A big 40oz can of Hype from the Washington Post.

Conservative bloggers are calling it socialized “Obama-Wi-Fi,” broadband advocates claim it represents salvation from high-priced wireless service plans, and the media echo chamber is amplifying reports that the federal government in on the verge of launching a nationwide free Wi-Fi network.

Sorry folks, it is not to be.

An article in Sunday’s Washington Post originally titled, “FCC Proposes Large Public WiFi Networks” got the ball rolling, and almost 3,000 reader comments later, a full-scale debate about the merits of government-supplied Wi-Fi Internet access is underway.

Cecilia Kang and her headline writer mislead readers with statements like these:

The federal government wants to create super WiFi networks across the nation, so powerful and broad in reach that consumers could use them to make calls or surf the Internet without paying a cellphone bill every month.

[…] If all goes as planned, free access to the Web would be available in just about every metropolitan area and in many rural areas.

There is nothing new about the FCC’s effort to set aside unlicensed spectrum for so-called “white space” Wi-Fi. As the spectrum wars continue, wireless companies like Verizon and AT&T are pushing proposals to further shrink the number of channels on the UHF television band and repurpose them for expanded cellular data networks. That newly available spectrum would be secured through an FCC auction. FCC chairman Julius Genachowski wants to set aside some of that available spectrum for unlicensed use, including the next generation of Wi-Fi, which will greatly extend its range and speed.

There is no proposal on the table for the government to fund or create a free, national Wi-Fi network as an alternative to paid commercial services. At issue is simply how 120MHz of newly-available television spectrum would be made available to new users. Republicans and large wireless companies like Verizon and AT&T are demanding the vast majority of that spectrum be auctioned off. AT&T and Verizon would like to expand their spectrum holdings, and a straight “highest bidder wins” auction guarantees the vast majority of it will be divided by those two companies. Many Democrats and broadband advocates want a portion of that spectrum set aside to sell to AT&T and Verizon’s competitors — current and future — to promote competition. They also support set-asides that make frequencies available for unlicensed uses like Wi-Fi.

Genachowski’s proposal could potentially spur private companies or communities to build community-wide Wi-Fi networks operated on unlicensed frequencies. With more robust signals, such high speed wireless networks could be less costly to construct and serve a much wider geographic area.

The potential for competition from the public or private sector is what bothers companies like AT&T and Verizon. Both argue that since they had to pay for their spectrum, allowing other users access to free spectrum would be unfair, both to themselves and to the government’s effort to earn as much as possible from the auction. AT&T has been the more aggressive of the two companies, repeatedly attempting to insert language into legislation curtailing the FCC’s ability to set aside a significant amount of spectrum for unlicensed use. While AT&T’s lobbyists do not go as far as to advocate banning such networks, the technical conditions they demand would make them untenable. AT&T and others also demand the FCC must close down unlicensed networks if they create “harmful interference,” which is open to interpretation.

Helping the wireless companies in the campaign against the next generation of Wi-Fi are hardware manufacturers like Cisco, which has been trying to deep six the proposal for at least two years. Why? Because Cisco’s vision of wireless networking, and the products it has manufactured to date, are not in sync with the kind of longer distance Wi-Fi networks the FCC envisions. Cisco faces overhauling products that were designed under the premise Wi-Fi would remain a limited-range, mostly indoor service for consumers and businesses.

The threat to incumbent Internet Service Providers is clear enough. If a new version of Wi-Fi launched that could blanket entire neighborhoods, communities, non-profits, or even loosely-knit groups of altruistic individuals could launch free Wi-Fi services sharing their Internet connection with others. If the technology allowed users to seamlessly hand off wireless connections from one free Wi-Fi hotspot to another, much like cell sites do today, customers might downgrade their wireless data plans with big telecom companies. Machine-to-machine networking could also rely on Wi-Fi instead of commercial wireless data plans. It could threaten billions in potential revenue.

Stopping these networks is a priority for corporate interests with profits at stake. But one thing they do not have to worry about, at least for now, is the federal government getting into the wireless Internet business.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Washington Post FCC offers path to free Internet access 2-4-13.flv[/flv]

After the original story ran in the Post, Cecilia Kang participated in this interview which clarified what the FCC is actually proposing. This video explains what spectrum allocation and unlicensed spectrum is all about. Kang clarifies her article, explaining private companies and/or communities will have to decide what to do with the unlicensed spectrum. The federal government is only facilitating the space and has no plans to run a national network itself. (5 minutes)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/tech-telecom-giants-take-sides-as-fcc-proposes-large-public-wifi-networks/2013/02/03/eb27d3e0-698b-11e2-ada3-d86a4806d5ee_story.html

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.

