowski urging the Commission to consider “all viable options” to regain authority over broadband.  When Congress speaks, the FCC listens.

The Commission had two choices — keeping broadband “regulated” under Title I of the Telecommunications Act under the now court-discredited “information service” paradigm, or reclassifying it under Title II as a “telecommunications service,” where the Commission enjoys the prospect of already court-tested and approved authority to regulate.  Either way assured legal challenges, but under Title II the Commission faced just a single lawsuit to reaffirm its authority to regulate such services.  Under Title I, every reform attempted by the Commission would face provider lawsuits, with precedent on the side of the cable and phone companies to win.

The telecommunications industry and their allies have attempted to frame such reclassification as a government takeover or regulation of the Internet.  Some of these companies even threaten to challenge any reclassification as a violation of their First Amendment rights, an absurd notion for a company that transports content from third parties to its customers.  Since when does a provider get to assert ownership over speech from someone else?  It’s overreach like this that helped fuel the demand for Net Neutrality in the first place.  The policies the FCC seeks to enact as part of the National Broadband Plan, including Net Neutrality, do not regulate or “take over” the Internet — it guarantees that providers can’t block or control that content for monetary gain.

Genachowski is signaling he’s intent on reclassifying broadband not to saddle broadband providers with 1940s telephone regulations, but to assure the Commission and the Administration it can bring the National Broadband Plan to reality without provider roadblocks thrown up along the way.

Sources have leaked details to the media that suggest Genachowski will propose a novel “third way” of broadband reclassification — asserting the right to regulate broadband under Title II, but exempting broadband providers from most of the regulatory provisions that were written to deal with Ma Bell.  In other words, the changes would turn the clock back, before the DC Circuit Court threw out the FCC’s regulatory authority to spank Comcast for throttling its customers’ broadband speeds.  With Title II authority in place, Genachowski hopes a court hearing the same case would have found for the FCC, not against it.

The telecommunications industry has already gone over the top suggesting Genachowski’s plan represents Broadband Armageddon.

One of the industry’s good friends is Senator John Ensign (R-Nevada).  He has their talking points down word for word:

“Using this heavy-handed approach to regulation … will jeopardize private investment and innovation in broadband and inject regulatory uncertainty throughout the entire Internet,” Ensign said in a statement.

“We would expect a profoundly negative impact on capital investment,” warned Stanford Bernstein analyst and lover of big cable Craig Moffett in a research note to clients Wednesday night titled “The FCC Goes Nuclear.”

“The only potential winners are the satellite providers, DirecTV and Dish Network, for whom incremental broadband regulation would dramatically reduce the risk of competitive foreclosure in the video business at the hands of bottleneck broadband providers,” he wrote.

The hue and cry over any broadband regulations or court decisions unfavorable to the industry always results in claims it will “dry up investment,” “retard growth,” or downright ruin the Internet for everyone.

Some in the business press even suggest today’s unveiling of Genachowski’s “third way” represents uncharted waters for America’s broadband story.

But how soon they forget.

When SBC and AT&T won approval to merge, one of the conditions was that the new super-sized AT&T respect Net Neutrality concepts for a period of two years.  They agreed:

Net Neutrality
1 . Effective on the Merger Closing Date, and continuing for 30 months thereafter, AT&T/BellSouth will conduct business in a manner that comports with the principles set forth in the Commission’s Policy Statement, issued September 23, 2005 (FCC 05-151).

2. AT&T/BellSouth also commits that it will maintain a neutral network and neutral routing in its wireline broadband Internet access service. 15 This’ commitment shall be satisfied by AT&T/BellSouth’s agreement not to provide or to sell to Internet content, application, or service providers, including those affiliated with AT&T/BellSouth, any service that privileges, degrades or prioritizes any packet transmitted over AT&T/BellSouth’s wireline broadband Internet access service based on its source, ownership or destination.

So for two years, AT&T lived under the same rules the FCC seeks to enforce nationwide for all broadband providers.  Did the company shut down?  No — it grew larger with additional mergers and acquisitions.  Did  broadband expansion stop?  No — AT&T has since unveiled its U-verse service and faster broadband in many cities across its service area.  Has it reduced investment in broadband?  What do you think AT&T is spending on deploying U-verse?

