North Carolina Legislature Building

I received an e-mail from a very reliable source that told me that S1004 (Level Playing Field Study) will be in the House Public Utilities Committee this Wednesday.  Their plan is to refer the study bill to Rules with NO CHANGES.  Time Warner Cable and the telecom Lobby want the study bill (S. 1004) to go to Revenue Laws ONLY, and not the Broadband Committee as specified and required in the companion House bill (H. 1252) and advocated by Rep. Faison in the last committee hearing on H 1252.

We must make sure that this bill goes to Broadband Committee as it was publicly voted to do.

I issued this statement to Fiona Morgan from the Independent Weekly this morning on the current developments:

“It has come to my attention from a credible source on the inside that S1004 will be sent to the Revenue Laws Study Committee in the House Public Utilities Committee on Wednesday.  It will not go to the Joint Legislative Committee on High Speed Internet in Rural Areas as the Public Utilities Committee had voted to send  it to about a month ago.  An immense amount of pressure was applied by Time Warner Cable to place S1004 in Revenue Law, as it is a more favorable committee for them to pass this to a full vote.  The don’t want a “turf war” on this important issue.  They want a free market where they, and only they, are free to monopolize the markets in which they operate.  The very definition, from the Revenue Law Study Committee website, of the committee is that “The Committee reviews the State’s revenue laws to determine which laws need clarification, technical amendment, repeal, or other change to make the laws concise, intelligible, easy to administer, and equitable.”  This has nothing to do with the State’s revenue laws.  It makes sense that it be placed in the Joint Legislative Committee on High Speed Internet in Rural Areas, where the real issues of accessibility, speed and affordability can be addressed.  Anything less is a travesty to the citizens to which are legislators are beholden to, and shows that Time Warner and the cable/telecom industry got what they paid for from Sen. Hoyle ($25750 in PAC money) and Rep. Brubaker ($16250 in PAC money).

Municipal broadband is becoming more of a necessity because the current providers refuse to upgrade their infrastructure to technology that is found in this century worldwide.  We will continue to fall behind in health care, education and commerce at the speeds at which we move currently.  If we want to compete, we must first compete with the high-speeds the rest of the world moves at.  Most other developed countries have speeds at least 4 to 5 times the speeds we move at.  Japan is at 160Mbps compared to our 10Mbps.  South Korea will be at 1Gbps by 2012, 100 times faster.  For our state’s very survival, we need someone to step up and upgrade our broadband access and speed.  Municipalities are very capable and, more importantly, very willing to provide this step towards the future.   All the while, our current providers like to live on their gross profits in the past. “

My first point of contention is that if this is already predetermined, then what is a public committee for anyway.  In North Carolina,  we did away with back room meetings to decide things of a legislative manner.

My second point is, why is this being sent to Revenue Laws, when clearly it doesn’t even belong there?  A committee on Broadband is far more appropriate, if not the only place you could send it!  Sen. Hoyle and Rep. Brubaker sit on the Revenue Laws Study Committee, if you catch my drift.

Lastly, North Carolina is 5th highest in unemployment.  If we do not give ourselves the tools (and that includes affordable, accessible and up-to-date high speed Internet access), we will continue to head south economically.

Please write the committee members on the House Public Utilities Committee and tell them they should make the Senate concur with the House and send it first to the Broadband Committee and then onto Revenue Laws, the way they originally voted to address this important issue.  Tell them we need more accessibility, more affordability and a chance for our state to compete on a global level economically.  Let them know that we do not have that right now, due to archaic infrastructure supplied by greedy monopolies and duopolies.

