S1209 would have sailed through the North Carolina Senate 39-5 this afternoon had it not been for Sen. Joe Sam Queen who objected to the third reading of the bill.  Senator David Rouzer (R-Johnston, Wayne) also changed his vote from “no” to “yes” which would have ultimately left the count at 40 for and 4 against.  After that, the Senate adjourned and will take up the bill once again on Monday.  What a job well done… for the cable and phone companies.

Brian Bowman reports that none of the Wake County senators opposed the bill or asked that the moratorium be removed.

Out of the entire North Carolina Senate, there are just four good guys?:

Senator Joe Sam Queen (Haywood, Yancy, Avery, Madison, McDowell, Mitchell) [email protected]
Senator Steve Goss (D-Alexander, Ashe, Watauga, Wilkes) [email protected]
Senator James Forrester (R-Gaston, Iredell, Lincoln) [email protected]
Senator John Snow (D-Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Haywood, Jackson, Macon, Swain, Transylvania) [email protected]

Be sure to send all four of these folks your enormous thanks for doing the right thing.  Apparently that is becoming more and more difficult these days.

For those who forgot why this fight matters, here’s a reminder.  Watch it.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Martha Abraham, Mars Hill NC.mp4[/flv]

The people in Mars Hill, N.C. cannot afford to forget.

Now let’s talk reality for a moment.  I’ve been involved in legislative battles on issues regarding telecommunications policy all the way back to the late 1980s when I was fighting for home satellite dish-owner rights.  Back then it was a struggle against big cable, too.  It took several tries, but we eventually won that one.  Along the way, a lot of the same legislative trickery involved in S1209 reminded me of similar experiences back then.  We shouldn’t make the same mistake twice.  Let’s take a look:

The revised S1209 establishes a subcommittee to study municipal broadband funding issues while buying the industry a one year reprieve from any other cities or town going their own way.  The members on this fact-finding endeavor are specifically defined:

• A cable service provider.
• A wireless telecommunications service provider.
• A local exchange provider that is not a wireless telecommunications service provider.
• A local exchange provider that is a wireless telecommunications service provider.
• A city that operates a cable system and an electric power system as a public enterprise.
• A city that operates a cable system as a public enterprise and does not operate an electric power system as a public enterprise.
• A city that is a member of a joint agency established under G.S. 160A-462 for the operation of a cable system as a public enterprise.
• The North Carolina League of Municipalities.

Now, can anyone reading tell me who is -not- on the list?  Have you guessed?

-You- are missing from this list!

Everyone else is in the back room — cable and phone companies, cities, and a lobbying group representing cities.  But not one North Carolina consumer who lives with broadband challenges day in and day out has a place at that table.  What do they know anyway?

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Brooks Townes Weaverville NC.mp4[/flv]

Brooks Townes in Weaverville doesn’t have a seat at the table, either.

How ironic that everyone holding a seat claims their interests coincide with ordinary citizens like you and I.  After all, we’re supposed to be what this fight is all about.  Sometimes, our interests will meet.  Other times, especially when it comes to legislative strategies, they might not.

An Uncomfortable Revelation Caught On An Open Mike

Thanks to WUNC’s Laura Leslie, you can listen yourself as Senator Clodfelter, not realizing his mike was on, tells Senator Blue, “Now I’ll tell you that the … what I call the crazies who circulate around this issue are not going to like this [S1209 revision with a moratorium], but the municipalities are all on board. They negotiated it, they negotiated it so it’s not possible….” Blue asks Clodfelter how long he’s been talking with the groups representing municipalities. Clodfelter’s response: “We’ve been meeting daily — twice daily, so they’re all on board with this precise text.” The recording ends with Clodfelter presumably tapping his mike. Is this thing on? You bet it is. (June 2, 2010) (50 seconds)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

We already know what Senator Clodfelter feels about the people who are appalled at yet another embarrassing year of legislators falling all over themselves to do big cable and phone companies another favor.  In his mind, we’re the “crazies” — the indignant citizens fed up with the time, money, and effort not spent building 21st century broadband networks, but instead devising strategies to prevent building them.

