Telecommunications providers have convinced the Commerce Department to stop asking too many questions about the Internet service their customers receive, including the fees providers charge and the speeds provided, because the information is “proprietary” and “useful to our competitors.”

It’s all a part of the federal government’s broadband mapping project — to create detailed maps showing who has access to what types of broadband, at what speed and at what price.  Those areas deemed underserved would be eligible for substantial broadband stimulus grants, paid for by taxpayers, and likely will be received by many of the same ISPs who are telling the government to butt out of their private business affairs.

In lieu of the detailed customer information the Commerce Department had been seeking, Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T have agreed to provide generic data about prices charged on a per-block basis and will also clue in the government as to the maximum speeds marketed to consumers, even if those speeds are not actually provided to individual customers.

Consumers Union was not happy with the Commerce Department’s decision, likening it to a cave-in.

Because the federal government will not allow the public to learn about the actual speeds achieved by customers, companies can continue to market and charge for an Internet service that doesn’t come close to achieving the speeds promised in advertising, according to Joel Kelsey, a telecommunications policy analyst for the consumer watchdog.

ISPs, particularly telephone line-based DSL service, routinely advertises speeds “up to” a certain level, but never guarantees those actual speeds will be achieved by customers.  DSL service is sensitive to the quality of the telephone line and the distance of the cable between the customer’s home or business and phone company facilities.  Longer distances always mean lower speeds, often much lower.

Cable companies rely on a shared bandwidth model, which means every home in a neighborhood shares a set amount of bandwidth.  The more users on the system, the slower the maximum speed.  In areas where cable companies have not upgraded service, or split neighborhoods up to reduce the number of residents sharing one “node,” speeds can dramatically drop at peak usage times.

“The actual speeds delivered to particular areas simply doesn’t match up,” Kelsey said. “The government gave a lot and received very, very little in return.”

ISPs complain that revealing these details will be useful information for competitors, and have steadfastly refused to provide it, despite the potential for those same companies to enjoy taxpayer dollars in the form of grants to finance specific broadband projects.

Since the federal government will rely heavily on the broadband mapping project to determine what projects have merit and meet an immediate need, who controls the map will have major influence on what projects will appear most eligible for stimulus money.

Public Knowledge continues to criticize the broadband mapping project as already being overrun by telecommunications special interests.  Connected Nation, a group tailor-made to be granted approval for statewide mapping initiatives, has a board heavy with telecommunications corporation representation.

Art Brodsky, communications director of Public Knowledge, has implied the telecommunication ‘fix’ is already in, but conceding even more to the telephone and cable industry threatens to turn the broadband stimulus program into a creature of big telecom.

“The whole mapping exercise is already on its way to being substantially corrupted as the telecom industry’s creation, which exists to prevent data from being public, is collecting mapping contracts right and left through the efforts of their lobbying and influence. There is absolutely no reason for the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (administering the data collection process) to concede on the data collection. NTIA and its supporters in the Administration and in Congress should realize that if agency backs down on this assault from the industry, there will be that much less of value worth saving,” Brodsky wrote.

“At the end of the day, somebody is going to be in control of the mapping. It will either be the public, and the public interest, as represented by NTIA, or the industry,” he concluded.

The cable and phone companies declared victory.  The American Cable Association, which represents smaller independent and rural operators which stand to receive a substantial amount in stimulus taxpayer funding, applauded the decision saying the government backing down would “improve and expedite the mapping effort,” said ACA president Matthew Polka.

Surprisingly, Larry Landis, a Republican-appointed Indiana utility regulatory commissioner and chairman of the federal-state group that will be responsible for the mapping project, also applauded the Commerce Department’s flexibility on getting access to detailed information.

Landis has past ties, albeit on the periphery, with AT&T through his former employer:

From 1985 through 1991, Landis was Vice President/Account Planning at an advertising firm informing the agency’s creative direction for clients such as Indiana Bell (now AT&T Indiana), at Handley & Miller, Inc.

The Center for Public Integrity graded the state of Indiana with a “C” for disclosure of utility commissioner outside ties in 2005.  No apparent direct ties to telecommunications interests were found in Landis’ 2004 disclosure, the last one available from the Center.