The sky never fell, the investment never disappeared, and there was no panic in the streets.  When consumer protections are enacted, the same companies that are currently proclaiming that such changes will ruin their businesses will be singing a different tune to their Wall Street investors once they are enacted.

Read Chairman Genachowski’s Full Statement Below the Jump!

… Continue Reading

(This piece is written by Jay Ovittore and Phillip Dampier.)

The good news is that all the pushback on an all-out-moratorium on municipal broadband was successful and Senator David Hoyle (D-Gaston) withdrew the idea.  The bad news is he had an even worse idea to replace it.

Hoyle Wednesday unveiled a new draft bill that hopelessly ties up municipal broadband projects into knots of red tape that, if passed into law, will bury municipal broadband projects in North Carolina indefinitely.

Hoyle sprung his telecom-industry-friendly legislation on the public after getting plenty of input and encouragement from the state’s cable and phone companies who already knew what was in it because they helped craft it.

For a retiring state senator who doesn’t have to worry about the next election, what better parting gift can you give to your friends in the cable and phone industry than a bill that preserves the comfortable duopoly they’ve  enjoyed for years.

Hoyle and those supporting the legislation will argue their bill doesn’t ban municipal broadband — it simply places conditions on such projects before they can go forward.  But what are those conditions?

Section One of the draft bill requires local governments to get funding for “external communications services” (ie. municipal broadband) by way of a General Obligation Bond (a GO Bond).  In North Carolina, that requires a taxpayer-funded referendum to be held for public input at the next election.

On the surface, getting public approval for municipal broadband isn’t a bad idea — no local government official expecting to win re-election would ever proceed on such projects without voter support.  But this requirement also gives plenty of advance notice to incumbent providers that a new player could be invading their turf.

We know what that means.  A well-funded opposition campaign to demagogue the project.  Local cable companies can insert an unlimited number of free ads during every advertising break to slam the proposal.  Phone companies can release a blizzard of opposition mailers to convince consumers it’s as scary as Halloween — all tricks and no treats.

How can a local city or county government respond to the misinformation barrage?  They can’t.  Public officials can’t spend taxpayer dollars to promote such projects or refute industry propaganda.  They can’t even financially assist a citizen-run campaign.

That’s a fight with ground rules only Don King could love.

In the end, that leaves ordinary citizens of North Carolina facing down a multi-billion dollar statewide consortium of telecommunications interests hellbent on preserving and protecting the status qu0.

The earlier-discussed moratorium was a brick wall against municipal broadband.  Hoyle’s bill is the Great Wall of China with the logos of AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and CenturyLink plastered all over it.

But wait, there’s more.  To deal with municipal broadband projects that got an initial green light to dare to interfere with the phone and cable industries’ grand business plans, another provision provides a near endless supply additional referendums to get rid of the projects.  Hoyle’s bill actually demands more votes should existing systems need:

• refinancing to reduce the interest rate or restructure existing debt;
• to make repairs to the system’s “fixtures;” and/or
• to upgrade the system to meet subscribers’ needs.

Ponder the insanity:

• The legislation could be interpreted to demand a public referendum if your service goes out.  Can you wait until the next election to get back your cable service?
• If a municipal broadband fiber cable falls in your backyard, does it make a sound?  It won’t, but you will when you learn that cable might not be reattached to the pole until the whole town holds a referendum about it;
• Would you be upset if your local municipal provider could refinance its debt at a much lower interest rate, letting them cut their prices, but they can’t before the next election?
• While cable and phone companies refuse to upgrade their service to levels that would have made such municipal alternatives unnecessary, they also want to make certain the one provider that did meet your needs can’t upgrade… without a public vote.

These systems are not constructed with public tax dollars, but Senator Hoyle wants every citizen in a community, subscriber or not, to ponder the future of a local municipal broadband provider.  It’s like giving AT&T veto power over Time Warner Cable’s channel lineup.  Guess who has to pay for these constant referendums?  Taxpayers.  So while Senator Hoyle complains municipal broadband costs the state tax revenue, his legislation guarantees increased government spending on pointless referendums.  That’s logic only a politician working for the interests of big cable can appreciate.

