In the era of today’s “triple play” package of voice, data, and phone service, satellite television providers have been left at a competitive disadvantage. Both Dish Network and DirecTV can sell you all the television signals you want, but their satellite-based distribution limits the options to include broadband and telephone service in the package. Now Dish wants to convert some of their satellite spectrum to sell voice and data service over a network of land based wireless towers that will put the company in direct competition with AT&T and Verizon Wireless.
Dish CEO Charlie Ergen hopes to avoid making the same mistakes that threaten to kill a similar venture — LightSquared, because of interference concerns.
Dish’s spectrum is way, way up the radio dial, above 2,000MHz. Other spectrum users in the neighborhood are primarily low-powered, line of sight communications, often satellite-based. LightSquared’s service would have operated at around 1,500MHz, had it not obliterated reception of global positioning satellite services (GPS) in certain instances. Whenever new spectrum users begin to move into a neighborhood, those already there feel threatened, primarily from the fear of interference problems.
Both LightSquared and Dish’s proposed services operate at considerably higher power than other incumbent users, and interference to existing services is a proven problem when sensitive reception equipment is unprepared to deal with signal overload. The Federal Communications Commission found just cause to deny LightSquared operating permission for precisely that reason. Ergen hopes to sell the FCC on a plan he says will avoid those interference problems.
Ergen
Ergen’s spectrum doesn’t sit immediately next door to other, existing users. His frequencies are comparable to living the next block over, and there is a protective fence keeping the neighbors apart.
“It’s not as close to GPS, so it’s unlikely to interfere,” Matthew Desch, chief executive officer of Iridium Communications Inc., which operates more than 60 satellites, told Bloomberg News. “But the approval is going to take some time. The FCC is going to make sure they don’t have another LightSquared problem on their hands.”
Mike Marcus, director of Marcus Spectrum Solutions LLC adds Dish has some space between its frequencies — known as a guard band — and other users. Marcus believes Dish won’t have an interference problem unless existing wireless carriers market handsets and other equipment insufficiently selective to reject interference from higher powered users nearby.
But whether Dish will ultimately spend the billions required to build a nationwide satellite and land-based broadband and phone network to accompany its existing satellite service remains unknown.
Bloomberg reports Wall Street analysts may prefer Dish sell its spectrum assets for a quick profit. Barclays Capital estimates Dish’s spectrum could net the company about $7.3 billion. If AT&T or Verizon Wireless were buyers, it would also protect them from new competition in the wireless market.
Regulators may be prepared to limit any such sale, however. Industry analysts note a similar license for LightSquared required government approval before leasing capacity (or selling the network outright) to AT&T or Verizon Wireless. The government may seek the same limits on Dish Network’s spectrum.
Ergen may have the final word however.
Vijay Jayant, an analyst at ISI Group in New York:
If the government sets rules that limit how Dish can use the spectrum, Ergen may choose to hoard it, said Jayant, which could be antithetical to the government’s mission of promoting wireless competition.
“Dish isn’t a patsy for the government,” Jayant said. “Dish’s attitude is, ‘Make the rules fair and we’ll do the right thing. Make them unfair and we’ll sit on the spectrum,’ and it will be another black eye for the government.”
[Stop the Cap! has written extensively about the pervasive influence some of the nation’s largest cable and phone companies have on telecommunications legislation in this country. On the state level, one group above all others is responsible for quietly getting company-ghost-written bills and resolutions into the hands of state lawmakers to introduce as their own.]
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is the latest corporate response to campaign finance and lobbying reform — a Washington, D.C.-based “middle man” that brings lawmakers and corporate interests together while obfuscating the obvious conflict of interest to voters back home if they realized what was going on.
ALEC focuses on state laws its corporate members detest because, in many cases, they represent the only regulatory obstacles left after more than two decades of deregulatory fervor on the federal level. State lawmakers are ALEC’s targets — officeholders unaccustomed to a multi-million dollar influence operation. The group invites lawmakers to participate in policy sessions that equally balance corporate executives on one side with elected officials on the other. Consumers are not invited to participate.
ALEC’s telecom members have several agendas on the state level, mostly repealing:
Local franchising and oversight of cable television service;
Statewide oversight of the quality of service and measuring the reliability of phone and cable operators;
Consumer protection laws, including those that offer customers a third party contact for unresolved service problems;
Universal service requirements that insist all customers in a geographic region be permitted to receive service;
Funding support for public, educational, and government access television channels;
Rules governing the eventual termination of essential service for non/past due payments;
Local zoning requirements and licensing of outside work.
