The bill is pending in the House Ways and Means Committee, whose chairman, Rep. Bill Faison, sees the moratorium as an attempt to protect the powerful cable monopoly. Faison, a Democrat who represents Orange and Caswell counties, is meeting Wednesday with representatives of the telecommunications industry and local government leaders to discuss options.

Senator David Hoyle (D-Gaston) couldn’t get his Senate bill the time of day in the North Carolina House, so he attached it to a popular House bill to extend the e-NC Authority — North Carolina’s initiative to promote better broadband.  Now a good bill is infected, like a virus, by Hoyle’s tireless work on behalf of Time Warner Cable.

Hoyle, who has cashed checks from the cable and phone lobbies for years, is proud of sticking it to consumers in his state.

“I want my bill passed. They want their bill passed. So, if they want theirs, they’re going to have to take up mine,” Hoyle told WRAL-TV.

Hoyle, who plans to retire at the end of his term, faces no consequences from Gaston County voters, so he doesn’t care if his bill effectively protects incumbent cable companies who have raised their rates far above the rate of inflation for years.  Hoyle wants a one year moratorium to stop local communities from building their own broadband networks to improve service to residents and deliver lower pricing.

One community that escaped Time Warner’s relentless rate hiking is Wilson, where a municipal broadband project called Greenlight effectively forced a red light on Time Warner’s plans to increase rates in the community earlier this year.  Wilson was the only city we could find in the state where rates remained the same, and residents have Greenlight and city officials to thank for that.

Hoyle and his friends at the cable company are outraged at the thought of North Carolina communities stopping the rate hike gravy train.  After all, less money for Time Warner equals less money for campaign contributions to friendly politicians.

“Do we, as government, want to get in competition with private enterprise and my answer to that is no, and I am passionate about that,” Hoyle said.

If only his constituents could afford to pay him enough to be passionate about their interests.

Rep. Bill Faison, (D-Orange), is among the lawmakers sponsoring the broadband stimulus bill, which was a sure thing until Hoyle got his hands on it.  Faison called Hoyle’s amendments anti-competitive and pro-rate increase, both bad for North Carolina consumers.

“I decide what gets put on the agenda,” Faison told the Charlotte Observer. “It’s unlikely that any bill with a moratorium in it has a chance of getting through the House.”

Hoyle’s strenuous efforts to perform legislative gymnastics on behalf of cable and phone companies have not gone unnoticed by Faison.  He suggested Hoyle’s latest move represented an “interesting political maneuver,” but he doesn’t intend to sit still for it.  Faison and other pro-consumer legislators are meeting this week to consider how to strip Hoyle’s nonsense out of HB1840 and shove it in the nearest trash can.  For comparison purposes, here is the original bill.

Consumers show no love for Time Warner.  Charlotte residents had choice words for their cable company when they learned it was behind the push to stop municipal competition:

◊ Time Warner is about to pay for being jerks to their customers, and it’s high time.

◊ Time Warner cable: I hope they rot. It’s about dang time that municipal governments started providing free broadband to their citizens. The fact that multiple households need their own wireless routers, broadcast on different channels, is a totally inefficient use of technology. Companies like TW Cable want to keep citizens constrained, which runs totally opposite to the promise of the Internet. Find out which boneheads in the Senate are pushing for this and vote them out. They’re clearly more interested in money from the cable companies than in serving their constituents.

◊ For cable to argue unfair competition is laughable when they operate a virtual monopoly.

◊ Instead of fighting this legislation, why doesn’t Time-Warner Cable focus on making its service so reliable and reasonably priced that no city or county will seriously consider managing this themselves? I find it hard to believe any local government could actually run this type of technology more efficiently than a company with TWC’s resources can, but the threat of competition helps keep TWC on their toes. P.S. I lost my TWC signal for 90 minutes this past Sunday right in the middle of the US Open and Brazil-Ivory Coast World Cup game. Nice.