For the cable and phone companies, and their good friends in the North Carolina legislature, this is their idea of a level playing field.  In reality it’s about as level as a downhill ski run.

Let’s extend that “fairness” out to incumbent cable and phone companies and consider whether you got a vote on:

• Whether or not the cable and phone companies got to put their wires on phone poles plunked down in front of your house;
• Whether or not you wanted either company to dig up your yard to bury their wiring;
• Whether you wanted that giant metal refrigerator-sized metal box installed on your street, in your yard, or on the phone pole you see from your window every day;
• Whether or not you want the cable company to repair Mrs. Jenkins’ problems with HBO up the street whenever it rains or replace the cable the squirrels chewed up;
• What channels and services you want to pay for, which ones you do not, and at what price you need to pay your local phone or cable company.
• What cable or phone company gets to provide service in your community.

Apparently the fairness concept only applies to potential new competitors, not the existing providers.

Let’s also consider the cable television industry didn’t just magically bloom into a multi-billion dollar business without government help.  In the early days of cable television, investors were assured that they were financing a monopoly provider, guaranteed through a franchise agreement process that gave newly built cable companies exclusivity to help repay construction costs.  Franchise wars broke out between 1978 and 1984 as competing companies promised the moon with state-of-the-art two-way cable systems with the capacity to offer 70 or more channels.  The players then included Time’s American Television and Communications Corporation, Warner’s Amex, and Telecommunications, Inc. (TCI).  ATC and Amex would later evolve into Time Warner Cable and TCI became AT&T Cable before being sold to Comcast.  Communities seeking cable television for their residents would later learn a lot of these promises made were promises broken – reneged on by large cable companies with few, if any consequences.

During the Reagan Administration, then-FCC Chairman Mark Fowler bestowed additional deregulation benefits on the cable industry.  The Museum of Broadcast Communications explains:

The Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984 addressed the two issues that still hindered cable television’s growth and profitability: rate regulation and the relative uncertainty surrounding franchise renewals. Largely the result of extensive negotiation and compromise between the cable industry’s national organization, the National Cable Television Association, and the League of Cities representing municipalities franchising cable systems, the act provided substantial comfort to the cable industry’s future.

Its major provisions created a standard procedure for renewing franchises that gave operators relatively certain renewal, and it deregulated rates so that operators could charge what they wanted for different service tiers as long as there was “effective competition” to the service. This was defined as the presence of three or more over-the-air signals, a very easy standard that over 90% of all cable markets could meet. The act also allowed cities to receive up to 5% of the operator’s revenues in an annual franchise fee and made some minor concessions in mandating “leased access” channels to be available to groups desiring to “speak” via cable television.

Additional reforms guaranteed pole attachment rights to the cable industry so they could wire and service their network unencumbered by utility company interference or high pole attachment fees.  Cable consolidation allowed formerly mom and pop cable systems to become part of a cable industry where just a handful of cable companies provide service to the majority of cable households.  Countless millions are spent each year by the industry to lobby state and federal governments to keep the party going without regulatory interference, suggesting competiti0n alone is the only regulation required.

Except when a new competitor enters the market, of course.  Fearing competition from municipal providers who will force cable and phone companies to charge reasonable rates and upgrade service, the best possible solution is to find a way to ban such projects.

Forcing regular referendums and the complexities and expenses associated with them guarantees no community in North Carolina would ever bother with the onerous requirements to launch municipal broadband projects.

That’s not just Jay and I saying that.  What Hoyle has proposed hardly breaks new ground.  It’s the same dog and pony show the industry has brought to other states to stop competition and keep prices high and service slow.

