The network envisioned with the help of a $30 million federal broadband grant, now in jeopardy.

A consortium of 15 rural north Florida counties awarded a $30 million federal broadband grant to provide a “middle-mile” wireless broadband network for the region has spent almost $7 million of its federal grant on consultants, design engineers, land acquisition and staffing without breaking ground on a single construction project.

In February 2010, the Obama Administration announced the broadband grant to deliver rural Florida residents a way to finally obtain high-speed access to the Internet within three years.  Now, a year-and-a-half later, not a single tower of the wireless network has been built, residents have been told they will never receive Internet service directly from the project, and one of the key members of the North Florida Broadband Authority charged with constructing the network has called one of the major contractors “incompetent.”

Last week, federal officials suspended the grant amid growing accusations of wasteful spending and lack of oversight.

NFBA was supposed to be building a wireless wholesale-access network across 15 counties that would deliver ISPs, government agencies, libraries, and other institutional users packages of 6, 12, 25, 60, 150Mbps or faster service, linked with fiber to Orlando and Tampa.

Although media coverage touted the project as delivering improved access to residential customers in Baker, Bradford, Columbia, Dixie, Gilchrist, Hamilton, Jefferson, Lafayette, Levy, Madison, Putnam, Suwannee, Taylor, Union and Wakulla counties, the NFBA project will not directly make broadband service available to consumers.  Would be residential customers will have to hope an incumbent Internet Service Provider chooses to participate and resells access to the network across the region.  Otherwise, those taxpayers will only be able to use the network they paid for at a local library.

That is, if the project ever gets completed.

To date, financial statements from the NFBA reflect the biggest checks paid to-date have gone to architecture and design consultants, which have received a total of more than $3.37 million dollars.  In contrast, NFBA has paid $0.00 for on-site construction and site work as of the end of the last quarter.  Money has also been spent on “Administrative and Legal Expenses” amounting to more than $863,000, and $1.54 million has been spent on property appraisal, acquisition, and expenses related to establishing rights-of-way.

When questions began to be raised about why the project had spent so much on so little, the fur began to fly, according to the North Florida Herald:

Christopher Thurow of Bradford County, accused [contractor] Government Services Group of being “incompetent.” Government Services Group answers to the Authority and is in charge of managing the project.

Then Rapid Systems, one of the project’s engineering companies, began making accusations of not getting paid. But GSG pointed to what it said was inadequate documentation by Rapid Systems and not following payment procedures.

Adding to the controversy was that GSG had been let go from managing the Florida Rural Broadband Authority (FRBA), a program similar to the North Florida Broadband Authority.

Multiple FRBA meetings were canceled, and the project was behind schedule, said Rick Marcum, chairman of FRBA.

“We felt like we needed to move in a different direction,” he said.

Since then, Government Services Group has filed a lawsuit against FRBA, saying there is a breach of contract.

At the North Florida Broadband Authority, some members allege a conflict of interest between GSG and Capital Solutions, which was contracted by GSG to oversee the administration of the grant money.

The apparent conflict comes from the accusation that Government Services Group CEO Robert Sheets is 25-percent owner of Meridian Services group, where Lisa Blair is CEO and president. Blair also is the CEO of Capital Solutions.

NFBA project members seem content to blame most of the problems on others, as well as on a sudden discovery their initial network design would not meet the performance requirements of potential wholesale customers.  That meant a wholesale re-design of the project into a “interconnected-ring network” design topology.  The rest of the delay, according to the NFBA, was because the project was sitting around waiting for government approvals:

This entire process (which included design re-evaluation, engineering services procurement, and network redesign) was carried out over a period of two to three quarters, which was the period of time designated in the original Baseline Plan for the turnkey link design phase as well as for subsequent equipment procurement, site acquisition, and pre-deployment activities. Additional variance from the Baseline Plan resulted substantial delays that were incurred awaiting wage-rate determinations (more than 3 months), awaiting a response to a waiver request to allow eligibility of Long term Operational leases (requested process in December, 2010, AAR submitted in April 2011, received in June, 2011); and comments from the Program Office on a Route Change Request (2 months).

That explanation did not pass muster with grant administrators at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the federal agency overseeing broadband grants.

“NFBA has experienced a number of external and internal delays on its project and, as a result, NTIA has serious concerns regarding the project’s long-term viability and, in the short-term, its ability to implement and deploy the proposed project during the grant award period,” the NTIA wrote in a statement.

As a result, the NTIA has suspended the program, ending all work, pending some sort of oversight agreement with the NFBA being concluded before Oct. 10.

The NTIA wants all invoices and disbursements from the $30 million grant approved directly by them before any more money is spent on the project.

To date, filings indicate the project has no signed customers of any kind, institutional, commercial or otherwise.  NFBA anticipates it will “outline service to 308 anchor institutions by project closeout,” with “outline” at this point defined as “offer.”

However, NFBA claims to have received a “Commitment Letter for a substantial monthly service commitment from one of our last mile partners, and we expect to receive additional Commitment Letters over the next quarter as we continue to actively engage last mile providers in the network region.”