Up to $350 million taxpayer dollars will be earmarked for the mapping program, tainted as it might be according to critics.  The final map will be vital to determine what recipients will qualify for the $7.2 billion dollars in available funding for grant-worthy broadband projects.  The money will be awarded to for-profit and non-profit groups, typically those that can best tailor their funding request to the requirements specified in the grant application process.

Is this worth $350 million of your taxpayer dollars?

North Carolina residents should be outraged at Rep. Bill Faison, the Democratic chairman of the state House Select Committee on High-Speed Internet Access in Rural Areas.  He’s set to do for North Carolina broadband what Hurricane Katrina did for urban renewal in New Orleans.  Faison, along with some other cronies, are examples of what is wrong with broadband stimulus planning when certain elected officials open their doors on big special interests, and slam them on the fingers of actual consumers.

Eight years ago, the North Carolina legislature commissioned the state to produce accurate, detailed broadband maps, depicting who has access to what broadband services, if any, across the Tar Heel State. e-NC, an organization of excellence recognized worldwide, set about not only doing broadband mapping, but also advocating for consumer and business interests across the state by pushing for higher quality and faster service.  e-NC’s mapping standard has been recognized by the European Commission, Microsoft, and IBM for its detailed, accurate depictions of broadband service.

e-NC has had its work cut out for it.  AT&T and other North Carolina telecom providers have stonewalled the group since day one, refusing to disclose “private company information.”  Where e-NC could obtain agreements, they came with ludicrous non-disclosure agreements that were the equivalent of ‘here is the information you requested, but you cannot use it in your maps.’

That’s where Faison comes in.  He sends out an invitation to the media to announce North Carolina finally has a broadband map available, and then proceeds to slam e-NC because it produced maps that, at one point, he compared with “swiss cheese.”  Faison is fully aware that e-NC had been complaining about provider stonewalling, and he did nothing to stop it.  But then he did something even worse: he praised the very providers who did the stonewalling and are now in charge of producing the “detailed maps” that the providers want the legislature to see.

Faison said, “In the face of legislation recommended by the Committee which would have required the providers to disclose precise information to the Legislature for our staff to generate a detailed map of availability, the providers have come together and collectively decided to provide the information through Connected Nation, to not only provide the “street address” map but also to make the map both accessible and interactive through the internet. Special recognition should be given to AT&T, Embarq, Sprint, Time Warner Cable, The Cable Association, the Telephone Co-op association, and Alltel for their work on this matter.”

Shameful.

Of course, Faison’s anti-consumer efforts on behalf of his good friends in the telecommunications industry are no secret to our North Carolina readers.  Faison was one of the proponents of the anti-consumer nightmare legislation S1004, which was hand-crafted by big cable and telephone companies to stop municipal broadband projects across the state.  Faison is a menace for consumer interests in North Carolina.

Faison doesn’t care, of course.  He has his eyes on some of that $7.4 billion in broadband stimulus money he hopes to grab for the state AT&T, Embarq, Sprint, Time Warner Cable, and any other provider that will try and use their own maps to “qualify” for the tax dollars you and I are going to hand over for broadband development.

Faison said: “North Carolina will be one of only six states with a detailed “street address” interactive map of broadband availability. It positions us advantageously to obtain a portion of $7.4 billion in Stimulus money available for broadband deployment. A map, such as ours, is now a precondition for obtaining this portion of the Stimulus money. The collaborative work of the Committee and the providers has now postured North Carolina in the most favorable of positions to not only obtain this portion of the Stimulus money, but also to advance broadband deployment for our people.”

In other words, by replacing reality with the telecom industry’s own version of reality, they hope to sneak through applications that look good on paper, whether or not they accurately depict the real “on the ground” state of broadband in North Carolina.  If I were a grant application reviewer with this kind of “detailed” conflict-of-interest map work, I’d disqualify the entire state from getting one penny.