So let’s learn from the painful experiences of others:

First lobbying for legislation requiring referendums and then winning it, SBC (later AT&T) and Comcast used the opportunity to spend more than $300,000 of their subscribers’ money to launch a major misinformation campaign with misleading and inaccurate mailers that successfully fought off a proposition to deliver better and cheaper service through a municipal broadband project in Batavia, Geneva, and St. Charles, Illinois.  Fiber for Our Future documented the whole sordid affair from start to finish as a lesson to others confronting industry-backed referendum requirements.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/unproven.flv[/flv]

Want a preview of the distortion and misinformation-campaign cable and phone providers will bring to stop municipal broadband?  Watch this SBC (today AT&T) executive tell city officials in Illinois that fiber is “unproven,” that the phone company’s DSL speeds are comparable to Comcast Cable, and that consumers don’t need the 3Mbps speed the company was delivering back in 2004 when this video was taken.  “What are you going to do with 20 megabits.  I mean, it’s like having an Indy race car and you don’t have the race track to drive it on.”  (3 minutes)

Longmont, Colorado spent years suffering with bad broadband service from Comcast and Qwest and sought a better alternative with a municipally-run provider.  But then the cable and phone giants spent $200,000 to put a stop to that.  While local subscribers may have preferred that $200,000 be used to reduce their rates, for Comcast and Qwest it was an investment in maintaining future pricing only duopolies can achieve, all while delivering “good enough for you” broadband service to Longmont residents.  In 2006, the Baller Herbst Law Firm collected information on industry-backed barriers to municipal broadband, and the list went on for nine pages.  Many of them sound eerily familiar to what Hoyle proposes (after cable and phone companies whispered time tested, industry proven ideas into his ear).

The city of North St. Paul, Minnesota has advice for states like North Carolina after their own experience with a coordinated industry-backed smear campaign against municipal broadband enabled by legislation similar to what Hoyle proposes:

What should be of interest to all communities was the organized opposition.  It appears that the incumbent providers, industry associations and politically conservative think tanks teamed up to promote negative news stories, do polling and opposition phone calls, provide transportation for identified “no” voters and create web sites.

While we heard some advocates lamenting this high priced anti-municipal fiber effort, this response is something that community leaders must expect and be prepared for.  A strong community education and mobilization effort must be a part of any municipal telecommunications initiative.  A coalition of business owners and residents must be created and maintained that can counter the expected efforts of the incumbent providers.  The benefits of the community-owned network should be documented and promoted so that an overwhelming majority of voters will choose to vote yes.  We hope that, one way or the other, North St. Paul gets the “More, Better Broadband” that the MN Broadband Coalition supports.

Of course, when local communities are banned from spending a nickel on advocacy for their projects, it effectively hands a restraining order to broadband advocates who can’t even get on the playing field, level or otherwise.

Outraged yet?

It will only get worse if Hoyle’s bill ever becomes law.  Residents in communities like Salisbury endured a sampling of the kind of negative campaign this industry will launch wherever municipal broadband competition threatens to appear.  In 2009, residents were hassled with push-polling phone calls from industry-backed astroturf groups claiming to represent ordinary citizens, but were actually little more than sock puppets for big telecom.  Your mailbox will be filled with blizzards of misleading mailers that current cable and phone customers pay for.  If they need more money, they can always raise your rates to cover the difference.  In the end, with the help of elected officials who don’t care about North Carolina consumers, existing municipal projects can bleed themselves dry (later to be used by the industry as “failed examples” to claim such projects are too risky to try) and proposed ones will never see a spade plunged into the soil to bury the first strand of fiber optic cable.

But it’s not all bad news.  It doesn’t have to happen this way.  You can tell your state representative you are watching them like a hawk on this issue.  Any “yes” vote for legislation like that proposed by Senator Hoyle is a no vote for them at the next election.  Let them know you are well aware of the game plan here — it has been tried in other states with similar legislation that is little more than protectionism for big telecom. Tell your elected officials you already have the power to choose whether or not you want these projects simply by voting for or against the elected officials that propose them.  While the concept of a referendum sounds fair on the surface, it’s not when you consider the past experiences of other communities who faced well-funded opposition campaigns, helpless to correct the record or fairly argue their position on the matter.  Providers know that, which is why they advocate this type of legislation in the first place.  It effectively stops competition, stops better service, and stops North Carolina residents from enjoying lower priced cable, phone, and broadband service.

There are a few stand-up representatives of the people of North Carolina who do deserve our gratitude and thanks today.