Corning has a plant in North Carolina that manufacturers endless miles of fiber optic cable that 40 members of the North Carolina Legislature just said they don’t need.  Send it somewhere else.

Those 40 senators just told citizens — who are still using dial-up Internet access in the Appalachians, or who can’t afford the asking price for service in Spring Creek, or who only get excuses from AT&T why certain homes in Alamance County can have broadband, but they cannot — they really don’t care.  What AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and Embarq wants is much more important.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Layten Davis Spring Creek NC.mp4[/flv]

…More important than the needs of folks like those in Spring Creek.

So while they propose to hold a debate over the merits of the free market vs. community’s doing-for-themselves when the free market fails them, countless thousands of North Carolina’s residents go without or are still hearing modem tones as they connect at speeds dozens of times slower than everyone else.

With a legislature hellbent on stalling or stopping projects that ameliorate this serious problem, no wonder North Carolina’s broadband rankings are falling fast.  In 2007, the Census Bureau ranked North Carolina 35th in broadband adoption.  A year later, the state was down to 41st.  At least you can be proud you’re not West Virginia, right?

But then again, there are eight more positions to drop, so there is still room to make things even worse.

Now I ask myself, what could have possibly happened to deliver 40 votes into the hands of big cable and phone company interests.

Could it have been the time honored trick of dividing and conquering the opposition?  For cities who want to deliver service, the threat of “either/or” seemed particularly effective.  Either take our one year moratorium -or- face the ludicrous original legislation that required a community-wide referendum if Mrs. Nickels over on Fairfax Drive needs a new cable installed at her home to get a better picture.  Either way, because certain folks didn’t say no way to either choice, it’s a victory party for Time Warner Cable, with no need to BYOB — they’ll provide it themselves.  Besides, say the bill’s supporters, we’re offering a chance to hear your voice and views on our stall-tactic fact-finding subcommittee.  Senator Clodfelter even thanks you for being reasonable and adult about all this.

AT&T thanks you as well.

Just keep those “crazies” out of the room.

Cable and phone companies get seats, so they can continue to deliver their talking points that don’t actually deliver broadband to any underserved area of North Carolina. Haven’t they said enough already?  As Senator Queen asked, where is the broadband service for my communities?

In the end, the fact finding mission (cough) will deliver a watered-down report that will find its way into the nearest recycling bin.  The cities’ strong views on municipal broadband will be diluted because they’ll have four competing voices from private industry saying the exact opposite.  Besides, after yesterday’s performance in the Senate Finance Committee, does anyone really believe members like Senator Hoyle care what the subcommittee will have to say?  He can just make it up as he goes along, just as he did when supposedly quoting the mayor of Salisbury.

After all the years spent watching negotiations over legislation, allow me to share this one piece of advice — collaborate and compromise with interests that seek to bury you at your own risk.  Big money interests will call you every name in the book for standing and fighting for your principles (and a few legislators too), but if you make it known it’s time for the other side to start compromising — by actually delivering service and charging a reasonable price for it, there wouldn’t have been a need to engage in this battle in the first place.

That’s why this “crazy” website didn’t back down when Time Warner Cable brought its “new and improved” Internet Overcharging scheme to the table after consumers rebelled against the original plan.  The cable company promised a listening tour, to take advice from reasonable consumers, and to modify its plans accordingly.  Some folks played the game on their field — debating numbers back and forth about what an appropriate amount of rape and pillaging of our wallets was tolerable.  Time Warner changed a few numbers and blessed us with a counteroffer that would have only tripled broadband prices for the same level of service.  Couldn’t we be reasonable and take their offer?

We said no and stood by it, even if it meant going down with a fight.  By not backing down, we won the battle knowing full well the war wasn’t actually over yet.  But you can’t win a battle, much less a war, if you surrender and refuse to fight.

In the end, we were right and they were wrong.  We even proved they were never really interested in listening in the first place.