But ALEC is not always focused on deregulation or “smaller government.” In fact, many of its clients want new legislation that is designed to protect their position of incumbency or enhance profits. Cable and phone company-written bills that restrict or ban public broadband networks are introduced to lawmakers through ALEC-sponsored events. In several cases, model legislation that was developed by cable and phone companies was used as a template for nearly-identical bills introduced in several states without disclosing who actually authored the original bill.
ALEC specializes in secrecy, rarely granting interviews or talking about the corporations that pay tens of thousands of dollars to belong. Corporate members also enjoy full veto rights over any proposal or idea not to their liking, and aborted resolutions or legislative proposals are kept completely confidential. More often than not, however, legislators and corporate members come to an agreement on something, and the end product ends up in a central database of model bills and resolutions ready to be introduced in any of 50 state legislatures.
Many do, and often these proposed bills are remarkably similar, if not identical. That proved to be no coincidence. In July 2011, the Center for Media and Democracy was able to obtain a complete copy of ALEC’s master database of proposed legislation. The Center called it a stark example of “corporate collaboration reshaping our democracy, state by state.”
National Public Radio takes an inside look at the American Legislative Exchange Council and how it works to help major corporations influence and change state laws. (October 29, 2010) (8 minutes)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.
ALEC’s Corporate Telecom Members
ALEC defends itself saying it does not directly lobby any legislator. That is, in fact true. But many of its corporate members clearly do. AT&T is one of ALEC’s most high profile members, serving as a “Private Enterprise Board” member, state corporate co-chair of Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas (all AT&T service areas), a member of the Telecommunications and Information Technology Task force, and “Chairman” level sponsor of the 2011 ALEC Annual Conference (a privilege for those contributing $50,000).
AT&T’s lobbying is legendary, and is backed with enormous campaign contributions to legislators on the state and federal level.
CenturyLink (also including Qwest Communications), “Director” level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference ($10,000 in 2010)
Cincinnati Bell
Comcast, State corporate co-chair of Georgia, Minnesota, Missouri and Utah and recipient of ALEC’s 2011 State Chair of the Year Award
Cox Communications, “Trustee” level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference ($5,000 in 2010)
Time Warner Cable, State corporate co-chair of Ohio, “Director” level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference ($10,000 in 2010)
Verizon Communications, Private Enterprise Board member and State corporate co-chair of Virginia and Wyoming
ALEC supporters among trade groups and astroturf/corporate-influenced “non profits”:
National Cable and Telecommunications Association, ALEC Telecommunications and Information Technology Task Force member
Free State Foundation (think tank promoting limited government and rule of law principles in telecommunications and information technology policy)
Heartland Institute, Exhibitor at ALEC’s 2011 Annual Conference, Telecommunications and Information Technology Task Force member, Education Task Force member, Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force, Financial Services Subcommittee member and Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force member
This model bill for increased cable competition strips most of the authority your community has over cable television operations and transfers it to under-funded or less aggressive state bodies. Although the bill claims to protect local oversight and community access stations, the statewide video franchise fee almost always destroys the funding model for public, educational, and government access channels.
These municipal broadband bills are always written to suggest community and private players must share a "level playing field." But bills like these always exempt the companies that actually wrote the bill, and micromanage and limit the business operations of the community provider.
Legislators: Bring the family to Mardi Gras World on us, sponsored by America's largest telecommunications companies.
WHYY Philadelphia’s ‘Fresh Air’ spent a half hour exploring who really writes the legislation introduced in state legislatures. When ALEC gets involved, The Nation reporter John Nichols thinks the agenda is clear: “All of those pieces of legislation and those resolutions really err toward a goal, and that goal is the advancement of an agenda that seems to be dictated at almost every turn by multinational corporations.” (July 21, 2011) (32 minutes)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.
Unfortunately, state lawmakers are not always sophisticated enough to recognize a carefully crafted legislative agenda at work. National Public Radio found one excellent example — the 2010 Arizona immigration law that requires police to arrest anyone who cannot prove they entered the country legally when asked. America’s immigration problems remain a major topic on the agenda at some ALEC events, curious for a corporate-backed group until you realize one of ALEC’s members — the Corrections Corporation of America — America’s largest private prison operator, stood to earn millions providing incarceration services for what some estimated could be tens, if not hundreds of thousands of new prisoners being held on suspicion of immigration violations.
CCA was in the room when the model immigration legislation, eventually adopted by Arizona’s legislature, was written at an ALEC conference in 2009.