Rep. Paul Luebke, (D-Durham County) (who co-chairs the Revenue Law Study Committee) [email protected] 919-733-7663 College Teacher

Rep. Jennifer Weiss, (D-Wake County) [email protected] 919-715-3010 Lawyer-Mom

They both will likely face fierce opposition from the incumbent providers and their fellow legislators. Please take the time to thank them for standing with consumers today and for trying to protect the future of North Carolina and its economy.

Stop the Cap! will have video of today’s remarks by both legislators soon.  We hope to follow with a complete video record of today’s events surrounding the anti-competition legislation proposed by Senator Hoyle.  It will serve as a testament to just how much work we have to do to remove legislators who have stopped representing the public interest, and renew our support for those who stand with consumers.

Meanwhile, check out these two delightful pieces paid for by the cable and phone industry, sent to homes where municipal broadband projects faced a referendum in 2003 and 2004.  More than a dozen different mailers were sent to every home in the communities of Batavia, Geneva, and St. Charles, Illinois from phone and cable companies.  Now imagine the repercussions when not one of those communities could respond with their own mailers correcting the record and giving their side of the argument.  There is a reason why special interests spend enormous sums of money to protect their turf, and the battle is over before it even begins when those interests demand the other side not have the opportunity to respond in kind.

What smears do providers in North Carolina have in store for you?

… Continue Reading

It’s gratifying to know we are not alone in recognizing the parade of minority interest groups on the dole of big telecom companies who are only too willing to parrot their talking points to strike down pro-consumer broadband reform.

Davey D, a journalist, educator, columnist and Hip Hop activist originally from the Bronx who now lives and works in Oakland where does a daily radio show – Hard Knock Radio (KPFA 94.1 FM) is pondering why so many groups are so willing to sell out their constituents:

One of the strategies used by AT&T was to go to communities of color, find Civil Rights organizations and in my humble opinion and pay for their silence or advocacy. The list ranged from LULAC to the Urban League which filed briefs siding with the FCC. It makes no sense why organizations which have long spoke about not having voice their voices heard and a seat at the table would go along with any sort of policy that strip that away from the average person who found such an opportunity via the Internet.

Was having sponsorship dollars for the next awards banquet payment enough? Or a some computers for an after school program payment enough? We’re talking about intelligent people here. It would be absolutely trifling to sell out for something that low and glaringly obvious.

Stop the Cap! exchanged views last week with one such “coalition of the willing to take the check” that claims to represent the interests of Latinos, but won’t answer basic questions about how much they got and from what phone or cable company.

Sylvia Aguilera, representing the Hispanic Technology and Telecommunications Partnership, which itself is made up of several groups cashing AT&T’s checks, chided me for my earlier remarks, “HTTP supports reasoned dialogue on the issues and remains dismayed by those, like you, who stoop to categorizing esteemed minority organizations as “astro-turf’. You will gain no allies in our communities with this strategy.”

Our response was to ask Aguilera to come clean on whether HTTP was also getting AT&T money and how much.  No response.  That speaks volumes, of course.  Aguilera makes the mistaken assumption that groups that actually represent consumers are interested in allying themselves with “dollar a holler” advocacy groups like those that make up the HTTP.  Latino readers of Stop the Cap! wondered where HTTP was when Time Warner Cable was testing Internet Overcharging schemes on their Road Runner service in Austin and San Antonio, Texas.  Unlike so many Net Neutrality foes in the not-for-profit community, Stop the Cap! doesn’t take industry money and is 100 percent supported by individual consumers.

Our contention is reasonable dialogue is impossible on telecommunications issues when some of that speech is bought and paid for by AT&T.  In other words, HTTP and its coalition members’ views on this specific issue are nothing more than astroturf and won’t carry much legitimacy in the eyes of consumers as long as AT&T is still cutting them checks.  Return the money, refuse to accept contributions that represent a conflict of interest on public policy debates, and then the reasoned dialogue can actually begin.

Now does this mean these kinds of groups do no good?  Of course not.  I’m sure they have projects that are valuable and important to their respective community interests.  But having come from the non-profit sector myself, I am also well aware of what some groups are willing to do to raise funds, and they aren’t fooling me for a second, nor should they you.