Here are the members’ names and e-mail addresses:

Rep. Lorene Coates <[email protected]>, Rep. Harold J. Brubaker <[email protected]>, Rep. Nelson Cole <[email protected]>, Rep. Bill Faison <[email protected]>, Rep. Russell E. Tucker <[email protected]>, Rep. Kelly Alexander <[email protected]>, Rep. Hugh Blackwell <[email protected]>, Rep. Angela Bryant <[email protected]>, Rep. Becky Carney <[email protected]>, Rep. Beverly M. Earle <[email protected]>, Rep. Bruce Goforth <[email protected]>, Rep. W. Robert Grady <[email protected]>, Rep. Jim Gulley <[email protected]>, Rep. Pricey Harrison <[email protected]>, Rep. Hugh Holliman <[email protected]>, Rep. Julia C. Howard <[email protected]>, Representative Linda Johnson <[email protected]>, Representative Marvin Lucas <[email protected]>, Rep. Daniel McComas <[email protected]>, Rep. Tim Moore <[email protected]>, Rep. Wil Neumann <[email protected]>

A sample letter:

Dear Public Utilities Committee Member,

Please make sure that the study activated by SB1004 (The “Level Playing Field” bill)  is in fact level and balanced by mandating that the Joint Legislative Committee on High-Speed Internet in Rural Areas also studies broadband issues in North Carolina AND that the study includes an examination of how the public AND private sector are addressing broadband affordability, accessibility and capacity in North Carolina. Right now SB1004 just has Revenue Laws Study Committee studying what is wrong with municipal broadband ownership and no focus on the private sector broadband deficiencies. There is nothing “level” about that!

Please feel free to elaborate on this letter or write your own, but please write today!

Following the Money: Telecom's Best Friends in North Carolina Get a Payday

If there is one thing I know about how politics work, it is that when you follow the money you find the reason certain people are pushing so hard to get legislation through.  After doing some intensive research into the Senators involved with S1004, I found a trail of money that leads right back to the Cable/Telecom industry.  S1004 was primarily sponsored by Senator David Hoyle (D-Gaston County) and was co-sponsored by Sen Debbie Clary (R-Cleveland and Rutherford Counties).

Sen. David Hoyle (D-NC)

What made me think to look in the first place was the quotes in the local paper by Hoyle.

You can expect to see 1004 on the Senate floor and sent over to the House soon, said Sen. David Hoyle, its sponsor. Hoyle says he doesn’t much care how it gets studied, as long as it gets there.  “It’s an issue that needs to be looked at,” Hoyle said. “All the parties need to get in the same room and defend their position.”

Add that to a Hoyle quote reported on Facebook by the Greensboro News & Record’s Mark Binker, “I take great pride in being a pro-business member of the Senate.” Now I had to look.

What I found was that Hoyle took a total of $25,750 in telecom industry PAC money in 2008.  Embarq Employees PAC gave $4500, Time Warner PAC gave $4250,  AT&T PAC gave $4000, NC Cable PAC gave $2500, Sprint/Nextel PAC gave $3000, NC Broadcast PAC gave $1500, NC Association of Broadcasters PAC gave $4000 and ElectriCities gave $2000.  That last donor is particularly interesting, because their lobbyist, Drew Saunders, also happened to sponsor a nearly identical bill in  2007.

It is easy to see why Hoyle is pushing this legislation so hard for his telecom buddies: $25,750 is a lot of money for a state politician.  Most people don’t make much more than that in a single year working 40 hours a week.

Co-sponsor Clary has not been very outspoken on this bill, but her total take from telecom industry PACs was considerably lower as well, amounting to $4750.  Embarq Employees PAC gave her $1500, Time Warner PAC gave $1000, AT&T PAC gave $1750, and ElectriCities gave $500.

Other big players in the North Carolina Senate are also cashing their industry checks, and the details are forthcoming.  Next, my attention will turn to the sponsors of HB 1252 in the North Carolina House.  Soon, we’ll all know exactly how much is takes to get big telecom’s legislative agenda passed into law in the North Carolina General Assembly.

All information I have provided above was a matter of public records search at the NC State Board of Elections website.

The Austin Community Technology & Telecommunications Commission convened this past Wednesday for their monthly meeting to discuss, among other items, possible actions on Time Warner Cable consumption billing for broadband Internet.  According to chairman Chip Rosenthal, it was the longest agenda in the many years he’s been there, and the TWC discussion didn’t come up until after 9 p.m.