Bring the Kids, Stay for the Corporate Influence
Getting legislators to attend these seminars isn’t as hard as it might sound.
In January, we reported members of the North Carolina General Assembly, who showed their willingness to support telecom industry-written bills when it passed an anti-community broadband initiative in 2011, were wined and dined (along with their staff) by ALEC at the Mardi Gras World celebration in New Orleans. Rep. Marilyn Avila (R-Time Warner Cable), who introduced the aforementioned measure, brought her husband to Asheville to enjoy a special weekend as the featured guest speaker at a dinner sponsored by North Carolina’s state cable lobbying group:
The North Carolina Cable Telecommunications Association reported they not only picked up Marilyn’s food and bar bill ($290 for the Aug. 6-8 event), they also covered her husband Alex, too. Alex either ate and drank less than Marilyn, or chose cheaper items from the menu, because his food tab came to just $185.50. The cable lobby also picked up the Avila’s $471 hotel bill, and handed Alex another $99 in walking-around money to go and entertain himself during the weekend event. The total bill, effectively covered by the state’s cable subscribers: $1,045.50.
Rep. Avila with Marc Trathen, Time Warner Cable's top lobbyist (right) Photo by: Bob Sepe of Action Audits
ALEC makes it easy because it pays the way for lawmakers and families to attend their events through the award of “scholarships”:
The organization encourages state lawmakers to bring their families. Corporations sponsor golf tournaments on the side and throw parties at night, according to interviews and records obtained by NPR.
[…] Videos and photos from one recent ALEC conference show banquets, open bar parties and baseball games — all hosted by corporations. Tax records show the group spent $138,000 to keep legislators’ children entertained for the week.
But the legislators don’t have to declare these as corporate gifts.
Consider this: If a corporation hosts a party or baseball game and legislators attend, most states require the lawmakers to say where they went and who paid. In this case though, legislators can just say they went to ALEC’s conference. They don’t have to declare which corporations sponsored these events.
Reporter John Nichols told NPR ALEC’s focus on state politics is smart:
“We live at the local and state level. That’s where human beings come into contact more often than not,” he says. “We live today in a country where there’s a Washington obsession, particularly by the media but also by the political class. … And yet, in most areas, it’s not Washington that dictates the outlines, the parameters of our life. … And so if you come in at the state government level, you have a much greater ability to define how you’re going to operate.”
Resources:
ALEC Exposed: Access a database of more than 800 corporate ghost-written bills and resolutions intended to become state law in all 50 states. Sponsored by the Center for Media and Democracy.
ALEC’s Database Revealed: A more general indictment of ALEC and its coordinated agenda to allow corporate influence to hold an increasing role in public policy.
If you are customer of Charter Cable, chances are you are paying a lot more than $60 a month for a complete package of cable television with a DVR box and 30Mbps broadband, price locked for two years. But Charter is selling precisely that package to customers in Monticello, Minn. Why do they get a deal you can’t have? Because your town probably doesn’t have a community-owned broadband provider delivering competition.
Charter’s website offers new customers a six-month cable/broadband promotion for $64.98 a month, but that does not include a DVR box and delivers half the speed Charter pitches to the chosen few in Monticello. After six months, the deal ends. A package including what Charter sells in Monticello for $60 a month costs more than twice as much elsewhere — $145 a month for customers in Rochester and Duluth.
"For the BEST prices in town, you must call your 'In-Field' representative," the flyer declares, including the name and number of a local Charter representative.
The cable operator is keeping the two-year special offer quiet as much as possible with the use of door flyers hand-delivered to potential customers. If Charter’s five million customers nationwide find out, they may wonder why they are paying dramatically more for the exact same service.
The city of Monticello already knows why. The local community decided the incumbent providers — TDS Telecom and Charter Communications — were not giving the city the attention it deserved, so it built its own 21st century fiber to the home system to bring faster broadband to the region. Now the incumbent commercial operators appear to be stopping at nothing to put FiberNet Monticello out of business. Charter’s pricing takes fat profits from customers in nearby Minnesota cities and appears to cross-subsidize the heavily discounted service on offer in Monticello. While that delivers short-term savings to customers in Monticello, other Charter customers are helping cross-subsidize those low rates on their own high cable bills.
If you are a Charter Cable customer, why can’t you have the same deal residents in Monticello are getting? Why not call Charter at 1-888-438-2427 and ask them?
Sen. Linda Runbeck, a dues-paying member of ALEC, a corporate funded pressure group that advocates for legislation advantageous to ALEC's corporate sponsors.