Davey D sums it up:

Below is a list of Civil Rights orgs that submitted files to the FCC saying they wanted to have the internet DEREGULATED. When your s*it starts slowing down, your message filtered or censored, your music hard to access and more importantly your fees go up, give these esteemed organizations and people a call and ask them how they intend to correct what will go down as a egregious error. Maybe they can let you use their accounts cause I’m certain in exchange for siding with these big telecoms they got a few perks including unfettered and fast lane access.

Here are recent anti-Network Neutrality filings by organizations of color

(There are more and I will post them later.)

Urban League Chapter

Click to access 7020408309.pdf

Click to access 7020400790.pdf

Click to access 7020400568.pdf

Click to access 7020408157.pdf

Click to access 7020400510.pdf

National Lesbian and Gay Chamber of Commerce

Click to access 7020408718.pdf

Hispanic Federation

Click to access 7020408716.pdf

LISTA

Click to access 7020408720.pdf

Latino community Foundation in San Francisco

Click to access 7020408354.pdf

Native Americans

Click to access 7020408711.pdf

Click to access 7020408291.pdf

Click to access 7020408712.pdf

Click to access 7020408709.pdf

Click to access 7020408717.pdf

Click to access 7020408708.pdf

Click to access 7020408713.pdf

NAACP in California

Click to access 7020408307.pdf

Rainbow Push

Click to access 7020408211.pdf

Texas State Rep. Robert Alonzo

Click to access 7020408179.pdf

MANA, A National Latino Organization

Click to access 7020400566.pdf

100 Black Men of South Metro

Click to access 7020400798.pdf

100 Black Men of Mobile

Click to access 7020401015.pdf

100 Black Men of Greater Mobile

Click to access 7020401015.pdf

ASPIRA

Click to access 7020400339.pdf

100 Black Men of Tennessee

Click to access 7020400506.pdf

100 Black Men of Orlando

Click to access 7020400502.pdf

HTTP

Click to access 7020400970.pdf

Hispanic Interests Coalition of Alabama

Click to access 7020401020.pdf

SER: Jobs for Progress

http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=7020400060

NAACP Mar-Saline Branch

Click to access 7020399888.pdf

Japanese American Citizens League

Click to access 7020399819.pdf

Organization of Chinese Americans

Click to access 7020399334.pdf

Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies

Rep. Yvette Clarke

https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/7020399667.pdf

(The Liberal Party is sponsoring an online town hall meeting this afternoon at 3:30PM EDT on the issue of expanding broadband in rural Canada.  Why not join in and demand that Michael Ignatieff commit to reforming the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, which has landed Canada in a real broadband mess filled with Net Neutrality violations and Internet Overcharging schemes like usage caps and consumption billing.  The CRTC has been so submissive to Canadian telecom, they might as well be their trade association.

Tell him rural broadband expansion doesn’t do much good if the existing providers, which got Canada into this mess, are still in charge of running it.  Real broadband reform requires a government committed to universal broadband that works for Canadians and doesn’t simply profit from them.  Demand Net Neutrality commitments from the Liberal Party and an end to overcharging schemes.  Universal broadband doesn’t mean much to Canada if Canadians can’t use it without fear of overlimit fees and enormous bills at the end of the month. — Phillip Dampier)

The Liberal Party of Canada has promised rural Canadians they will not be left behind the digital online revolution, unveiling a promise Tuesday to deliver universal broadband access to all Canadians within three years of taking office.

Michael Ignatieff, Liberal leader made the commitment as part of a series of planks the party introduced under its “Rural Canada Matters” platform to attract support from rural Canadians, who tend to vote Conservative.

“Too many rural communities can’t get access to essential services, because we don’t have the digital infrastructure to deliver them,” said Ignatieff. “That’s why I’m committing a future Liberal government to 100 percent high-speed Internet for every rural, remote and Northern community in our country.”

According to Ignatieff, using proceeds from a 2011 wireless spectrum auction, a Liberal government would invest to achieve an interim target of 100 percent high-speed Internet connectivity of at least 1.5 Mbps. A Liberal government would also seek to set a more ambitious goal for 2017, Canada’s 150th anniversary as a country.