As the excellent investigative piece by Art Brodsky points out over on Public Knowledge (thanks Stop the Cap! reader Michael for showing the way):

AT&T stiffs the state, and then makes up its own map, which state legislators accept. There is no transparency, no verification, no nothing. (But it is interactive.) The only way in which this can not be a total conflict of interest is to recall the (perhaps) apocryphal story of the Maryland state legislator who also owned a liquor store. He introduced a bill to help liquor stores and was asked if this bill was a conflict of interest. “How does this conflict with my interests,” he was said to have replied. Exactly.

Meanwhile, the oh-so-aptly named (well-)Connected Nation, packed to the rafters with big cable and telephone company lobbyists, is busily doing its part to flush $350,000,000 of taxpayer funding down the drain with its own “broadband maps” which resemble the crayoning work your 1st grade son brought home from school.

Connected Nation, a creature of AT&T, spent $7 million dollars of your taxpayer money to commission Connect Ohio, an affiliate, to map broadband availability in that state.  The result was a map you could have drawn yourself during a TV show commercial break.  I think I’ll use Light Pink myself.

Connect Ohio's "Broadband Map" for Summit County, Ohio

No, the blue speckles are not from blueberry pie stains.  Those are bodies of water.  What exactly does Connect Ohio’s map say?  Not a whole lot.  Basically, it claims the areas in beautiful pink are locations where broadband service is supposed to be available.  The whitish areas are outta luck.

Seven million well spent dollars there!

Meanwhile, here is a map from Strategic Networks Group, a company that was never eligible for federal mapping grant money:

Map from Strategic Networks Group, that didn't cost taxpayers a cent

Which map would you prefer to rely on?  The $7 million dollar boondoggle from Connect Ohio or the zero taxpayer dollar map from Strategic?

Why didn’t Strategic get the contract?  Because Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois custom wrote language into the Broadband Data Improvement Act, that specifically defined who received the award money.  Basically, it came down to only those well-connected politically with state governments (Connected Nation) getting the lion’s share.  No merit-based mappers need apply.

Strategic’s maps were apparently too good. Take a look at this exceptionally detailed map they produced for just western Akron, Ohio (and notice this is page four of a series of detailed maps):

Unlike Connected Nation's maps, you WILL have to click to enlarge!

Stop the Cap! stands with Art Brodsky and Public Knowledge regarding this travesty:

The government notice setting out the terms for the mapping grants was sadly deficient. Even if one grants that Connected Nation was wired in under the terms of a misguided bill, the agency notice of funds availability had no conflict-of-interest safeguards. There are no requirements for transparency or for verification of information. There are no standard data sets to make sure all the maps measure the same things. Instead, there are what appear to be protections for “confidential” information that could render the process useless.

Perhaps some of these deficiencies can be cured at the program moves forward. Perhaps not. In either case, these cautionary tales are getting a bit tiresome. Jury-rigged RFPs, no-bid contracts, hot-wired legislatures and state agencies are no way to run a program as important as broadband.

The stimulus broadband mapping program is set up for massive failure unless changes are made. Congress has to allow more competition for grants. The Durbin argument that private, for-profit companies shouldn’t do public work like broadband mapping, while non-profits should, falls apart when one considers the advantages of an independent company vs. a compromised non-profit. The agencies responsible need more detailed criteria to protect the public investment. Consistency, transparency, public verification and less protection of information are needed. Maybe then can an #epic fail can be avoided.

This represents another consumer victory, and comes thanks to the hard work of Free Press, which has been a strong advocate for creating robust, equitable access to broadband services throughout the United States, available to those in rural locations as well as economically disadvantaged inner city neighborhoods.  This assures that no grant applicant can take public tax dollars and build discriminatory networks that violate Net Neutrality.

The National Telecommunications Information Administration, along with the Rural Utilities Service, today unveiled grant guidelines for the $7.2 billion allocated for broadband deployment in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama in February.

The criteria, or “Notice of Funds Availability,” create a detailed system for prioritizing grant applications and outline how the agencies will distribute $4.7 billion in broadband money for the NTIA’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program and $2.5 billion for RUS loans and grants. Under the rules announced today for the BTOP programs, applicants that provide wholesale access to their networks at reasonable rates will be given preference for funds. Preference will also be given to networks that offer affordable services and community partnerships, among other public service goals. All recipients will have to operate their networks in a manner consistent with the FCC’s Internet Policy Statement as well as agree to “not favor any lawful Internet applications and content over others.”