Rural Minnesota is facing a full frontal assault on community broadband, courtesy of a state representative so proud of her involvement in a corporate front group, she’s actually a dues-paying member.
State Sen. Linda Runbeck (R-Circle Pines) introduced HF 2695, a bill to prohibit publicly-owned broadband systems:
A bill for an act relating to telecommunications; prohibiting publicly owned broadband systems; proposing coding for new law in Minnesota Statutes, chapter 237.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA: Section 1. [237.201] PUBLICLY OWNED BROADBAND SYSTEM; PROHIBITION.
(a) Notwithstanding section 475.58, subdivision 1, other state law, county ordinance, or any authority granted in a home rule charter, a city or a county may not use tax revenues raised within its jurisdiction or issue debt to construct, acquire, own, or operate, in whole or in part, a system to deliver broadband service.
(b) Notwithstanding sections 123A.21, 123B.61 to 123B.63, 125B.26, and 475.58, subdivision 1, no school district or service cooperative may use state revenues, tax revenues raised within its jurisdiction, or issue debt to construct, acquire, own, or operate, in whole or in part, a system to deliver broadband service.
(c) For the purposes of this section, “broadband service” means a service that allows subscribers to access information from the Internet by means of a physical, terrestrial, non-mobile, or fixed wireless technology.
(d) This section applies to a system to deliver broadband service whose construction begins after the effective date of this section, but does not apply to:
the city of Minneapolis, St. Paul, or Duluth; or
the maintenance or repair of a system delivering broadband service whose initial construction began before the effective date of this section, provided that the geographical area in which the system delivers broadband service is not expanded as a result of the maintenance or repair.
EFFECTIVE DATE. This section is effective the day following final enactment.
The public broadband option delivers the most bang for the buck, which is why some providers want to see it banned.
Runbeck is a dues-paying member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a secretive corporate front group that lobbies lawmakers to introduce business-friendly legislation, often on the state level. Runbeck told the Minnesota Independent via email that she paid $100 for a two-year membership in the organization, and says she’s never used ALEC’s “model legislation,” bills that are sometimes written by corporate members of the group and that pop up in state capitols across the country.
But Runbeck’s sudden interest in banning community broadband coincides with similar efforts in states like Georgia and South Carolina backed by big cable and phone companies. Runbeck’s bill would directly target rural Minnesota, where broadband is the least robust, while exempting Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Duluth (and incumbent phone and cable companies) from the bill’s provisions. Runbeck’s bill also constrains existing public broadband services from expanding, an important matter for providers still rolling out service to additional neighborhoods in their communities.
Community broadband is already hampered in Minnesota by laws that make such projects difficult to approve and build. When projects do break ground, incumbent providers do everything possible to throw up roadblocks to delay or abort the progress being made. In Monticello, TDS Telecom filed nuisance suits against that city’s public broadband network before finally deciding to upgrade service themselves. Mediacom and Charter, two major Minnesota cable operators, have objected to public broadband projects that don’t even serve communities they’ve wired.
When the networks are in operation, providers like Charter work to undercut them by selling service at prices so low, they’re predatory. But when competitors are driven out, prices rise… quickly.
Runbeck’s $100 membership in ALEC is paying dividends, if you are a big incumbent cable or phone company. Consumers will pay much more than that if broadband competition is curtailed.
Consumers and community leaders across Georgia can now rest a little easier knowing AT&T’s plans to throw up roadblocks against community broadband have gone awry. SB313, a custom-written corporate welfare bill designed to protect cable and phone companies from competition, has reportedly been turned into a “study bill” — a graceful way to kill bad legislation without hurting too many feelings.
It wasn’t just the fact incumbent phone and cable companies wanted to stop community broadband projects from wiring communities they’ve ignored for years. It wasn’t even the absurdity of the bill defining Georgia’s “broadband” speeds at just 200kbps (later ‘generously’ amended and increased to 758kbps). This bill died because of consumer and community outrage — local officials working hand in hand with woefully under-served Georgians asking their elected officials why they seemed to care more about AT&T’s interests than those of the people who elected them to office.
According to the National Broadband Map, Georgia ranks 20th in the nation for broadband access. According to the forward of a report by Rich Calhoun, Program Director of the Georgia Technology Initiative, “As I traveled through the state to talk with leaders in municipalities, counties and community anchor institutions, I found that many places throughout Georgia indicated that they did not have access to affordable or sufficient broadband services. Telecommunications firms who have made significant investments in Georgia indicated that in some areas of the state the return on investment would not qualify for further investment at the present time.”