The correct way forward is to remain 100 percent committed to opposing S1209, so long as it stalls, bans, slows, or sets onerous conditions on providing broadband relief.  That means calling every senator between now and Monday and then doing the same in the House.

The three words you need to remember are real simple:

Kill this bill.

If you are spending time negotiating over who gets to sit in what chair on the subcommittee, you are not paying attention.

Kill this bill.

If you are trying to split the difference over how long the moratorium is going to last, you do not understand.

Kill this bill.

If you are trying to extract some extra concessions to reduce the rape and pillaging of your citizens, stand up, take a deep breath, go outside, and then tell the first person you see to call their representatives and tell them to:

Kill this bill.

If you are a consumer, you’re probably already upset.  In a polite, persuasive, and persistent way, tell your elected officials you understand S1209 has been modified thanks to a compromise, but nobody bothered to compromise with you.  You aren’t interested in this bill in any form, and you know that legislator is going to do the right thing and vote no to:

Kill this bill.

If they vote yes, all they’ve managed to kill is your faith in them as your elected representative.  That’s something that can be taken care of at the next election.

Maybe people like me are crazy to dare to presume that our elected officials work first and foremost for “we the people” and not for the phone and cable company.  Maybe it’s nuts to spend so much time and energy fighting legislation that is so obviously written by and for the industry that cuts a check to the first representative willing to put their name on it and introduce it.  We’ve seen the merits of those who tried the same thing last year.  Only one of them is no longer with the state legislature, brought down on ethics charges.  How surprising.  This year’s fight is lead by a retiring senator who will never endure the satisfaction voters might get disconnecting him from the legislature for selling them down Telecom River.  That is not too surprising either.

While the phone and cable companies attempt to fight off broadband reclassification at the FCC, the wireless industry has been pulling its own weight in an effort to convince legislators everything is wonderful in wireless, and no consumer protection regulations are necessary.

The CTIA, the wireless lobbying group, has been blogging on overdrive lately, trying to sell the idea Americans are already soaking in broadband options and competition that keeps prices low and innovation high.  Why regulate an industry that isn’t broken?

If only it were true.

While Americans in larger communities do have choices for broadband, for most it’s a matter of picking the phone or cable company for service.  That’s called a duopoly.  In the wireless marketplace, it’s hardly much better.  The nation’s largest wireless phone companies, AT&T and Verizon, have essentially colluded with near-identical pricing and service plan requirements that demand customers add mandatory “options” like data plan add-ons that raise wireless bills higher than ever.

The smaller providers eke out an existence mildly competing over pricing, but with their inherent coverage limitations or history of providing poor customer service, many consumers won’t consider doing business with them.  Relying on most wireless providers for broadband threatens the kind of huge bills you see on TV news reports, as carriers limit consumption to 5GB per month, and most charge enormous overlimit fees to customers exceeding the limit.

The Federal Communications Commission recently found one in every six Americans suffer “bill shock” syndrome — that all-too-familiar panicky feeling when you open a cell phone bill and discover an extra zero on the end of the dollar amount due.  More than a third of people who experienced bill shock said their bills jumped by at least $50 — around 23 percent said the increase was $100 or more.

That amounts to more than 30 million Americans, but the CTIA’s “see no evil, hear no evil” blog carries on claiming life is good for wireless consumers.  Besides, writes Steve Largent, president of the CTIA, consumers who took their complaints to the Better Business Bureau had them resolved 97.4 percent of the time.

Of course, that begs the question why consumers had to approach the BBB about their poor service experience in the first place.

I’m not the only one asking questions.  Craig Settles, an industry analyst, co-administrator of Communities United for Broadband and author of the report “Fighting the Next Good Fight: Bringing True Broadband to Your Community,” is also pondering the industry campaign to block broadband reform.

Settles penned a piece in today’s Roll Call exposing the fallacies from the industry’s PR machine:

The state of broadband — for consumers, businesses and nonprofits — isn’t the rosy picture the industry powerhouses attempt to paint. Ignoring this reality can lead to bad policy decisions and bad legislation.