[flv width=”636″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Susan Crawford on Captive Audience The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age 12-12.flv[/flv]

Invest an hour of your time and learn about how America ceded its broadband leadership to a handful of telecom companies that have carved out comfortable, barely competitive territories for themselves, leaving Americans overpaying for slow broadband service. Susan Crawford is author of the new book, “Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age,” which has just been published. (65 minutes)

A CenturyLink official made a remarkable concession in the state of Minnesota last week when he admitted the state’s community-owned broadband networks are better equipped to deliver 21st century broadband speeds that CenturyLink simply cannot provide.

Duane Ring, midwest region president for CenturyLink publicly told an audience at a Minnesota High Tech Association-sponsored discussion in Minneapolis that community-owned networks don’t have to meet shareholder demands for return on investment and other corporate metrics that have left CenturyLink broadband customers with far lower speeds than municipal broadband customers. Minnesota Public Radio was on hand:

Noting that CenturyLink wants every customer it can find, Ring pointed out that the company nonetheless needs a return on investment that satisfies shareholders and meets the demands of larger commitments and fiduciary responsibilities.

The small phone companies that have laid high-speed fiber networks, some of whom are cooperatives whose customers are the owners “can make decisions that maybe the economic return is 25 years,” Ring said. “They can do that.”

CenturyLink concedes Paul Bunyan offers better speeds over a superior network.

Only 62 percent of Minnesotans can today purchase what qualifies as broadband service. Those lucky enough to be served by public providers like Paul Bunyan in the Bemidji area and Farmers Mutual Telephone in western Minnesota benefit from some of the fastest broadband speeds in the state. That is because those cooperatives and public ventures laid fiber optic cables connected to individual homes. Those in rural Minnesota served by CenturyLink or Frontier get much less from slow speed, copper-based DSL, if they can get broadband at all.

CenturyLink has proven itself an obstacle for community broadband, opposing the construction of improved networks in areas they already service, condemning rural customers to substandard broadband speeds indefinitely. While the company says it is not opposed to public-private partnerships, any attempt to bypass them will result in a hornet’s nest of legal protests and blocking actions.

While community-owned networks struggle for financing and approval in a hostile atmosphere created by incumbent providers, the government is handing out money to companies like CenturyLink to get them to extend their slow speed DSL network. CenturyLink is spending $11 million in Connect America funds in Minnesota alone.

In other areas, residents have no interest in waiting around for single digit DSL speeds. In Lac qui Parle County in western Minnesota, local officials have joined Farmers Mutual Telephone to build a fiber network.

CenturyLink’s admission proves it answers first to shareholders, much later to customers.

Time Warner Cable announced late last week it would add 650 call center jobs in South Carolina in 2013.

Most of the new positions will be in Lexington County at a newly expanded call center in West Columbia.

The company said it was increasing telephone sales and support positions by 50 percent in the state and would make a $24 million investment in its operations this year.

Gov. Nikki Haley said Time Warner Cable chose South Carolina for its business-friendly climate.

“The ultimate celebration in South Carolina is when a company expands,” Haley said at an event announcing the expansion. “It’s the biggest compliment to a county, it’s the biggest compliment to a state because it shows that there is true commitment in taking care of the businesses that we already have.”

In July, Haley further demonstrated that commitment by signing a bill promoted by Time Warner Cable and other telecommunications companies that would make it next to impossible for communities to construct and operate their own broadband networks in a state woefully underserved by the cable company and AT&T.

As Christopher Mitchell from Community Broadband Networks points out, the new law is corporate welfare at its finest, requiring local governments to avoid undercutting the rates charged by incumbent phone and cable companies, even if the government could provide the service at reduced cost.

“It effectively prohibits municipalities from operating their own broadband systems through a series of regulatory and reporting requirements,” said Catharine Rice, president of the SouthEastAssociation of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (SEATOA). “These practically guarantee municipalities could never find financing because the requirements would render even a private sector broadband company inoperable.”

The majority of the new jobs are expected to start at salaries under $40,000 a year. In May, Frontier Communications opened its own call center in Horry County that pays much lower salaries than the call centers it replaced.

In separate announcements, Time Warner Cable noted it planned to “consolidate” call center positions in other locations, which means employees in other cities and states will either lose their jobs or accept invitations to transfer to other facilities, potentially for lower pay.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WLTX Columbia 650 New Jobs in SC At TWC 1-4-13.flv[/flv]

WLTX in Columbia favorably reports Time Warner Cable’s forthcoming hiring spree in their area.  (2 minutes)