As a concerned Austinite and former TWC customer (thanks to AT&T U-verse!), I attended this meeting to make sure all the important information on the subject was made available to the commissioners.  I only had three minutes to speak, as per meeting rules, which wasn’t near enough time for me to get through my three pages of material.  Luckily though, since the topic was an agenda item, the commission was allowed to ask questions and they were gracious enough to ask me open-ended questions and allow me to continue my points.  I stressed to the Commission that the most effective actions they and the City Council could do is file comments to the FCC and the FTC, and to put pressure on state and federal legislators to remove impediments to municipal broadband.  I emphasized that even if the City has no intention of creating a municipal broadband service, it is to Austin’s benefit to have the option on the table.  I told the commission that I believe a major reason TWC initially chose Austin as one of its metered billing test markets is that TWC knew the city’s hands were tied and that it had no real recourse.  During the discussion after my presentation, the commission agreed to work on a resolution recommending to the City Council that, through the City Attorney, submissions be filed to the FCC, Federal Trade Commission, and the Texas State Attorney General, and they agreed that the city should begin working with state and federal legislators to stop abusive practices.  The commission also agreed they should focus their efforts on  the state and federal level because little could be done at the municipal level, and that they should seek out other municipalities in a similar situation to present a coordinated effort.

There were two interesting facts that I learned at this meeting.  One, the municipal franchise that TWC has with the city of Austin will expire in 2011, but at that point it will transition to a state franchise agreement.  I had never heard of a state franchise before.  I know that the negotiating power the city has at franchise renewal will be diluted considerably on the state level. Second, the current franchise only applies to TWC cable TV service, not its broadband products.  It was brought up in the meeting that Grande Communications, another regional cable provider, has full authority to compete in TWC’s market for broadband service.  This raised a serious flag to me.  If both cable TV and broadband products are carried on the same infrastructure, but the franchise agreement only applies to the cable TV service, then they are in effect creating and illegal de facto franchise out of the broadband market.  Grande cannot compete with TWC’s broadband product, because they’re not allowed to bring their cable TV infrastructure into TWC’s market.

Since TWC has decided to shelve it’s metered broadband trials in Ausin for the time being, there is not much the Telecom Commission can do against current TWC actions other than possibly investigate instances of service being shut off based on a soft 40 GB cap in their excessive use clause.  But the commission has resolved to begin the groundwork necessary to fight this issue in the future by codifying its own policies and rules for fair market practices and pressing the city of Austin to lobby state and federal lawmakers.

Thanks to Jay Ovittore and the City of Wilson, we have the video from the consideration of HB 1252, the horrible bill that would have made municipal broadband a virtual impossibility in the state of North Carolina.  Everyone who participated in our pushback should give themselves a pat on the back, because YOU helped make all the difference between broadband choice and advancement in the state vs. forcing communities into a broadband backwater.  Don’t believe for a second you just have to sit back and take what big telecom forces on you.  This shows you don’t!

This is what we can do — make the difference!

The NC Public Utilities Committee sends HB 1252 to a study committee. May 6, 2009.

North Carolina is not the only state where big telecom providers have gotten laws passed to protect their incumbency and monopoly/duopoly pricing.  From 2004, here is a list of the other states.  This may be one of the issues we may want to work on in the future.  These laws need to be repealed.  Local communities should not have their hands tied on broadband by one or two providers that only understand the word “no.”

State Barriers to Community Broadband Services

(updated December 2004)

Arkansas prohibits municipal entities from providing basic local exchange services. (Ark. Code § 23-17-409)

Florida imposes various taxes to increase the prices of telecommunications services (as distinguished from other services) sold by public entities. (Florida Statutes §§ 125.421, 166.047, 196.012, 199.183 and 212.08). Declared unconstitutional under Florida law, City of Gainesville v. Zingale, CA No. 2000-CA-00 1582 (Cir. Ct. 2d Cir., Leon Co., March 20, 2002), aff’d, Dep’t of Revenue v. City of Gainesville, No. 1D02-1582 (Dist. Ct. App., 1st Dist., Nov. 26, 2003), appeal pending in Florida Supreme Court.

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