The Liberals blasted the incumbent Conservatives for breaking their promise to deliver rural broadband to Canadians.

In 2006, Canada’s Telecommunications Review Panel recommended the federal government achieve 100% high-speed Internet connectivity by 2010. This goal was not achieved under the Conservative government.  According to the CRTC, in 2009 close to 800,000 Canadian households still did could not access high-speed Internet – or 20% of all rural Canadians. At the turn of the century, Canada ranked second in the world in Internet connectivity, but has now fallen to tenth place.

Ignatieff announced the plan in Thunder Bay, Ontario at an Internet access center run by Contact North.  He characterized the current state of broadband in Canada as threatening the country’s economic competitiveness and quality of life for rural residents.

“While railways and highways were the essential infrastructure of the 20th century, fiber optic lines, satellites and wireless towers, are the digital infrastructure needed to connect our communities and strengthen our economy in the 21st century,” said Liberal Rural Caucus Chair Mark Eyking, “In all regions of Canada, families and businesses depend on access to the Internet and mobile phone coverage.”

New Democratic Party (NDP) MP Bruce Hyer (Thunder Bay-Superior North) praised the Liberal plan.

“Obviously, country-wide broadband is a good idea,” Hyer told The Chronicle-Journal newspaper in Thunder Bay. “And there should be virtually no community of any size in Canada, and nowhere along the Trans-Canada, for sure, that we don‘t have high-quality mobile phone access and service. The United States has those things, and we should have them, too.”

But NDP MP John Rafferty (Thunder Bay-Rainy River) told the newspaper he’s heard it all before.

“Liberals have been talking about rural broadband access for a decade now,” he said. “The interesting thing is that he says rural Canada matters. But clearly it hasn’t mattered to Liberals for a long time, or else we would’ve had broadband.  They had a chance to do this. What they’re doing is regurgitating old promises.”

Rafferty said the Liberals first brought it up in 2001, and said then it would cost $4 billion.

“I’m not sure where he comes up with ($500 million).”

Another concern for the Liberal Party plan is the fact it relies entirely on private providers to deliver the service, something they have refused to provide many rural Canadians thus far.  In effect, the government would transfer $500 million dollars earned from large telecommunications companies buying additional spectrum and then hand it all back to those same companies to construct slow speed broadband services they can then profit from.

While many Canadian officials blame Canada’s large rural expanse for the digital divide, others blame Canada’s broadband providers who have engaged in usage-limiting schemes, increased prices, and throttled the speeds of certain broadband services.

Country	Universal Service Target	Target date
US	4 Mbps	2020
UK	2 Mbps	2012
Canada (Liberal Proposal)	1.5 Mbps	within 3 years of being elected
South Korea	1 Mbps	Currently available
Finland	1 Mbps	Currently available
Ireland	1 Mbps	2010
Germany	1 Mbps	2010
France	0.5 Mbps	2010

The Washington Post this morning reports FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is preparing to sell out a free and open Internet by adopting a provider appeasement policy that would abandon consumers and broadband users to the whims of big telecom companies.

In an extraordinarily disappointing move by the Obama Administration, which promised to adopt Net Neutrality and better broadband service for consumers, political expediency and typical Democratic party cowardice are likely to derail any hope for adopting consumer protections for the Internet.

Three sources at the [FCC] said Genachowski has not made a final decision but has indicated in recent discussions that he is leaning toward keeping in place the current regulatory framework for broadband services but making some changes that would still bolster the FCC’s chances of overseeing some broadband policies.

The sources said Genachowski thinks “reclassifying” broadband to allow for more regulation would be overly burdensome on carriers and would deter investment. But they said he also thinks the current regulatory framework would lead to constant legal challenges to the FCC’s authority every time it attempted to pursue a broadband policy.

Genachowski is living in a dream world — the non-reality-based community — if he believes for a second the nice telecom industry will happily go along with his plans for better broadband while leaving the current anti-competitive duopolistic framework of deregulation in place.

