Comcast customers in Philadelphia are organizing to stop the cable company from winning a 15-year franchise renewal to continue providing service in the city unless the cable operator changes its ways after years of rate increases and poor customer service.

CAP Comcast! argues Comcast is not paying its fair share and is not a good corporate citizen in the city.

“Comcast has outsized power in a Philadelphia still suffering under economic crisis,” says the group. While the company charges some of the highest cable rates in the country, it has successfully earned $64 billion in revenue and an extremely low corporate tax bill.

“During the last franchise negotiation, Philadelphia elected officials and appointed leaders secured important resources for our city, including funds for public access television, and about $17 million a year for Philadelphia’s general fund,” said Bryan Mercer, co-executive director at Media Mobilizing Project. “But since that time, Philadelphia has shuttered over 20 schools and slashed services that our communities need.  Comcast pays less than 4% in corporate tax revenue, in a state where the average is almost 10%. And they’re getting $40 million in subsidies for their new planned building. If Comcast wants a chance to profit from our communities, Philadelphia should ensure Comcast pays their fair share, or invite other communications companies to serve our city.”

Among the group’s key arguments:

CAP Comcast! is asking for a five-year rate freeze for Comcast services while increasing broadband speeds and access to all Philadelphians. It also seeks fair treatment for Public, Educational, and Government access channels, expanded affordable Internet access without pre-conditions, involvement in solving local community problems, support of worker rights, and an end to passing along the cost of the franchise fee to customers.

The group has a petition on its website.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Comcast Tell Comcast to Pay Its Fair Share 5-2014.mp4[/flv]

CAP Comcast! produced this video introducing its campaign to prevent another 15 year franchise for Comcast in Philadelphia unless the company changes its ways. (2:51)

Central Oregon’s independent cable television and broadband company — BendBroadband — has been sold to Telephone and Data Systems (TDS), a Chicago-based telephone company in a deal worth $261 million.

TDS, which also owns southwestern U.S. Baja Broadband and 84 percent of US Cellular, promises nothing will change for the company’s 36,000 cable TV, 41,000 Internet, and 22,000 phone customers “for the foreseeable future.” The company also said it plans to keep BendBroadband’s name and 280 employees.

BendBroadband has provided cable television service in Bend, Redmond, Sunriver, Prineville, Madras, and Sisters as far back as 1955, when it imported long distance KOIN (the CBS affiliate out of Portland), KLOR (Portland’s ABC affiliate), and KVAL-TV (Eugene’s NBC affiliate) for the benefit of viewers that could not receive broadcast television station signals from western Oregon blocked by the Cascade Range — high mountains that separated cities like Portland from Bend.

“While BendBroadband has made many smart investments, it is clear that we will need to join forces with a like-minded company to gain the scale necessary to provide the cutting-edge technology and personalized customer experiences that consumers expect,” BendBroadband’s website says.

The company also felt the cable industry was entering a new era of consolidation, necessitating a sale to improve negotiating power with television networks over programming costs.

LUS Fiber is Lafayette, La., municipal broadband provider.

During remarks at the National Cable Show in Los Angeles, FCC chairman Thomas Wheeler promised he would stimulate more broadband competition by overriding state laws that presently restrict or ban municipal broadband networks.

“One place where it may be possible is municipally owned or authorized broadband systems. I understand that the experience with community broadband is mixed, that there have been both successes and failures. But if municipal governments—the same ones that granted cable franchises—want to pursue it, they shouldn’t be inhibited by state laws. I have said before, that I believe the FCC has the power – and I intend to exercise that power – to preempt state laws that ban competition from community broadband.”

After making the remarks, a debate has emerged over the exact definition of “preempt.” With at least 20 states limiting or banning community-owned broadband networks, the FCC would have to overturn or invalidate the state laws to render them moot.

At least one judge — Laurence Silberman — believes the FCC has the authority to take “measures that promote competition in the local telecommunications market or other regulating methods that remove barriers to infrastructure investment.” In a footnote, Silberman wrote that “[a]n example of a paradigmatic barrier to infrastructure investment would be state laws that prohibit municipalities from creating their own broadband infrastructure to compete against private companies.”

A FCC spokesperson, in response to inquiries about Wheeler’s remarks, was less conclusive.

“It’s too early to say how [Wheeler] will address existing state laws,” said the spokesperson.

That leaves open the question about whether the FCC intends to cancel existing state laws or simply prohibit new ones from being enacted. That distinction could make a tremendous difference in states like North Carolina, where a fierce battle over protecting municipal broadband was lost when Republicans took control of the state government. Telecom lobbyists, often working under the auspices of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have either directly banned municipal broadband networks from getting off the ground or placed so many restrictions on service to make projects untenable.

The Consumerist points out in Pennsylvania, municipal broadband is only allowed in communities if a telephone company does not provide any type of broadband to anyone in their service area. In Nevada, only towns with fewer than 25,000 people or counties with 50,000 can host community-owned broadband networks — numbers likely too low to sustain such a venture financially.

Net Neutrality = Socialism?

