An encounter with Shaw Cable’s technical support was chronicled by a Shaw broadband customer trying to reinstate service.  It seems her ‘roommate’ moved out, taking the modem with him.  That left her on the line with Shaw’s technical support trying to reinstate service with an older modem she still owned.  It wasn’t going well:

Edward [Shaw Technical Support]: Is there is splitter on this line?

Me: Um, yes but it worked with the previous modem…

Ed: Take the splitter off and plug the cable directly into the wall.

Me: Oh ok. (Grunting, tries to remove the splitter but it’s really on there good) Hey, Eddy, I can’t get this thing off. It’s totally stuck on there tight.

Ed: Don’t you have any tools?

Me: I have a hammer.

Ed: That’s not going to work.

Me: Yes, I’m aware of that.

Ed: Isn’t there anyone there that can help you?

Me: No.

Ed: So, nobody else is there? You’re alone?

Cole’s notes:
Yes, a hammer is my only tool.
Yes, I am single. And alone. Again.
Technically that’s not very supportive, Edward.

The West Virginia Public Service Commission has denied a request from the agency’s Consumer Advocate Division to reconsider the sale of Verizon landlines to Frontier Communications.

The CAD criticized the proposed sale, pointing to earlier failures of similar transactions in Hawaii and northern New England which harmed consumers and businesses in those areas.  The consumer advocate sought a formal independent audit of the deal and increased safeguards to protect service quality and the customers soon to be served by Frontier.

The PSC claimed the CAD didn’t supply any new evidence in its filing justifying a reconsideration of its earlier order approving the sale.  It turned the request down on Monday.

Both Verizon and Frontier had asked the commission to reject the CAD’s request.

West Liberty, Iowa is home of Liberty Communications

One of the side effects of insatiable telecom industry consolidation is that hard-working, honest, and consumer-friendly providers are swept up by corporate machinery that ends up providing Americans with the least amount of service for the highest possible price.  Remarkably, there are still some top-shelf independent providers out there that actually stand with their customers, fighting to bring better broadband service to everyone in their service areas.

A letter to the editor in the West Liberty Index caught my eye.  It chastised the Federal Communications Commission for its plans to treat rural Americans as second class broadband citizens with speed goals 25 times slower than those enjoyed by their urban cousins.  The FCC, the writer wrote, was simply not going far enough for consumers.  What was so remarkable about the letter?  It was signed by an Internet Service Provider — Jerry Melick, manager of Liberty Communications.

What would happen if the federal government decided that city roads, bridges and infrastructure should be better-constructed and more efficient than the roads in rural America? What about if the policy-makers determined that urban consumers should be able to get where they are going and get what they need faster than rural consumers? A new government plan intends to make that true of our nation’s information superhighway — the Internet. And, while it is not the highway coming into town, as rural consumers, we should still be very concerned.

[…]

The FCC’s plan will make rural Americans second class citizens in the new broadband world, because it establishes a speed goal for rural areas that is 25 times slower than for urban areas. Shouldn’t rural residents have access to the same broadband services as our larger towns and cities? Despite the construction of our state of the art Fusion network, we still face the challenge of how to bring broadband to our rural customers living outside of the communities of West Branch and West Liberty. Without a National Broadband Plan that supports further investment in rural areas, this will be difficult if not impossible to accomplish.

Melick supports broadband reform efforts at the FCC and changing the Universal Service Fund to provide assistance to companies like his, serving rural eastern Iowa, to build out its fiber to the home Fusion network to nearly every resident in its service area.  That’s a refreshing change of pace from the usual rhetoric from AT&T, Frontier, Verizon, and others.

Liberty Communications began service as the independent West Liberty Telephone Company in 1899.  It delivered telephone service for more than 100 years until January 2008, when the company announced it was going to construct its own fiber to the home network to provide television, telephone, and broadband service to its customers.  The Fusion network would expand later that year to start construction in nearby West Branch, the birthplace of Herbert Hoover, the nation’s 31st president.  By April 2009 the fiber network offered a true triple play package of services to customers in both cities. Fusion broadband customers can buy up to 20/2 Mbps service from Liberty.  For the rest of its service area, Liberty still relies on DSL service providing up to 3 Mbps, but believes fiber is the future for all of its customers.

The only question remaining is when forward-thinking policies at the FCC will be enacted to help that goal?

A pro-consumer group has released a new report that refutes claims from the telecommunications industry that broadband reform represents an investment killer and takeover of the Internet by the Obama Administration.