[…]

Most states may technically have 60 to 80 Internet access providers. However, in practically every state, the combined statewide market share of all but the top five or six providers might total 5 percent, if you’re lucky. In at least half of the states, data show the combined market share of the top two providers ranges from 70 percent up to 95 percent. That represents near or actual duopolies, most often with one wireless and one cable provider as the undynamic duo.

Life at the local level, which is where your true subscriber options exist, further challenges the industry’s claim that people have choices. If you count “having choices” as living in an area where several companies advertise broadband service, or consider dial-up speed as broadband, OK.

But go door to door in rural counties and small towns. The reality you often find is one major carrier providing fair to poor service to some and no service to the rest, plus some small local providers with 2 percent or 3 percent market share struggling to provide decent service in the face of endless efforts to smite them from the planet. If you’re in one of the few states with four or five providers that each have statewide market share of 8 percent to 15 percent, it’s likely each provider is concentrated in a portion of the state, creating a local reality that’s worse than state statistics.

Settles notes that claims of “billions invested” only invites more questions about what carriers are doing with all that money.  Settles questions whether its wise to brag about spending $20 billion on infrastructure costs when municipal broadband projects in states like North Carolina, with IT staffs of fewer than 12, have built superior networks delivering 10 times the speed of its competitors.

The CTIA loves to tout the innovation wireless providers bring to customers, but in many cases they are claiming credit (and often getting a cut in the action) for someone else’s innovation, especially from the third-party apps market.

Too often the real innovations in wireless broadband have often come in spite of carriers that have sought to block, control, or “manage” someone else’s vision.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Freedom CTIA Ad Spot 5-2010.flv[/flv]

Watch as the CTIA wireless lobby tries to sell Americans on wireless innovation, much of which didn’t come from wireless companies at all.  (1 minute)

A proposal to add a monthly $4 fee to every Baltimore cable subscriber’s bill to raise money for the fiscally-challenged city has been withdrawn after the city solicitor’s office warned the legislation would violate federal law.

City councilman Jim Kraft (D-District 1) proposed the city extend the existing telecommunications tax levied on telephone lines to cable television service in a bid to raise up to $5 million dollars annually towards the $50 million required to restore funding for curtailed fire, police, and recreational facilities.

Kraft’s proposal was an alternative to a controversial four cent bottle tax on beverages that could have driven some shoppers out of the city for cheaper untaxed alternatives available in the suburbs.

Kraft called his cable TV tax proposal “a fair tax.”

“Employed or unemployed, property taxpayer or exempt from property tax — this fee is borne by all,” he wrote in a mailing to constituents.

But the proposed tax ran into the Internet Tax Freedom Act, currently extended until 2014, which bans any taxation on broadband service, a major component of today’s cable systems.  The city’s lawyers also warned Baltimore could not tax home satellite service either: “Congress has specifically exempted providers of direct-to-home satellite service from collection or remittance of any tax or fee imposed by a local taxing jurisdiction.”

America’s cities continue to face unprecedented budget challenges in light of the distressed economy.  Some cities are slashing services, others are raising taxes and fees to make up the difference.  Baltimore in in the latter category with wide-ranging proposals to up fees and taxes for everything from the hotel room tax rate, outdoor billboard advertising, and energy to new higher fines for parking and civil violations.

The bottle tax bill is likely back on the agenda as well.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WJZ Baltimore New Taxes 5-2010.flv[/flv]

WJZ-TV in Baltimore delivered this rundown on the city’s large number of tax and fee hikes to close a $50 million shortfall.  (3 minutes)

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WBAL Baltimore Cable TV Tax Proposal Pulled 5-28-10.flv[/flv]

WBAL-TV ran this report over the demise of the telecommunications tax for cable television.  (2 minutes)

Brian Bowman reports from Save North Carolina Broadband that S1209, Senator Hoyle’s municipal broadband killer bill, was yanked from yesterday’s meeting, apparently to “study the issue some more.”  Perhaps elected officials are studying the implications of passing this anti-consumer nightmare on their chances in the next election.  Let’s deliver the death blow to S1209 by getting on the phones and e-mail again today!