Telling a multi-billion dollar broadband industry to keep their paws off content and preserve an open and free network would be burdensome… for Stalin.  It should not be for AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon.  If it is, that is why we are supposed to have checks and balances to protect Americans from a corporate oligarchy.  But money talks, and despite all of the repeated promises from President Barack Obama to preserve an open Internet, once the political pressure gets applied and the Money Party of corporate contributions gets going, you can always count on these people to cave in the end. “What Net Neutrality promise?”

Stop the Cap! supporters, with the help of a few “get it done” elected officials and other consumers who stood up and said “no more” to Time Warner Cable and the North Carolina legislature, managed to beat back Internet Overcharging experiments and corporate-friendly legislation to ban municipal broadband networks.  We accomplished both in a matter of weeks last year.  What was our secret?  Integrity.  We’re not behest to corporate lobbyists and industry-funded think tanks who hold the keys to post-administration job opportunities with super-sized salaries.  The Obama Administration and its appointed FCC chairman seem utterly impotent to do what a regulatory agency is supposed to do — regulate.  We might as well have Neville Chamberlain as FCC Chairman, because consumers are starting to feel a bit like 1938 Czechoslovakia, about to be sold out for peace inside the Beltway.

Readers, we will not be Julius Genachowski’s Tylenol.  To the contrary.  Chairman Genachowski appears exceptionally naive to believe he can enact any of his broadband policies over lawsuit-happy big telecoms that will promptly have them tossed out in court rulings.  If you and I already know this, why doesn’t he?  We need bold action, not policy capitulation.  Perhaps it’s time to replace the chairman with someone who isn’t afraid to do the job.

It always shocks me when we elect an administration to lead on the issues it pursues during an election, and then cowers in fear and abandons the American people the moment some lobbyists turn up the heat and start handing out checks.  Even when the overwhelming majority of Americans want a free and open Internet, somehow a handful of bureaucrats in Washington are too afraid to actually get the job done.

“The telephone and cable companies will object to any path the chairman takes,” said Art Brodsky, a spokesman for Public Knowledge, told the Post. “He might as well take the one that best protects consumers and is most legally sound.”

It’s too bad that is considered the radical solution in a lobbyist-infested Washington.  It looks like we’re going to need to start counting the money and making it clear in no uncertain terms that abandoning consumers means we’ll abandon them at the next election.

Marvin Ammori, a CyberLaw Advocate:

If the Post story is predictive, there is almost no list of “horribles” that are not fair game. I’m listing ten. Most of these “horribles” have actually happened as business practices where the carriers got their way. And media companies are believed to refuse ads or stories that criticize them or oppose their position.

Comcast (or AT&T or Verizon or Time Warner Cable) could do any of the following and the FCC could do Big Fat Nothing:

(1) Block your tweets, if you criticize Comcast’s service or its merger, especially if you use the #ComcastSucks hashtag.

(2) Block your vote to the consumerist.com, when you vote Comcast the worst company in the nation. No need for such traffic to get through.

(3) Force every candidate for election to register their campaign-donations webpage and abide by the same weird rules that apply to donations by text message.

(4) Comcast could even require a “processing fee,” becoming the Ticketmaster of campaign contributions.

(5) Comcast could reserve the right to approve of every campaign online and every mass email to a political party’s or advocacy group’s list (as they do with text message short codes).

(6) If you create a small online business and hit it big, threaten to block your business unless you share 1/3 or more of all your revenues with them (apps on the iPhone app stores often are forced to give up a 1/3 or more; so are cable channels on cable TV).

(7) Block all peer to peer technologies, even those used for software developers to share software, distribute patches (world of warcraft), distribute open source software (Linux). In fact, Comcast has shown it would love to do this.

(8) Block Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo, Moveon.org (and its emails), because of an “exclusive” deal with other blogs. Or alternatively, block FoxNews.com because of a deal with NBC and MSNBC.

(9) Monitor everything you do online and sell it to advertisers, something else that some phone and cable have done, with the help of a shady spyware company.

(10) Lie to you about what they’re blocking and what they’re monitoring. Hell, the FCC wouldn’t have any authority to make them honest. The FCC couldn’t punish them.

<

p style=”text-align: center; padding-left: 30px;”>