Time Warner Cable and other Texas cable operators are now free from their obligations to Texas towns and cities after winning a victory by default in the U.S. Supreme Court that invalidates local cable franchise agreements across the state.

By refusing the hear a case filed by the Texas Public Utility Commission, the court let stand a lower court ruling that found Texas franchise laws discriminated against cable operators by holding them to local agreements its competitors never had to sign.

At the behest of AT&T, in 2005 the Texas state legislature passed a statewide franchise law that would allow the phone company to apply at the state level for permission to operate its U-verse cable system anywhere in Texas. But the law also compelled incumbent cable operators to remain committed to their existing local franchise agreements until they expired.

The Texas Cable Association, a statewide cable lobbying group, and Time Warner Cable filed suit in federal court challenging the law, winning their case when it reached a federal appears court in New Orleans. The appeals court judge ruled the Texas law discriminated against “a small and identifiable number of cable providers.”

Under the court’s ruling, Time Warner and other cable operators are free to tear up their franchise agreements in cities like Irving, Dallas, and Corpus Christi. In practical terms, the court ruling could allow cable operators to stop supporting local public, educational, and government access channels, reduce franchise fee payments to local communities, and stop providing discounted service to public institutions.

The “statewide video franchise” is a concept heavily pushed by both AT&T and Verizon because it reduces the number of communities phone companies have to negotiate with to provide video service. It also allows company lobbyists to specifically target a handful of state officials that end up with the responsibility of monitoring cable systems in the state. That is much easier to manage than dealing with dozens, if not hundreds, of individual community governments to win permission to serve different areas on different terms.

Unfortunately, critics contend the agreements remove local control and oversight of cable operations, and also cuts into franchise fee payments to local communities, because many states routinely keep up to half of all franchise fees for state government coffers.

The cable operators involved in the case did not blame the state for the provision in the law that kept them “hobbled” under their pre-existing local franchise agreements. Their court papers instead put the blame at the feet of lobbyists for AT&T, which they say has continued to heavily lobby officials to enact policies that disadvantage cable companies like Time Warner Cable in Texas.

The union representing at least 200 service technicians working on behalf of Rogers Communications, Inc., in Ontario are planning to strike this Friday at 8am.

The contract employees, represented by the Communications, Energy, and Paperworkers Union of Canada, are employed by Intek Communications and Dependable Home Tech — outsource firms that contract with the cable giant for technicians who handle routine service calls including installations and certain repair work.

The union claims that employees are paid on a “piece-work” system, which typically means on a “per-call” or “per-function” basis. That can create financial difficulty for contractors who cannot depend on a paycheck that remains steady from week to week.

It is not the first strike action against Rogers. Other Rogers’ contractors voted to strike the company last month, leading to tentative settlements.

Rogers employs thousands of technicians in the province, so the strike is not expected to have a major impact on the company’s ability to handle service requests.

Won first place nationally for the best 4G LTE network with the fastest overall speeds and best performance.

PC Magazine went to a lot of effort to test the data speeds of America’s wireless providers, traveling to 30 U.S. cities sampling both 3G and 4G wireless networks to see which carrier delivers the most consistent and fastest results.

After 240,000 lines of test data, the magazine declared the results a bit “muddy.”

They have a point.

Depending on which carrier’s flavor of “4G” is being utilized, where reception was strongest, how much spectrum was available in each tested city, and how many people were sharing the cell tower at the time of each test, PC Magazine was able to deliver the definitive results. And it was effectively a draw.

Verizon Wireless achieved victory in 19 cities, AT&T won in ten others, and T-Mobile came in pretty close behind, and that carrier does not even operate an LTE 4G network. But taking all factors into account, including upload and download speeds, whether or not test downloads actually completed, and whether streamed media was tolerable, Verizon Wireless won first prize nationwide.

But by how much?

Not enough to matter, if you are using Verizon, AT&T, or T-Mobile.

But the results do offer some things to think about.

1. MetroPCS is a mess. Despite the fact this smaller carrier is building its own 4G LTE network, results were simply terrible. Either its backhaul network from cell towers offers lower capacity or its backbone network is screaming for an upgrade.
2. Cricket was not willing to participate in the test. Their network, still 3G, delivers dependably “meh” results in the places where they actually provide coverage. The company has been reducing data allowances on their mobile broadband plans and raising prices on others. In one conference call with investors, company executives admitted they have been losing mobile broadband customers and expect that to continue at the prices they are charging.
3. Sprint needs their forthcoming 4G LTE network more than ever. Their 3G data service turned in mediocre results and their 4G WiMAX network was yesterday’s news a year ago. Sprint’s 3G network is also notorious for dead-end downloads, a situation I have witnessed on friends’ phones for several months.
4. Verizon Wireless remains far ahead of AT&T in covering more cities with their 4G LTE network. But more customers are also starting to use Verizon’s newer network, and the more customers piling on, the slower the speeds get for everyone. AT&T turned in some superior speed results in several cities, but those networks are often used less than the competition, for now.
5. No network is good if you cannot afford to use it. As America’s wireless carriers keep raising prices and reducing usage allowances to keep data usage under control, there will be a breaking point where customers decide the money they spend for wireless data just is not worth it, especially if they live in a place where Wi-Fi is free and easy to find.
6. What you test today will probably be different tomorrow. Wireless networks are constantly evolving and changing, with a wide range of factors contributing to their overall performance. Perhaps a more useful test would have been measuring how wireless carriers respond when their networks need upgrading and how long it takes them to respond to changing usage patterns. Verizon seems particularly aggressive, AT&T less so based on these results. The real surprise seems to be how well T-Mobile’s older technology is performing, and how quickly Sprint is now falling behind. On Cricket and MetroPCS, “you get what you pay for” seems to apply.

