Christopher Mitchell at Community Broadband Networks has been doing some excellent reporting on a story we covered earlier this year.  Where AT&T is concerned, there is never enough time for just one group to uncover all of their anti-consumer endeavors, so we appreciate Mitchell’s very detailed analysis of the latest ripoff in the making.

The Wisconsin state legislature, vying for most corrupt body this side of Huey Long’s Louisiana, is trying to kill WiscNet, the state’s public institutional broadband network.  In its place, they propose to pay AT&T more money to run a far inferior service.  Would you spend $13 million more in taxpayer dollars for a network that delivers less service than the existing network?  You do when the company behind the proposal hands out enormous campaign contributions.

The rhetoric from AT&T’s supporters borders on hysterical, with the usual memes about the government not being able to run anything correctly — despite the fact WiscNet delivers better service for less money than AT&T wants, and the claim that government shouldn’t be involved in broadband because it is the domain of the free market and private enterprise (free to charge top dollar).

Now, AT&T and their dollar-a-holler friends want Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker to approve the budget-busting change, even though many of AT&T’s best friends in the legislature are the same ones screaming about the need to cut state spending.  It’s Big Telecom-sponsored corruption on the highest level, and Wisconsin taxpayers will pay the price.  If you live in Wisconsin, take a few minutes to read Mitchell’s stories and then get on the phone to Madison and let them know if they vote for this, they are next in line to be disconnected.

Coverage:

• AT&T Tells Wisconsin: All Your Tax Dollars Belong to Us
• Wisconsin Superintendent: No Really, Broadband is Essential for Education
• Resolution and Statement In Support of WiscNet
• Does AT&T Really Own the Wisconsin Legislature? Battle Over WiscNet Continues
• Access Wisconsin Supported Broadband Stimulus Before They Opposed It
• Internet2 President Says Wisconsin Legislation is an Unnecessary Disaster

Purdue

North Carolina Gov. Bev Purdue today announced she will not veto H.129, Time Warner Cable’s special interest corporate welfare bill because there are too many votes available to overturn her veto:

Her statement:

“I believe that every school, household and business in North Carolina – no matter where they are – should have access to efficient and affordable broadband services.

There is a need to establish rules to prevent cities and towns from having an unfair advantage over providers in the private sector. My concern with House Bill 129 is that the restrictions the General Assembly has imposed on cities and towns who want to offer broadband services may have the effect of decreasing the number of choices available to their citizens.

For these reasons, I will neither sign nor veto this bill. Instead, I call on the General Assembly to revisit this issue and adopt rules that not only promote fairness but also allow for the greatest number of high quality and affordable broadband options for consumers.”

While we would have preferred she make the symbolic gesture of vetoing this horrible piece of legislation, by no means does this mean the battle for better broadband in North Carolina is over.

Stop the Cap!, along with other broadband proponents, will immediately begin our efforts to de-elect legislators who best represented the interests of Time Warner Cable and not their constituents.  Most are Republican, but many are Democrats.  They all need to feel the wrath of angry constituents.

It’s our view we had an uphill battle fighting this year’s bill for two reasons:

1. Big Telecom companies learned from their earlier mistakes;
2. The historic change of power to the very-corporate-friendly Republican Party in North Carolina.  Elections really do have consequences.

"I wish you'd turn the camera off now because I am going to get up and leave if you don't." -- Rep. Julia Howard

While not all Republicans are bad, and several rural North Carolina representatives expressed grave reservations about their areas going unserved, there are not enough good ones in office to offset the anti-consumer lockstep voting we saw on this bill.  Rep. Marilyn Avila, who we have consistently called the “Republican representing Time Warner Cable” is a case in point.  Time and time again, she demonstrated a complete lack of understanding about the technical nature of “her bill” and its implications on cities and towns across the state.  Indeed, a citizen activist even snapped photos of Avila hobnobbing with her cable lobbyist friends, who mopped up any goofs Avila made along the way.