The four leading candidates in North Carolina’s Republican U.S. Senate primary, including one heavily backed by the state’s largest telecom companies, all said Monday they oppose Net Neutrality and would not allow the federal government to intervene in the business interests of cable and phone companies.

Dr. Greg Brannon, Heather Grant, Rev. Mark Harris, and current state House Speaker Thom Tillis all agreed during an hour-long televised debate that the government had no business telling companies like Time Warner Cable and AT&T how to manage Internet traffic.

Thom Tillis, who became speaker of the house in 2011, is heavily backed with financial contributions from AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon. While speaker, Tillis supported the Time Warner Cable-backed bill to ban community-owned broadband networks in the state and helped shepherd the legislation through the General Assembly.

Tillis told viewers that North Carolina customers already have a choice of Internet Service Providers so there is no reason for the government to interfere.

“The last thing we need is the government to tell cable providers and Internet providers how fast or slow the content needs to be,” Tillis said.

Tillis was honored in 2011 as ALEC’s “Legislator of the Year” and received an undisclosed cash reward.

Last year, Tillis was accused of having a secret business relationship with Time Warner Cable by Rep. Robert Brawley (R-Iredell), who resigned his chairmanship of the Finance Committee over the matter.

Brawley’s district is served in part by MI-Connection, a community-owned cable company that was prevented from expanding by a state law restricting municipal broadband.

“You slamming my office door shut, standing in front of me and stating that you have a business relationship with Time Warner,” Brawley wrote in his resignation letter. “MI-Connection is being operated just as any other free enterprise system and should be allowed to do so without the restrictions placed on them by the proponents of Time Warner.”

Dr. Brannon said without the Constitution giving direct authority for the federal government to regulate broadband, it cannot legally get involved. There was no broadband service to regulate when the Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787.

“The worst thing in the world we could do is for the federal government to put in barriers to make things fair,” Brannon said. Any attempt to impose fairness on Internet traffic would be a clear-cut case of socialism, Brannon added.

Grant and Harris both agreed with the others.

The four candidates are vying for the Senate seat held by Democrat Kay Hagan. She holds a different view.

“I support Net Neutrality because it speaks to the values central to our American Democracy – free speech and equal opportunity,” Hagan said in 2008. “With an open Internet, we can ensure communities throughout the state of North Carolina and the nation receive equal access to the Internet as well as the information contained there, to help ensure our country can compete on a global level.”

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/UNC-TV NC GOP Senate Debate 2014 – Net Neutrality – Free Market or Socialism 4-30-14.flv[/flv]

Watch occasionally incoherent remarks from four Republican candidates debating the Internet and Net Neutrality as part of the North Carolina Senate primary. (4:31)

AT&T has approached DirecTV about a possible acquisition of the satellite provider in a deal expected to fetch at least $40 billion, spare change for AT&T’s $185 billion operation.

The Wall Street Journal reports the deal would combine DirecTV’s 20 million customers with AT&T’s 5.7 million U-verse customers, rivaling the size of a combined Comcast and Time Warner Cable.

The idea for the merger came after Comcast and Time Warner Cable struck their deal in February, and a person familiar with the merger talks reports DirecTV is receptive to a deal with AT&T. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson reportedly saw the next wave of consolidation in the American cable market as a potential game-changer, forcing AT&T to refocus its growth priorities back towards the United States instead of Europe.

Satellite companies like Dish and DirecTV are at an increasing disadvantage because growth in television subscriptions has stalled. Neither satellite company has a competitive broadband offering, and as more Americans gain access to wired broadband, many choose to bundle service with the company that provides Internet access.

DirecTV’s growth has fallen every year since 2010 and starting in 2013, the company began losing more subscribers than it signed up.

A combined AT&T-DirecTV would market satellite television nationwide, U-verse TV and Internet where available, wireless phone and broadband service, and rural satellite Internet access.

AT&T has explored an acquisition of a satellite provider for more than a decade and already partners with DirecTV to sell AT&T landline customers a bundle including the satellite provider’s television service.

As with most significant acquisitions proposed by AT&T, the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission will likely scrutinize any merger deal carefully. Both companies must prove the deal is in the public interest. But the Journal reports the FCC might be amenable to the deal because it considers satellite television without broadband a threatened business. Lobbyists are likely to argue the joint company would be the best positioned to compete effectively with a combined Comcast-Time Warner Cable.

If a deal appears likely, Dish Network is expected to face immediate pressure to also merge with an existing cable or telephone company.

Another alternative attempted in the past was a direct merger between DirecTV and Dish, an idea regulators nixed more than a decade ago. Today, such a deal would not solve either company’s difficulty providing broadband service.

Consumer groups are likely to oppose the merger because it further consolidates an industry they believe already sorely lacks competition. AT&T’s lawyers are reportedly already laying the foundation for a major lobbying campaign to promote the deal.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WSJ ATT Approaches DirecTV for Merger 5-1-14.flv[/flv]

The Wall Street Journal provides more insight into the proposed merger of AT&T and DirecTV and how government regulators are likely to see the deal. (2:51)