Free Press this week challenging 10 of the wildest claims in its report, “The Truth About the Third Way: Separating Fact from Fiction in the FCC Reclassification Debate.” Aparna Sridhar, Free Press’ Policy Counsel used publicly available evidence to effectively debunk the multi-million dollar lobbying campaign to stop broadband reform.

Unfortunately, more than a handful in Congress have accepted those discredited claims as fact.  Free Press hopes truth will prevail over the enormous money-fueled opposition effort, especially as the FCC begins proceedings next week on its proposed “Third Way” approach to broadband oversight. The agency is expected to issue a Notice of Inquiry and to seek public comment on the issues of broadband reform and reclassification.

A sampling from the report, which we encourage you to read:

Fiction #3: Placing broadband services back under the Commission’s explicit authority will stifle investment in broadband networks.

Fact: The FCC’s proposed policy merely preserves the status quo prior to the recent uncertainty created by the federal appeals court ruling. As a result, it should have little to no effect on company investment decisions.

Many industry representatives and investment analysts have dismissed the notion that the FCC’s Third Way will deter investment. Furthermore, history contradicts the claim that applying some of the rules contained in Title II of the Communications Act to broadband service providers (as the Commission has proposed) will adversely affect investment in the networks. Telecommunications industry investments soared during the period when carriers were subject to the full panoply of rules contained in Title II. Investments only began decreasing once the FCC began dismantling many of the pro-competition rules stemming from this part of the Communications Act.

As we've said at Stop the Cap! for two years now, providers' investments in upgrading and expanding their networks are declining, even as demand (and prices) for those services are increasing.

Fiction #4: Placing broadband services back under the FCC’s explicit authority will lead to job losses in the telecom sector.

Fact: The telecommunications sector accelerated its job-shedding following industry consolidation and FCC deregulation, a trend that continues unabated even as company revenues reach historic highs.

The notion that the FCC’s move to re-establish its authority over broadband networks will harm employment is also nothing more than unsupported rhetoric. The simple reality is this sector accelerated its job-shedding following industry consolidation and FCC deregulation. And this trend continued even as overall revenues in the sector continued to expand. Unfortunately, the underlying market economics and company statements suggest this trend will continue regardless of how the FCC acts on the regulatory authority question.

So much for the argument that regulation will cause job losses. As this plainly illustrates, even as profits fatten at AT&T, Qwest and Verizon, employment numbers are on a steep decline in today's deregulated marketplace.

Fiction # 7: The FCC’s Third Way proposal is an unprecedented power-grab which departs from Congress’s intent to leave the Internet unregulated.

Fact: The FCC’s proposal will bring the Commission’s approach to broadband networks in harmony with longstanding principles in communications policy. The law always has recognized a distinction between communications infrastructure (like broadband networks) and the content that travels over that infrastructure (such as websites on the Internet). In fact, it was the Powell FCC’s decision to abandon oversight over broadband networks that represented a radical and irresponsible shift — by treating basic connectivity services just like content, the Powell FCC undermined the Commission ability to make pro-competitive, pro-consumer policies in the broadband space. This FCC’s proposal would return to the first principles of communications policy that fostered innovation, competition and investment in the first place.

Fiction #8: The FCC’s proposal would amount to a “government takeover of the Internet.”

Fact: The FCC’s proposal would draw a line between basic two-way communications — which have always been regulated by the FCC — and Internet applications and websites, which would remain unregulated by the FCC. None of the parties in the debate before the FCC have suggested that the FCC impose any kind of content regulation on the Internet. Nor has anyone suggested that the government take over the physical infrastructure that forms the Internet. Rather, the FCC is proposing to apply some basic, light-touch rules of the road to the owners of broadband networks.

These rules will attempt to encourage private investment, promote competition, and foster innovation, economic growth, and job creation. Further, restoring its regulatory framework back in harmony with the law will insure the FCC has basic consumer protection authority.

Comcast spent $3.1 million dollars of its subscribers’ money in the first three months of 2010 lobbying elected officials to approve its proposed merger with NBC-Universal and putting a stop to Net Neutrality proposals, according to disclosure statements files in the House clerk’s office.

Comcast has spent over $10 million dollars a year trying to keep broadband reform, ownership limits, and oversight regulators at bay.  Most recently, it is dedicating considerable time and resources lobbying elected officials, with campaign contributions in hand, to get federal approval for its proposed 51 percent ownership stake in NBC-Universal, making the nation’s largest cable operator also the owner of a two major television networks, and a studio that produces movies and television shows.