You need to keep the pressure on with calls and letters to all of these officials, reminding them you are watching this bill very closely and are waiting for them to cast their “no” vote, but will also at least accept a vote that yanks the bill from consideration for the rest of 2010.

Remind them this bill was quickly foisted on the Senate Finance Committee, and its wide-ranging implications are too important to North Carolina’s high tech future to let this bill rush into law.  Tell them the only real assault on your wallet comes from big telecom providers who will stop at nothing to make sure municipal competition never sees the light of day — municipal competition that is the only realistic way many North Carolina towns and cities can deliver 21st century broadband service that will help get them back on track for economic success.

Don’t sit back and think someone else will do the writing and calling for you.  We made a difference last year because everyone called and wrote.  We need that to happen again!

Here is the list:

County	First Name	Last Name	Tel (919)	Party	Email Address	Leg Asst email
Alamance	Anthony E.	Foriest	301-1446	Dem	[email protected]	[email protected]
Buncombe	Martin L.	Nesbitt	715-3001	Dem	[email protected]	[email protected]
Cabarrus	Fletcher L.	Hartsell	733-7223	Rep	[email protected]	[email protected]
Carteret	Jean R.	Preston	733-5706	Rep	[email protected]	[email protected]
Catawba	Austin M.	Allran	733-5876	Rep	[email protected]	[email protected]
Chatham	Robert	Atwater	715-3036	Dem	[email protected]	[email protected]
Cherokee	John J.	Snow	733-5875	Dem	[email protected]	[email protected]
Columbus	R. C.	Soles	733-5963	Dem	[email protected]	[email protected]
Cumberland	Margaret H.	Dickson	733-5776	Dem	[email protected]	[email protected]
Cumberland	Larry	Shaw	733-9349	Dem	[email protected]	[email protected]
Davie	Andrew C.	Brock	715-0690	Rep	[email protected]	[email protected]
Duplin	Charles W.	Albertson	733-5705	Dem	[email protected]	[email protected]
Durham	Floyd B.	McKissick	733-4599	Dem	[email protected]	[email protected]
Edgecombe	S. Clark	Jenkins	715-3040	Dem	[email protected]	[email protected]
Forsyth	Linda	Garrou	733-5620	Dem	[email protected]	[email protected]
Gaston	David W.	Hoyle	733-5734	Dem	[email protected]	[email protected]
Haywood	Joe Sam	Queen	733-3460	Dem	[email protected]	[email protected]
Henderson	Tom M.	Apodaca	733-5745	Rep	[email protected]	[email protected]
Johnston	David	Rouzer	733-5748	Rep	[email protected]	[email protected]
Mecklenburg	Daniel G.	Clodfelter	715-8331	Dem	[email protected]	[email protected]
Mecklenburg	Charlie Smith	Dannelly	733-5955	Dem	[email protected]	[email protected]
Mecklenburg	Bob	Rucho	733-5655	Rep	[email protected]	[email protected]
Moore	Harris	Blake	733-4809	Rep	[email protected]	[email protected]
Nash	A. B.	Swindell	715-3030	Dem	[email protected]	[email protected]
New Hanover	Julia	Boseman	715-2525	Dem	[email protected]	[email protected]
Onslow	Harry	Brown	715-3034	Rep	[email protected]	[email protected]
Orange	Eleanor	Kinnaird	733-5804	Dem	[email protected]	[email protected]
Randolph	Jerry W.	Tillman	733-5870	Rep	[email protected]	[email protected]
Robeson	Michael P.	Walters	733-5651	Dem	[email protected]	[email protected]
Rockingham	Philip Edward	Berger	733-5708	Rep	[email protected]	[email protected]
Scotland	William R.	Purcell	733-5953	Dem	[email protected]	[email protected]
Surry	Don W.	East	733-5743	Rep	[email protected]	[email protected]
Union	W. Edward	Goodall	733-7659	Rep	[email protected]	[email protected]
Wake	Daniel T.	Blue	733-5752	Dem	[email protected]	[email protected]
Wake	Neal	Hunt	733-5850	Rep	[email protected]	[email protected]
Wake	Joshua H.	Stein	715-6400	Dem	[email protected]	[email protected]
Wake	Richard Y.	Stevens	733-5653	Rep	[email protected]	[email protected]
Watauga	Steve	Goss	733-5742	Dem	[email protected]	[email protected]

Rep. Dan Maffei (D-New York) has begun to worry broadband consumers in his western and central New York district.