Another major problem can be found in Rep. Julia Howard (R-Davie, Iredell).  She claimed her word is her bond, right before she broke it.  When the media pressed her on the $7000 in campaign contributions she received from Big Telecom and whether that connected to her support for H.129, she threatened to flee the interview if a Raleigh television station didn’t immediately shut the camera off.

There is a real classy example of standing up for your principles, whatever were that week.  The former realtor and appraiser helped foreclose North Carolina’s broadband future, handing it back to the near-exclusive control of Time Warner Cable and CenturyLink.

Appealing for less broadband competition under the guise of smaller government might be fine for some, but big and bigger cable bills are not, and that is what H.129 will deliver to every resident in the state.  We’ll prove it to you soon enough.

Two can play the legislative game.  We’ll be encouraging new legislation in the state to improve and expand competitive broadband opportunities for consumers and businesses.  Real conservatives should agree: competition is a great antidote to Internet Overcharging.

It’s time for every consumer across the country to help our friends in North Carolina, who are now facing the prospect of a Broadband Dark Age with the passage of a cable-industry-written bill designed to protect their monopoly prices and deliver America’s worst broadband experience.

The grand lie that is the Level Playing Field/Local Government Competition Bill (H.129) claims it will protect broadband competition in the state.  It will, if you are Time Warner Cable facing top-rated, super-fast service from community broadband networks that compete with them in communities like Salisbury and Wilson.

The power to protect North Carolina’s broadband future is now in the hands of Gov. Bev Purdue.

The North Carolina Senate abdicated their responsibility to serve the interests of state residents.  On Tuesday, they voted 39-10 for this consumer atrocity:

Yesterday, the House added insult to injury voting 84-32 for the bill custom written by and for Time Warner Cable:

Not a single Republican in the House stood up for you.

Faison

Several legislators that still remember they represent the interests of voters and not out of state big cable and phone companies were appalled.

Rep. Bill Faison (D-Caswell, Orange), who has been a champion of better broadband across North Carolina, reminded the Assembly the bill should have been named the Time Warner Cable Anti-Competition Bill, written by a New York City-based company that will prevent cities from using their collective buying authority to provide themselves (finally) with the broadband service the private sector has steadfastly refused to deliver.

Faison noted Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt made $27 million in compensation last year — the same as the entire cost of Wilson’s GreenLight fiber-to-the-home cable system.

Faison openly pondered what the cable company has been paying to employ the six full time lobbyists who have been trolling the halls of the state legislature for months, and exactly how much next year’s rate increase will be to pay for their services.

Even the former chairman of the state Republican party called H.129 an enormously arrogant piece of legislation.

Luebke

Another hero for consumers, Rep. Paul Luebke (D-Durham), noted the bill’s immediate impact will be to keep rural North Carolina a broadband desert.  Luebke called H.129 a bad bill that denies service even to communities where no broadband service exists.

But Rep. Marilyn Avila (R-Time Warner Cable) wanted to ensure no one could say there was a broadband problem in North Carolina, so she supported an amendment that allows areas to be declared served if even a single home has broadband service in a particular census block.  That provision delivers beneficial protection to CenturyLink, who can spend their time, money, and attention on a merger with Qwest, the last remaining independent Baby Bell.  While they focus on making themselves bigger through mergers and acquisitions, the phone company faces no competitive pressure to expand service in rural North Carolina, and will face no meaningful competition for the indefinite future.

While Gov. Purdue’s office has made noises about vetoing this bad legislation, it is essential that we let the governor know we need an absolute commitment on her part to veto H.129.  We’ve seen how Big Telecom plays their dirty pool, so we cannot afford to sit back and allow their lobbyists to wear the governor down.

Gov. Purdue

When Time Warner Cable tried to slap an Internet Overcharging scheme on consumers in New York, North Carolina, and Texas in 2009, Stop the Cap! made a commitment to join forces with all of the impacted communities to present a united consumer front against provider abuses.  H.129 qualifies.  That’s why we urge everyone to contact Gov. Purdue and let her know she must veto H.129, an anti-consumer, anti-broadband bill.