A vote on the House measure is imminent, so North Carolina consumers should be contacting the House Committee members listed below and urge them not to allow any part of Hoyle’s language to remain in HB1840.

[flv width=”576″ height=”344″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WRAL Raleigh NC Broadband Bill Debate 6-28-10.flv[/flv]

WRAL-TV in Raleigh discusses Hoyle’s language and how it ended up in a broadband stimulus request bill.  (2 minutes)

House Ways and Means/Broadband Connectivity Committee

This article contains the following correction since original publication: Our original article did not fully explain the bill to which Sen. Hoyle attached his municipal broadband moratorium. For clarification purposes, that bill is HB1840, legislation to extend the authority of the e-NC Authority. Our original article carried WRAL-TV’s language that said the bill provided for “$5 million in federal stimulus to help provide high-speed Internet access in parts of the state.” While that would be nice, it wasn’t an accurate characterization the bill’s intent.  Our apologies for the error.

Free Press is raising money to buy advertising to remind residents in cities where Comcast has a lock on cable service that it now wants to acquire NBC-Universal.

Comcast won The Consumerist’s 2010 “Worst Company in America” award for its poor service, beating Ticketmaster, AIG and Countrywide Home Loans.  Now that’s a tough neighborhood.

Free Press wants to remind consumers if things are this bad now, imagine what they’ll be like when America’s largest cable company also owns a major U.S. television network and studio.

For its troubles, Comcast gets a small sculpture that Consumerist describes as “the Golden Poo” and the dubious honor of being mentioned in stories like this, notes The Washington Post.

Other contenders for the award included Bank of America and Cash4Gold.  They should have probably also included Chase Bank, which has been bloodsucking Americans since the days of the railroad robber barons.

Phillip "Will Wait for it to Hit Netflix" Dampier

Hollywood studios have a proposition to make.

How would you like to gain access to the latest Hollywood releases on your cable, satellite, or broadband connection even while those movies are still playing in area theaters?

The Motion Picture Association of America says it’s willing to let you watch first-run Hollywood blockbusters from home, but in return, they want the right to control what you can do with your television set.

Time’s up for you to make up your mind.  The Federal Communications Commission has decided you were going to say “yes” to this proposition anyway, so they went ahead and approved it on your behalf.

Specifically, the MPAA appealed to the Federal Communications Commission to get approval for its proposed Selectable Output Control technology.  You probably never heard of that, but the concept actually has been around for a few years now.  When movie studios float trial balloons about enabling the technology, public interest and consumer groups start hollering and it typically gets shelved for awhile.  Not this time.

While the public policy debate continued, chances are the manufacturer of your television set or monitor manufactured after 2004 has probably already included some support for SOC — just waiting to hand over control of your television to Hollywood studios, cable, satellite, or IPTV companies.  On May 7th, while we were debating Net Neutrality, the FCC released its order approving the Hollywood Remote Control Confiscation Act (my name sounds far better than the FCC’s — Petition for Waiver of the Commission’s Prohibition on the Use of Selectable Output Control.)

Here’s how it works:

Let’s say your cable company wants to offer you Iron Man II through pay-per-view starting today.  It’s a movie currently playing in many theaters nationwide.  The MPAA believes there is compelling demand among the elderly, the home-bound, and the too-lazy-to-haul-themselves-to-the-Movieplex to make it available in the comfort of your own home on early pay per view.  However, Hollywood and your local cable company don’t want you making copies of the movie to hand out to all your friends.  With SOC technology, that becomes less of a problem because the cable company can selectively disable the outputs on the back of your television that don’t use copy control technology.  That means old fashioned analog outputs can be disabled for up to 90 days during SOC-enabled programming, making sure you cannot record any of the content without the approval of the studio or your cable company.

Is it worth losing control of your television to watch Iron Man 2 before it arrives on DVD?