In April 2009, when Time Warner Cable’s announced Internet Overcharging experiment was upsetting customers in Rochester, Maffei claimed he was concerned about limiting broadband usage for customers in the area.  But when former Rep. Eric Massa introduced legislation to ban unjustified usage caps and consumption billing, Maffei told his constituents he wasn’t interested in Massa’s approach:

Thank you for contacting me regarding H.R. 2902, the Broadband Internet Fairness Act. I appreciate hearing from you and welcome the opportunity to respond. The Broadband Internet Fairness Act was introduced by Representative Eric Massa (NY-29) on June 16, 2009, and was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce. The bill would authorize the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to review volume usage service plans of major broadband internet service providers to ensure that such plans are fairly based on cost.

When Time Warner Cable announced in April that Rochester would be used as a test market for charging Internet users based upon consumption usage, I, along with Representative Massa, opposed this policy. We helped persuade Time Warner to abandon the plan in the area. At that time, Representative Massa also introduced the Broadband Internet Fairness Act.

Other utilities, like water or electricity, charge customers based on usage, but Internet users have traditionally been charged a flat fee for unlimited access to the web. The Broadband Internet Fairness Act would require Internet Service Providers that want to implement usage-based pricing plans to go through several traditional regulatory hurdles. While I share many of the goals of Representative Massa’s legislation, I do not believe passing this stand-alone bill is the right approach at this time.

Of course broadband is nothing like water or electric utilities.  In fact, Maffei’s inclusion of that reference is a classic talking point of the telecom industry.  Notice they, and Maffei, didn’t mention telephone service — the one utility that provides flat rate calling for most Americans.  It also happens to be the utility most comparable to broadband service!

But Maffei made a bad situation worse when he joined 72 other House Democrats co-signing a letter from Rep. Gene Green (D-AT&T), urging FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski not to fight a court decision overturning the agency’s ability to conduct broadband oversight.

The letter represented one giant talking point — the false premise that enforcing a fair, free, and open Internet with Net Neutrality would somehow stifle investment in broadband expansion.  Yet AT&T was required to honor the very same principles when it merged with SBC, and managed to remain a multi-billion dollar powerhouse well positioned to expand broadband service to additional customers in its ever-growing service areas.

The fact the broadband industry is a duopoly for most Americans — one that can threaten to pull back on service if it doesn’t get its way in Washington — is just one more reason the industry requires more oversight, not less.

Yet Rep. Maffei stood alone as the only member of the western New York Congressional delegation to sign his name to the agenda of big cable and phone companies.

Perhaps the congressman has forgotten these facts which trouble broadband consumers across western and central New York:

• Rochester, NY was the only city in the northeast where Time Warner sought to conduct an Internet Overcharging experiment, made possible because of limited competition in the Rochester market;
• Rochester’s other broadband provider, Frontier Communications, insists on a monthly usage allowance of just 5GB per month in its Acceptable Use Policy;
• Verizon FiOS has suspended expansion indefinitely and the service will never be available in most of the 585 area code where Frontier operates, and it will take years for most of the rest of his Syracuse district to see the service reach those areas;
• Time Warner Cable increased its broadband rates in 2010, as did Verizon;

Green’s letter dances around the real issue — telecommunications companies are spending millions to oppose pro-consumer reforms and stop a return of oversight authority the FCC lost after a recent court decision.  Without this authority, the FCC cannot implement the National Broadband Plan’s insistence that American providers not block or impede network traffic.  These Net Neutral policies preserve net freedom.  The FCC cannot even require that providers tell the truth about broadband speeds and include the company’s terms of service in plain English.