As Stop the Cap! exposed to our readers, AT&T isn’t interested in serving the broadband needs of rural Georgia and doesn’t want anyone else serving them either.
But the real victory goes to readers who picked up the phone or sent e-mail letting Georgia legislators know you were watching them and paying attention to this obvious corporate welfare bill. You made it more expensive for lawmakers to vote with AT&T, despite their campaign contributions, than to vote for -your- interests. The next election is never too far away.
Why We Fight: These are the minimum speeds needed by some of Georgia's most important institutions. While state lawmakers have 100Mbps access in Atlanta, some are content to define 758kbps "broadband" as just fine for the rest of the state.
We also applaud the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Their Community Broadband Networks project was able to educate, coordinate, and rally local governments who may not have been aware their broadband future was about to be indefinitely held ransom by AT&T and Comcast.
We never underestimate AT&T’s power and money. But they continue to underestimate us and the communities they are supposed to be serving.
Common sense prevailed in Georgia. South Carolina may be a different story. Their own anti-broadband measure is still alive and kicking. We’ll be holding additional “calls to action” on this bad bill shortly.
Stay involved in the fight. The better broadband you protect may be your own.
Be Sure to Read Part One: Astroturf Overload — Broadband for America = One Giant Industry Front Group for an important introduction to what this super-sized industry front group is all about. Members of Broadband for America Red: A company or group actively engaging in anti-consumer lobbying, opposes Net Neutrality, supports Internet Overcharging, belongs to […]
Astroturf: One of the underhanded tactics increasingly being used by telecom companies is “Astroturf lobbying” – creating front groups that try to mimic true grassroots, but that are all about corporate money, not citizen power. Astroturf lobbying is hardly a new approach. Senator Lloyd Bentsen is credited with coining the term in the 1980s to […]
Hong Kong remains bullish on broadband. Despite the economic downturn, City Telecom continues to invest millions in constructing one of Hong Kong’s largest fiber optic broadband networks, providing fiber to the home connections to residents. City Telecom’s HK Broadband service relies on an all-fiber optic network, and has been dubbed “the Verizon FiOS of Hong […]
BendBroadband, a small provider serving central Oregon, breathlessly announced the imminent launch of new higher speed broadband service for its customers after completing an upgrade to DOCSIS 3. Along with the launch announcement came a new logo of a sprinting dog the company attaches its new tagline to: “We’re the local dog. We better be […]
Stop the Cap! reader Rick has been educating me about some of the new-found aggression by Shaw Communications, one of western Canada’s largest telecommunications companies, in expanding its business reach across Canada. Woe to those who get in the way. Novus Entertainment is already familiar with this story. As Stop the Cap! reported previously, Shaw […]
The Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission, the Canadian equivalent of the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, may be forced to consider American broadband policy before defining Net Neutrality and its role in Canadian broadband, according to an article published today in The Globe & Mail. [FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s] proposal – to codify and enforce some […]
In March 2000, two cable magnates sat down for the cable industry equivalent of My Dinner With Andre. Fine wine, beautiful table linens, an exquisite meal, and a Monopoly board with pieces swapped back and forth representing hundreds of thousands of Canadian consumers. Ted Rogers and Jim Shaw drew a line on the western Ontario […]
Just like FairPoint Communications, the Towering Inferno of phone companies haunting New England, Frontier Communications is making a whole lot of promises to state regulators and consumers, if they’ll only support the deal to transfer ownership of phone service from Verizon to them. This time, Frontier is issuing a self-serving press release touting their investment […]
I see it took all of five minutes for George Ou and his friends at Digital Society to be swayed by the tunnel vision myopia of last week’s latest effort to justify Internet Overcharging schemes. Until recently, I’ve always rationalized my distain for smaller usage caps by ignoring the fact that I’m being subsidized by […]
In 2007, we took our first major trip away from western New York in 20 years and spent two weeks an hour away from Calgary, Alberta. After two weeks in Kananaskis Country, Banff, Calgary, and other spots all over southern Alberta, we came away with the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The Good Alberta […]
A federal appeals court in Washington has struck down, for a second time, a rulemaking by the Federal Communications Commission to limit the size of the nation’s largest cable operators to 30% of the nation’s pay television marketplace, calling the rule “arbitrary and capricious.” The 30% rule, designed to keep no single company from controlling […]
Less than half of Americans surveyed by PC Magazine report they are very satisfied with the broadband speed delivered by their Internet service provider. PC Magazine released a comprehensive study this month on speed, provider satisfaction, and consumer opinions about the state of broadband in their community. The publisher sampled more than 17,000 participants, checking […]