Certain digital outputs will still function, as long as they support robust anti-recording/copying technology.  No more time-shifting SOC-protected content on digital video recorders to watch later, no more analog VCR taping of shows the industry doesn’t believe you have a right to record anyway.

For decades, Americans have fought for fair use rights that permit home recording and copying for personal use.  The entertainment industry has never fully accepted that, and have eroded away the ability for consumers to make legitimate personal use of content they have already purchased with digital rights management schemes, copy protection, region coding, and other limiting technologies.

SOC technology effectively forfeits all of your rights.  The only consumer protection the FCC provides is a requirement that your cable, satellite, or broadband provider warn you when they are employing SOC anti-recording technology.  At least you’ll know when your home recording rights are being trampled.

If your television set doesn’t have support for SOC built-in, the FCC just made your television set obsolete.  Write and thank them.  While initial deployment of SOC is only expected to be used for “early pay per view,” don’t believe for a moment such powerful controlling technology available to entertainment companies won’t be used in the future for other types of content they don’t want you recording.  Premium movie channels like HBO or Cinemax would be obvious examples.  TV networks that would like to sell you their network shows on DVD or through online services might find it worth their while to disable your ability to record your favorite shows.  If you don’t have an SOC-capable set, it’s likely you won’t be able to access protected programming at all.

With the ongoing convergence of broadband, television, and other forms of home entertainment distribution, SOC is a foot in the door to permit third parties to make decisions about how you can view or use content you’ve already paid to receive.  That’s a bad precedent.  The FCC approval of this gift to the entertainment industry is a travesty that needs to be reversed.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KCTV Kansas City FCC Ruling Could Bring New Movies Into Homes 5-16-10.flv[/flv]

KCTV-TV in Kansas City ignored the consumer’s loss of control over their own television set to focus instead on the implications for theater owners, who may become natural allies with consumers in opposition of SOC.  (1 minute)

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Public Knowledge – Selectable Output Control.flv[/flv]

Public Knowledge developed this web-ready video that takes a less formal look at SOC and its impact on your consumer rights.  (3 minutes)

Time Warner Cable may be robocalling you any day now with news that your set top box is getting what the cable company is calling an upgrade.

Time Warner Cable is making this robocall to customers with set top boxes announcing an upcoming upgrade. (1 minute)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

Calls are being made to customers with set top boxes in Buffalo and Rochester notifying them an upgrade to the new Mystro platform begins as early as April 13th, depending on the box being used.  Syracuse and southern tier residents can expect their upgrade to commence in May.  The company maintains a website that will let you find the exact schedule for the Mystro upgrade in your area.

Time Warner Cable’s Navigator software displays the electronic program guide, helps you program and control your DVR, and also includes the setup menu for the box.

The upgrade will result in a dramatic change in the look and feel of the box’s on-screen graphics, change how you navigate through the program guide, and provide more options for hooking up today’s HDTV sets. If you have a DVR box from Time Warner Cable, the upgrade sets the stage for an upcoming feature that will let you remotely program your DVR while away from home.

Not everyone is thrilled with the upgrade, however.  In fact, a Google search for “Time Warner Navigator upgrade” reveals a large selection of websites and forums filled with complaints.  Regularly reported problems include:

• Sluggish performance, especially on older set top boxes;
• Poor responsiveness on fast forward/rewind functions for DVRs, making it difficult to land precisely where you want to be;
• The loss of “virtual HD” channels which some boxes passed through to even standard analog-only TV’s (albeit not in HD of course);
• DVR bugs that made recording reliability inconsistent;
• A DVR menu that makes it difficult to record only new episodes of series that repeat regularly on the channel lineup;
• Box crashes, lost program guide data, and issues with the box retaining settings, especially for more complex HDTV setups;

Time Warner Cable began testing Mystro at least two years ago in selected markets, and the company believes it has worked out a number of the bugs noted above along the way. Time Warner plans to systematically upgrade their customers to the new platform nationwide now that testing has been completed.