Western New York is a hotbed of consumer activism on broadband issues, particularly because we are actual victims of provider abuse.  No one knows more than we how critical 21st century broadband is to the transformation of this region’s perennially challenged economy.

Rep. Maffei needs a reminder this is a hot button issue for consumers from Irondequoit to Manlius.  Perhaps he just doesn’t fully understand what’s at stake here.  You need to remind him.

We’ve included a suggested letter you can use to help write your own.  For maximum effectiveness, include some of your own personal stories, challenges, and frustrations with your local broadband provider.  Feel free to share yours in the Comments section.

Dear Rep. Maffei:

I was extremely disappointed to discover you signed your name on a letter written by Rep. Gene Green urging FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski not to restore oversight authority over broadband.  While Rep. Green’s letter illustrates he’s mostly concerned about the well being of AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner Cable and Comcast, as a consumer I am more concerned about the broadband duopoly that exists in Rochester & Syracuse.

If the FCC does not regain its ability to oversee broadband by reclassifying it under Title II — as a telecommunications service (which it very clearly is), the FCC can effectively do nothing to stop broadband provider abuses, such as Comcast’s notorious speed throttle on customers using certain Internet websites and services. It took an FCC investigation to finally get the cable company to admit the truth — it was interfering with customers’ broadband speeds.  The oversight power the agency had was just what was needed to convince Comcast to stop.

Unfortunately, a DC Circuit Court recently disagreed it had that authority and effectively stripped it away.  Chairman Genachowski is simply seeking a return to the status quo before that court decision was handed down.  He’s not asking to regulate broadband anything like telephone service.  In fact, he’s insisted on a “light touch.”  That’s better than today’s court-imposed total-hands-off reality.

By signing Rep. Green’s letter, you effectively tell us you don’t support Net Neutrality protections that guarantee providers cannot censor or impede web traffic.  You also do nothing to protect consumers from other provider abuses.  Considering what residents of Rochester went through last year fighting a Time Warner Cable scheme that would have tripled broadband prices for the same level of service, I’m shocked you of all people would be a supporter of big telecom’s agenda.

Telecom companies are claiming that if regulations enforcing Net Neutrality are enacted, investment will suffer and broadband expansion will be slowed.  Yet AT&T was required, as part of its merger with SBC, to respect Net Neutrality for several years.  The company flourished, broadband was offered to more customers than ever, and investors liked what they saw.

The record in western New York is clear — Time Warner Cable was willing to limit its customers access to broadband service, Frontier already does in its terms and conditions, and Verizon FiOS deployment has been suspended indefinitely.  For too many of us, there are too few choices.  In fact, the only thing we can be assured of is higher pricing and a strengthened duopoly.

I strongly urge you to remove your signature from Rep. Green’s letter and get on board with consumers like myself in your district who believe deregulation and oversight failures have given us nothing but nightmares — from Wall Street to BP’s oil spill.  Let’s not make another mistake in handing cable and phone companies unfettered permission to abuse their customers.

Please get back in touch with me as soon as possible on this important matter.

Rep. Dan Maffei told constituents he was concerned about Time Warner Cable’s Internet Overcharging scheme proposed in April 2009.  At a town hall meeting in Irondequoit, New York, he admitted Time Warner Cable held near-monopoly power over consumers in Rochester.  What changed his tune when he signed on to Rep. Gene Green’s anti-consumer letter to the FCC? (April 9, 2009 — 2 minutes)

Rep. Dan Maffei’s Contact Information

Washington, D.C. Office
1630 Longworth HOB
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-3701
Fax: (202) 225-4042

Syracuse Office
P.O. Box 7306,
1340 Federal Building
Syracuse, NY 13261
Phone: (315) 423-5657
Fax: (315) 423-5669

Irondequoit/Rochester Office
1280 Titus Avenue
Rochester, NY 14617
Phone: (585) 336-7291
Fax: (585) 336-7274

[Update: 11:30pm EDT: Free Press reports Rep. Maffei accepted $29,000 in contributions from telecom companies, including Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T.]