In March, Free Press released a broadband stimulus grant scorecard that outlined criteria policymakers should use to score potential broadband deployment projects. Many of the factors identified by Free Press in March, such as Net Neutrality, broadband adoption, affordability, speed and job creation, are reflected in the criteria released today.

“Today, the Obama administration reaffirmed its commitment to Net Neutrality by ensuring that public funds will not be used to build closed and discriminatory networks,” said S. Derek Turner, research director for Free Press and author of the scorecard. “These broadband programs are first class examples of public policy serving the public interest. They will use public dollars to build out Internet access as a public service infrastructure.”

“To those large corporations that say public interest requirements are too restrictive, we say step aside and make way for the thousands of other companies, non-profits and municipalities that are eager to bring the transformative benefits of the open Internet to the millions of Americans left on the wrong side of the digital divide,” said Turner.

Along with the release of grant guidelines, leaders from the three federal agencies charged with collaborating and overseeing the national broadband plan were joined by Vice President Joe Biden in Erie, Pa., this morning to discuss funding. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and newly appointed FCC chair Julius Genachowski discussed broadband stimulus plans and the importance of providing high-speed Internet to rural America.

“These agencies have set the bar for our nation’s digital future,” said Turner. “The success of the national broadband plan hangs heavily on how these federal dollars are doled out and these guidelines will help ensure that funds are allocated in a fair and efficient manner consistent with the priorities set forth by Congress and the president.”

The RUS and NTIA will begin accepting applications and reviewing them over the coming months. The first round of grant awards are expected to be issued in December.

Frontier Communications CEO Maggie Wilderotter told attendees of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners committee on telecommunications that rural residents and small businesses deserve better broadband service than they currently receive, and there is a digital divide between rural and urban communities across America.

Wilderotter’s company, Frontier Communications, is the nation’s second largest independent telephone company, focusing on providing service in rural communities formerly served by mom and pop or community-owned telephone operations.

Frontier provides 90% of its customers with at least low speed DSL broadband service, which is available to the majority of the company’s 2.4 million customers.  Frontier’s basic DSL service provides around 1.5Mbps, although some customers closer to telephone company switch facilities can achieve speeds closer to 3Mbps.  Frontier also serves some urban areas, such as metropolitan Rochester, New York with a DSL product that in some instances can achieve close to 10Mbps.

Frontier’s rural DSL service is designed to reach residences and small businesses with what is often their only choice for broadband service, Wilderotter explained to the audience as part of her keynote speech.

The company’s efforts to “bridge the digital divide” have relied mostly on making due with existing copper wire telephone facilities, and attempting to provide service over extended distances, common in more rural communities.  Although customers have often been grateful for the opportunity of getting something beyond dial-up access or obscenely expensive satellite broadband, Frontier’s rural service is often expensive and slow.  The company has been successful in attracting customers with promotions, including a “free” Dell Netbook, in return for a $45 shipping/processing fee and a commitment by the customer to sign up for telephone and broadband service for a minimum two year service commitment.  The company also offers a video bundle promotion, providing DISH Network satellite television at a discount for the first year of service.

Frontier’s broadband division has been one of the company’s major bright spots, attracting subscriber growth even while the company continues to lose wired telephone line business to the competition.  That drives broadband development in Frontier service areas, although customers seeking “cutting edge” services with faster and more consistent speed will need to look elsewhere.

Wilderotter also addressed the need to find ways to serve the remaining 10% of customers who lack broadband service because they are in a remote location, too far away from the telephone switch office to provide reliable service.

She told the audience Frontier would aggressively seek broadband stimulus funding to help underwrite the costs of providing service to these customers.  But she also called for an overhaul to the Universal Service Fund, a fee charged on every telephone subscriber’s bill designed to subsidize telephone service in more rural communities where the cost of providing service for each customer can be dramatically higher.  Wilderotter proposes that the USF now devote some of its resources to funding broadband buildouts in the nation’s rural areas, instead of diverting large sums to large national phone companies that exploit loopholes, she says.

“Those who serve rural America need the funding that will allow us to continue to expand broadband service and capacity.”