Please call -and- e-mail her office:

• E-Mail: [email protected]
• Phone: +1 919 733 2391

Minor Correction Made 5/6 – 5pm ET: We made an error referring to a census tract instead of a census block in the original piece.  One of our readers dropped us a note correcting us, which we are happy to do.  A “tract” actually has many “blocks” in it.

Commercial providers and their pals in the legislature will go to any length — even lie — to protect their cozy duopoly, charging high rates for poor quality service.

That fact of life has been proven once again in the state of Tennessee, where an effort to expand EPB Fiber — a community owned fiber network — to nearby communities outside of Chattanooga, was killed thanks to a lobbying blitzkrieg by Big Telecom interests.

The “Broadband Infrastructure for Regional Economic Development Act of 2011,” supported by chief sponsor House Majority Leader Gerald McCormick, (R-Chattanooga), is dead after telecom industry lobbyists unleashed a full court press to stop the legislation from passing into Tennessee law.

The bill would have permitted EPB and five other municipal electric services that have or are developing broadband infrastructure to expand service up to 30 miles outside of their service area, where appropriate, to meet the needs of businesses or consumers.

With the legislation, EPB could bring its 1 gigabit fiber broadband service to Bradley County, home to a future Amazon.com distribution center.  Amazon already operates a huge warehouse in Hamilton County, where it was able to obtain EPB’s super-fast broadband service.  According to Harold DePriest, EPB President and CEO, Chattanooga’s fiber network is helping sell the city as a high-tech mecca for business, where broadband connectivity is never a problem.

DePriest says EPB’s network has been a proven job-creator, and Amazon.com’s ongoing expansion in the region is just one example.

Chattanooga residents and businesses now have the fastest broadband service in the southern United States, at prices often far less than what the competition charges.  Expanding EPB’s success to other parts of Tennessee represents a major threat to the likes of Comcast and AT&T, the state’s dominant telecom companies.

EPB provides municipal power, broadband, television, and telephone service for residents in Chattanooga, Tennessee

Lobbyists fought the bill off with some whopper tall tales about the “horrors” of community broadband.

Some Republican lawmakers friendly to Comcast and AT&T’s point of view have bent their philosophical positions on government and regulation into logic pretzels.  One has even called for EPB to be regulated by Tennessee’s Regulatory Authority, a body many state Republicans feel is about as helpful as a tax increase.

Despite that, there was Rep. Curry Todd (R-Collierville) at a recent hearing telling fellow lawmakers EPB and other community providers should be regulated by the TRA to protect ratepayers from the “loss of tremendous amounts of money coming out of taxpayers’ pockets.”

Does Todd think Comcast and AT&T should also be regulated?  Of course not.  Nobody should protect consumers from AT&T’s and Comcast’s relentless rate hikes.  Todd cannot even get his facts straight.

After 19 months, EPB has 25,500 customers — far ahead of its projections, and is well ahead of its financial plan, according to DePriest.  So much for being a “financial failure.”

Rep. Curry Todd has trouble with the facts, but has no problem counting campaign contributions amounting to more than $12,000 from Comcast, AT&T, the state cable lobby and other telecom companies

On cue, the same cable industry that tried to sue EPB Fiber out of existence is now comparing the Chattanooga fiber network to Memphis Networx, a disastrous effort by that city to build a public-private wholesale fiber optic network only business and institutions could directly access.  It’s hard to earn critical revenue from consumers when you run a wholesale network.  Even harder when you build it just before the dot.com crash.

EPB sells its service directly to business and consumers, so it gets to keep the revenue it earns, paying back bondholders and delivering earning power.

Stop the Cap! reader John Lenoir notes some of the local tea party groups are also being encouraged to oppose EPB’s efforts to expand.

“Just as Americans for (Corporate) Prosperity is lying about North Carolina’s community broadband, these corporate front groups are also engaged in demagoguery over EPB in Tennessee,” Lenoir says.  “In addition to the usual claims EPB represents ‘socialism,’ the locals are also being told EPB wants to use their fiber network to run smart meters, which some of these people suspect are spying on them or will tell people when they can and can’t use their electric appliances.”