This customer was so bemused with the Time Warner Navigator upgrade, he made a video illustrating the absurd journey he took to find a science-fiction movie to watch.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Navigator Demo.flv[/flv]

Time Warner Cable’s own promotional videos show off the new Time Warner Cable Navigator system in a better light. (5 minutes)

Time Warner Cable is offering mobile phone providers a solution to their clogged wireless networks — clog ours instead!

Business Week notes the cable company has been aggressively pitching its broadband network to cell phone companies in New York City, which can be used to transport cell phone calls and mobile data between cell towers and the providers’ operations centers.  The “backhaul” network cell phone companies rely on to move calls and data between the cell tower nearest you and your provider’s distribution network is often the source of the worst bottlenecks, especially when those networks are connected by standard copper telephone wiring, as many still are.

The more customers sharing a low capacity copper line, the slower your data speeds and greater the chance for dropped calls.  Although some providers have expanded their fiber capacity to reach busy cell towers, many more are still stuck with copper… until now.

Time Warner Cable’s offer to offload clogged cell phone networks onto the cable company’s broadband backbone has become extraordinarily profitable to the nation’s second largest cable operator.

In fact, it has become Time Warner Cable’s fastest-growing business after revenue tripled last year, Craig Collins, senior vice president of business services told Business Week.

We are talking $3.6 billion dollars in revenue in 2012 from wireless carriers alone, according to researcher GeoResults, Inc.

“Backhaul is a growth play that we are pursuing aggressively,” Collins said. “These mobile players want to get the bandwidth they need at a cost-effective price and our structure allows them to get that pretty seamlessly.”

U.S. smartphone use has grown almost 700 percent in four years, according to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. Mobile-data volume is more than doubling annually as people use devices like the iPhone, BlackBerry and Google Inc.’s new Nexus One to send photos, watch videos and surf the Web. When networks jam, consumers face dropped calls and may find they can’t access Web pages or TV, analysts said.

The coming "exaflood" doesn't seem to worry Time Warner Cable, except when profits from consumers are at stake

Apparently the “exaflood” scare theory that suggests broadband networks are becoming hopelessly clogged does not apply to Time Warner Cable, because the company easily found plenty of free bandwidth in metropolitan New York City to profit from wireless phone traffic.

Not to be outdone, Comcast expects $1 billion from the wireless backhaul gravy train over time, according to its February 3rd conference call with investors.  Comcast is in a unique position to help ease congestion in San Francisco, where the cable operator provides service to some of the same customers who wander the city with Apple iPhones on AT&T’s overclogged Bay Area network.

Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt doesn’t want to limit the potential revenue to just the wireless big boys — he wants to offer service to carriers large and small:

While Time Warner Cable declined to specify if AT&T, the lone U.S. carrier for the iPhone, is a customer, the New York- based cable company says it wants to sign carriers large and small. Chief Executive Officer Glenn Britt alluded to AT&T’s extra iPhone traffic in a December conference call.

“They want to get that into a cable as fast as they can,” Britt said, referring to overloads. His company began leasing backhaul in 2008 and posted $26 million in sales last year, less than 1 percent of the company’s total sales. Collins declined to give a forecast for 2010.

All this, of course, comes ironically to those Time Warner Cable customers who were subjected to Internet Overcharging experiments from Time Warner Cable just about one year ago.  Apparently, the exaflood only applies to consumers who face enormous broadband pricing increases and/or usage limits because of “overburdened” broadband networks.

Not so overburdened that the company can’t make room for billions in new earnings from cell phone companies, of course.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Bloomberg Moffett Says ATT May Need Cable to Ease Network Jams 3-8-10.flv[/flv]

[Video Fixed!] Craig Moffett discusses wireless smartphone data usage trends and Time Warner Cable’s involvement in transporting mobile phone and data across its cable broadband network (5 minutes)