Turner

Paralleling the debate for better broadband is the fight for renewable, domestically-produced energy, and outspoken former CNN founder Ted Turner has run into the same kind of corporate-backed opposition strategies broadband advocates face in a quest to deliver improved service to Americans.  As part of an event with T. Boone Pickens to promote the cause of renewable energy, Turner launched into an all-out assault on his former colleagues at Time Warner, who he characterized as inept.

“This is what I said at the Time Warner board room. I’m not on the board anymore because they didn’t get it, but I said ‘we’ve got to stop doing the dumb things and start doing the smart things.  We had 5 percent of Google in a music merger and I said to [former CEO] Dick Parsons, ‘Dick, I think we ought to hang onto that Google stock.’ This was about 10 years ago. He said, ‘That company’s a bunch of bullshit.’

Then, listen to this one. We had CNNfn, which was in 50 million homes, as Fox [Business] is in now. And they made the decision to close it down. It was breaking even, a cable network that was breaking even. We should have been in there competing with CNBC and Bloomberg.

They closed it down without even calling Rupert up, who said publicly he was looking really hard at getting into the financial news business. We could have gotten $100 million or $200 million from him just for the name and the 50 million subscribers. They didn’t even call him — they closed it down without even doing that, and he was sitting there with the money wanting to give it to ‘em. I mean, you know, how dumb can you be?”

Whenever incumbent interests are threatened with new innovations that challenge conventional business models, look out.  The well-financed opposition will do everything possible to stop new sources of competition, something a befuddled Pickens noted when he encountered a representative from oil and gas interests opposing his domestic production ideas.  He likened the guy to “Baghdad Bob.”  Turner also confronted corporate-friendly Fox Business News who interviewed both about their joint effort, leading Turner to drop the “BS-bomb” at one point on live television.

It’s just more evidence that the fight for better broadband with fiber-based networks, Net Neutrality, competition, and more affordable access will be resisted in much the same way entrenched incumbents always fight to preserve their profitable positions in the marketplace.  Your interests come second.

As for characterizations of Time Warner management’s ability to predict trends and make smart business decisions, Turner has the credentials to back up his beliefs as a vice-chairman of Time Warner from 1996-2006.

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Speaking at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles, Ted Turner had choice words for his former partner, Time Warner.  (2 minutes)

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T. Boone Pickens and Ted Turner sit for an interview with Fox Business News about renewable energy.  We’re into the weeds with this clip, but it’s useful to see the same kinds of astroturf campaigns drive other causes crazy as well.  Also fun to watch Turner drop the “BS-Bomb” on live television, causing some consternation for Fox Business News, which also challenged Turner’s notions of how to pay for smart grids.  (7 minutes)

Back in 2006, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens emphatically declared that the Internet was not a truck, but rather a series of tubes.  That’s why Net Neutrality was such a bad idea, get it?

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Senator Ted Stevens on Net Neutrality.mp4[/flv]

Senator Ted Stevens Infamous “Series of Tubes” Speech from 2006.  (11 minutes)

Fundamentally misunderstanding technology and the Internet is not exclusively the domain of an ex-senator from the State of Palin, however.

North Carolina State Senator David Hoyle (D-Gaston County) managed to illustrate he didn’t know what he was talking about either.

Hoyle’s pretzel-like logic, in opposing municipal fiber broadband projects in the state, is that fiber optics could be obsolete within five years, so we shouldn’t even bother with them:

“You know the technology’s changing daily. Five years, ten years from now … wireless could replace most of fiber optics of coaxial cable or, or copper even. Might become not totally obsolete, but their ability to, uh, you know, to fund the debt service from the hard assets they had to put into the ground.”

If one extends that reasoning to his good friends in the cable and telephone industry — if fiber is potentially obsolete in five years, what about the phone company’s copper wires and the cable company’s coax?  Copper wiring was used for telegraphy starting in the 1830s and is still the backbone of today’s telephone networks.  Coaxial cable was invented in 1880 and still runs into virtually every cable subscriber’s home.  The first commercial application for a fiber optic communications system came in 1977.  In fact, most experts believe fiber optics will be the platform for America’s telecommunications network for at least the next quarter century.  The cable industry promotes its own use of fiber, and forward thinking phone companies like Verizon are relying on fiber to the home networks to stay relevant for the future.

Sen. David Hoyle (D-NC)

Fiber optic has all of the advantages:

• SPEED: Fiber optic networks operate at high speeds – up into the gigabits and still rising
• BANDWIDTH: large carrying capacity, and growing larger as advances continue
• DISTANCE: Signals can be transmitted further without needing to be “refreshed” or strengthened.
• RESISTANCE: Greater resistance to electromagnetic noise such as radios, motors or other nearby cables.
• MAINTENANCE: Fiber optic cables costs much less to maintain, and upgrades can occur without disturbing existing cable — just switch the laser technology used.