Lenoir in unimpressed with the telecom industry arguments.

“AT&T’s opposition is downright laughable, considering this company raised its rates on U-verse and will slap usage limits on every broadband customer in a few weeks,” Lenoir adds.  “We thank God EPB is here because it means we can tell AT&T to stick their usage limits and Comcast can take their overpriced (and usage limited) broadband somewhere else.”

Lenoir thinks EPB should embarrass both AT&T and Comcast, but since neither company feels any shame in his view, it’s more about business reality.

“Why do business with AT&T or Comcast and their gouging ways when you can sign up for something far better and support the local community,” Lenoir asks.

AT&T spokesman Chris Walker complains that the phone company is somehow faced with an unlevel playing field in Tennessee, despite the legislature’s repeated acquiescence to nearly every AT&T-sponsored deregulatory initiative brought before it.  The company wants a “level playing-field” statute like the very-provider-friendly (it should be — it was written by them) one currently before the North Carolina state Senate.

Comcast questions whether anyone needs 1 gigabit service, but the cable company’s Chattanooga vice president and general manager Jim Weigert told the Times Free Press it could deliver 1 gigabit service… to business customers… assuming any asked.

DePriest questions that, noting Comcast tops out its broadband service at 105Mbps, and only for downstream speeds.  Comcast upload speeds top out at 5Mbps.  EPB can deliver the same upstream and downstream speeds to customers and do it today.

North Carolina: The home of the House-sanctioned broadband slow lane.

Not a single Republican member of the North Carolina House of Representatives stood with consumers yesterday as the cable industry’s custom-written anti-community-broadband bill — H.129 — passed the House in a lopsided 81-37 vote. Fifteen Democrats joined them, some after it was apparent the bill would enjoy lockstep support from their Republican colleagues.  Only three dozen Democrats were willing to choose the interests of their constituents over the interests (and campaign contributions) from Time Warner Cable, AT&T, and CenturyLink.

Rep. Bill Faison (D-Orange) told WRAL-TV voters need to be aware H.129 was Time Warner’s custom-written bill imposing harsh terms and conditions on community broadband networks, while exempting big cable and phone companies.

“Where’s the bill to govern Time Warner?” Faison asked.

Faison predicted the bill will make it next to impossible for any future community broadband effort to deliver service, even in areas where nobody else has or will.

In the communities of Mooresville and Davidson, House Speaker Thom Tillis (R-Cornelius), who represents north Mecklenburg including Davidson and Rep. Grey Mills (R-Mooresville) both voted for the bill, throwing the local community-owned MI-Connection cable system under the bus.  That cable system, acquired from bankrupt Adelphia Cable and rebuilt to modern standards, faced unexpected financial hurdles from the decrepit state the infrastructure was left in when it was sold.  H.129 would limit the system’s ability to reach its entire natural service area in an effort to remain viable, likely banning service for unincorporated Mecklenburg and Iredell counties, and parts of the community of Corelius.

Avila’s statements defending her bill ranged from confusing to the downright absurd — particularly the assertion that high tech businesses will avoid North Carolina if her bill didn’t pass because companies would not want to do business in a state where the local government provided competing broadband service.  That’s a ludicrous notion for a business confronted with 1.5Mbps DSL from CenturyLink.  No high technology business will want to do business in a state that delivers some of the nation’s least adequate broadband service.  With Ms. Avila’s efforts, that fact of life could gain rubber stamp approval from many in the state legislature more interested in protecting the profits of New York-based Time Warner Cable than Wilson, N.C.-based GreenLight.

The bill is headed to the Senate next.  We’ll have a Call to Action up shortly regarding this.

If your member from the House of Representatives is not on the list below, they need to be held accountable for doing the wrong thing for North Carolina broadband.

NC House of Representatives Members Voting For Consumers By Opposing H.129

(Click the name of your member to obtain current contact information, and please send thanks for their vote yesterday.)