Consumer reporters across the country say Verizon’s boasts of savings for consumers on their new “share everything” plans are hardly universal. Many customers face significantly higher cell phone bills switching to Verizon’s new revenue-boosting plans that eliminate voice minutes and texting allowances.

[flv width=”360″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WCPO Cincinnati Verizon Savings Not So Much 6-18-12.mp4[/flv]

WCPO in Cincinnati’s John Matarese reports why Verizon’s new pricing plan will cost many customers more. (2 minutes)
 [flv width=”360″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WPTV West Palm Beach Verizon Share Plan 6-18-12.mp4[/flv]

WPTV in West Palm Beach talks with CNET about how consumers will need to become better educated to avoid the potential bill shock that comes from expensive, usage-restricted data plans. (2 minutes)
 [flv width=”480″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WWLP Springfield Verizon New Plans 6-15-12.mp4[/flv]

WWLP in Springfield, Mass. informs consumers how quickly they can burn through Verizon’s new $50 1GB wireless data plan. (1 minute)

Connected Nation, a broadband advocacy group with ties to some of the nation’s largest telecommunications companies, is accused of rewriting a Florida state budget amendment to divert proceeds from a federal broadband grant to itself.

A growing scandal over broadband map funding and allegations of political maneuvering and favoritism has now extended into the offices of several state Republicans now accused of doing the group’s bidding to change funding allocations in ways that could ultimately threaten Florida’s broadband grants.

Connected Nation’s involvement in the state’s broadband expansion efforts began in earnest in 2009 when the group won a $2.5 million contract to map broadband availability in Florida. A follow-up federal grant for $6.3 million to extend broadband deployment brought the group’s lobbyists back to Tallahassee to secure a “no-bid shot” at that new money for itself, which turned out to be a big surprise to the Department of Management Services, the Florida state agency charged with overseeing the project.

The grant award mandated that money be spent on additional broadband mapping and broadband expansion specifically for libraries and schools. When DMS hired contract employees to manage the project for the next two years, Connected Nation declared war on the effort, considering it their turf.

The Miami Herald called the lobbying battle that then ensued as “an audacious display of lobbying clout [that] got the Legislature to force DMS off the contract and steer the grant to [Connected Nation] instead.”

The newspaper reports the end effect of the bitter feud is a less than useful broadband mapping operation and a threat from the federal government it will yank back what remains of the grant money if things do not improve… quickly.

Connected Nation told the newspaper it defends its position as creating value for taxpayers and citizens. But the group also openly admits its broader goal is to increase broadband usage, which directly benefits its telecommunications partners, which the newspaper says includes AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast.

DMS officials are just as willing to play hardball in the statewide dispute, accusing Connected Nation of producing erroneous broadband maps and being responsible for “repeated performance problems.” They announced last year they would not renew Connected Nation’s contract.

Political observers note DMS probably did not realize who they were dealing with, and Connected Nation’s high powered lobbyists descended on the state capital to pull the rug completely out from under DMS, yanking the entire project away from the state agency and assigning it to another.

Holder

With the help of several Florida Republican legislators and the governor, DMS found itself without a broadband project, as lawmakers transferred it to Florida’s new “Department of Economic Opportunity.” The ultimate decision approving the transfer of broadband matters to an agency that suggests an allegiance to the private sector came from Florida’s governor Rick Scott.

The governor’s office muzzled DMS protestations. Marc Slager, deputy chief of staff for Gov. Rick Scott, acknowledged to the Herald he told DMS to stand down because “we don’t need to have different people from the governor’s agencies advocating an issue.”

Revenge is a dish best served cold, and Connected Nation is not through paying back DMS for interfering in their Florida plans to capture broadband grant funds. The group is taking its time working with several Republican legislators to cut more legs out from under the government agency.

With respect to the $6.3 million broadband expansion grant, the newspaper reports Connected Nation last year simply rewrote a state budget amendment, inserting themselves as the grant winner.

“Attached is a document that reflects conversations we’ve had with Chairman Weatherford, the draft language is consistent with the bill, and it is language we believe the [Legislative Budget Commission] would approve,” wrote Alli Liby-Schoonover, from Connected Nation’s lobbying firm, Cardenas Partners, in February 2011, making the change.

What a broadband mapping group was going to do with the money intended to wire schools and libraries remains unknown.