The costs to construct fiber networks, which used to be in the thousands of dollars per household, is now well under $1,000 for companies like Verizon.  Keeping happy customers and having the ability to market phone, broadband, and television services across an all-fiber network open new revenue streams which help defray initial expenses.  Fiber is an investment in the future.

Why isn’t wireless going to make fiber networks obsolete?

Allocating sufficient spectrum to support today’s high bandwidth applications is a practical impossibility, especially considering the politics and in-fighting from current spectrum holders to keep their allocations.  Spectrum is a limited resource, which guarantees limited competition, limited bandwidth, and higher prices.  While wireless applications will continue to be an important part of our communications future, it is unlikely they’ll be the favored method to support high bandwidth content in the near term.  Considering the implications of all of the new cell sites required to provide blanket coverage, it may never survive the inevitable howls of protest from neighborhoods who have to live with the eyesores.

Senator Hoyle opened his mouth and stupid fell out.  He’s not just wrong — his comments also carry implications for his constituents.

The City of Gastonia, along with Gaston County jointly filed an application alongside 35 others here in North Carolina seeking to get Google’s 1 Gigabit Fiber Optic to the Home Network.

How do city officials feel about their representative in the state legislature actively trashing fiber networks?  I will have that answer for you soon.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/fiber_obsolete_DS_You_Tube_HQ.mp4[/flv]

Senator David Hoyle (foreground, with back to camera) tells meeting fiber could be obsolete within five years.  (25 seconds)

Chama, New Mexico

Emergency officials trying to warn residents of Chama, New Mexico about the threat of potential flooding were stymied by widespread service outages from Windstream Communications, the area’s broadband and telephone service provider.

The loss of service even impacted cell phone companies, whose cell tower sites relied on Windstream to get cell phone traffic into the telephone network.

More than 30,000 customers lost long distance and Internet service in the Chana area, leaving a local radio station as the primary source for communications to and from officials and Chana residents.

Residents began calling KZRM Radio asking about the service outages, leaving one local DJ to shrug his shoulders, noting he didn’t know because he couldn’t call out either.

Windstream kept 911 service running by call forwarding incoming emergency calls to cell phones in Española, located on the other side of Rio Arriba County.

Information about the flooding ultimately traveled primarily by word of mouth.

Windstream blamed the outage on a power surge.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KOAT Albuquerque Chama Communications Down During Flooding 4-19-10.flv[/flv]

KOAT-TV in Albuquerque reports on the plight of 30,000 Chama residents left without cell, long distance, or Internet service during a potentially dangerous flood.  (2 minutes)

Bachmann

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota), appeared on Sean Hannity’s show last night to go way over the top, telling Fox News viewers the Obama Administration was supporting Net Neutrality as part of an effort to censor the Internet.

Oh sure, that’s all they have left now, is they use pejorative terms, hateful terms, against those who are carrying the message. So whether they’re attacking conservative talk radio, or conservative TV, or whether it’s Internet sites — I mean, let’s face it, what’s the Obama administration doing? They’re advocating Net Neutrality, which is essentially censorship of the Internet.

This is the Obama administration advocating censorship of the Internet. Why? They want to silence the voices that are opposing them.

This isn’t the first time this talking point has been used.  Glenn Beck fancies Net Neutrality in much the same world view, helped along by the likes of astroturfers like Americans for Prosperity’s Phil Kerpen.  Kerpen’s group, among others, receives corporate money to drag down consumer protections that would stop Internet providers from delivering less service to you at an ever-increasing price. If it takes suckering Fox News viewers into believing Net Neutrality is an Obama plot to shut down freedom of speech on the Internet, so be it.

Of course, Bachmann’s tirade is the opposite of reality.  She is either clueless about the concept, or has cynically bought a ticket on the PsychoTalk Express, delivering fear-based, fictional talking points about online freedom.  Net Neutrality preserves freedom of speech on the Internet, even for misinformed folks like Michele Bachmann, in at least two ways:

1. Your Internet Provider cannot shut down your website if they oppose your views;
2. A provider must assure access to your website unencumbered by speed throttles or other impediments they say can be removed… for the right price.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Fox News Michele Bachmann Net Neutrality 4-20-10.flv[/flv]

Rep. Michele Bachmann’s views on Net Neutrality were aired on Sean Hannity’s show last night.  (1 minute)

The implications of cable-TV cord cutting continue to be discussed on several newscasts airing around the country, prompted by an Arbitron study showing Americans are more willing to give up their televisions than forgo the Internet.

In Providence, Rhode Island WNAC-TV spent five minutes pondering life without cable, noticing younger people are increasingly not even bothering to sign up, preferring the convenience… and price of watching everything online for free.

WNAC-TV’s The Buzz suspects the days of “free” might be numbered, however.

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Make no mistake: The big cable, satellite, and telco carriers are still sitting pretty with more than 100 million TV subscribers. Nevertheless, a new report claims that more and more viewers are “cutting the cord” in favor of watching their favorite shows via over-the-air antennas (remember those?), Netflix, or the Web. (5 minutes)