Last-mile partners are the ones that will ultimately deliver service to residential and business customers.

Dixie County resident and Stop the Cap! reader Jimmy Dixon, who alerted us to the latest developments, calls it “a good government program hijacked by greedy consultants and incompetent local officials.”

“This was supposed to be about serving the unserved — we the people — and instead the project will only sell to government buildings and libraries, and whatever ISPs choose to buy access,” he writes. “But when an ISP won’t sell DSL to your home today, nothing about this grant will make them sell it tomorrow.”

Indeed, Dixon says the local phone company in his area continues to have no plans to wire his neighborhood for DSL, grant or no grant.

“They frankly told me it did not make economic sense to extend DSL here, and unless the government directly defrayed those expenses, they never will service us,” Dixon shares. “But I guess until recently it was just fine to line the pockets of consultants with millions in taxpayer dollars to not deliver service to anyone else, either.”

“We’re all in the same boat, and it’s sinking fast.”

Read the special investigative report published by the North Florida Herald here.

Cellular South, a regional wireless provider serving Mississippi, western Tennessee, and parts of Florida and Alabama, relaunched operations this morning as C Spire Wireless.

Company officials claim C Spire will be the first carrier to offer “personalized wireless services” that will adapt to customers based on how they use their phones and other  devices.

“We have entered a new era in wireless – an era centered on broadband networks, mobile computing devices and now personalized services. Completing calls is only a small part of what we deliver our customers,” said Hu Meena, president and CEO of C Spire. “Since 1988, our main focus has been on providing exceptional service for our customers and their wireless needs. Those needs have changed dramatically and will do so at an even more rapid pace in the future.”

Among the changes underway across the mobile industry is an effort to end unlimited wireless data plans for smartphone customers, but that won’t be the case at C Spire, which is retaining unlimited smartphone data usage for many of its service plans, sort of.

“C Spire understands that when customers have to measure and limit their data, they aren’t getting the optimal experience with their wireless provider. That’s why the company is introducing Individual and Family Choice Plans that offer customers the ultimate in choice and flexibility, and access to infinite data,” the company said in a statement.

But there is a major catch — that “infinite” data usage does not include streaming multimedia content.  That comes extra: priced free through October 29. Then 2 hours for $5, 5 hours for $10, or unlimited usage for $30.

How many "percs" can I win picking out the sloppy spelling errors on C Spire's website?

C Spire does away with counting megabytes or gigabytes and asks customers to guess how many hours they expect to use streaming media applications on their phones. That means customers will pay $50 a month for C Spire’s Choice D 500 plan, which includes unlimited web browsing and e-mail, plus 500 talk minutes per month.  But if you want to listen to unlimited online radio or stream video, that price increases to $80 a month.  But that $80 does buy an unlimited experience at that point.

C Spire’s pricing reflects the failure of strong Net Neutrality protection, allowing carriers to charge extra for different types of content on its network.

Wireless mobile broadband customers still face a cap on C Spire’s data-only plans: 1GB for $19.99, 3GB for $29.99 or 5GB for $49.99.

Users must spend at least 50 percent of their usage during the month within a C Spire service area.  Excessive roaming can get your service suspended.  As a regional carrier, that means “home usage” is limited to a handful of southern states.

But company officials are spending little time discussing their pricing and plans, instead focusing on how C Spire will “personalize” the wireless experience.

No other wireless provider understands its customers and adapts to their wireless needs like C Spire. Customers will see this unique personalization in apps and content that fit who they are, services that anticipate their needs, and rewards they’ll get just for using their phone in new ways. C Spire’s industry-leading personalization capabilities are powered by Pulse, a proprietary system that enables the company to understand and develop a closer relationship with its customers. In turn, C Spire recommends and provides the right selection of technology experiences tailored for each customer – giving them unmatched wireless personalization.

C Spire offers what they are calling “percs” — points that customers can collect based on interacting with the company’s website and social media platforms, the number of years they remain loyal to C Spire, and opting into company research programs including their Scout Program, which track apps usage.

The rewards on offer at the moment are not impressive — waiving late bill payment fees, priority access to customer service, feature upgrades, and discounts on accessories and shipping.

The company’s website has been unresponsive at times this morning and customers on C Spire’s Facebook page are complaining they are confused about pricing and plan changes, particularly those related to streaming data usage.

C Spire's Rewards Program

[flv width=”480″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/C Spire Ads 9-26-11.flv[/flv]

Magic Sparklies: The wireless company’s new advertising campaign introduces Cellular South’s new brand: C Spire Wireless (1 minute)

Divided Loyalties? -- Mayor John Marks

A growing scandal involving AT&T and the mayor of the state capital of Florida has further exposed the link between AT&T’s pay-for-play public policy agenda and the politicians willing to act as puppets for the phone company’s interests.

Tallahassee Mayor John Marks strongly promoted an Atlanta nonprofit group to participate in a $1.6 million dollar federal broadband grant to expand Internet access to the urban poor and train disadvantaged citizens to navigate the online world, without disclosing he was a paid adviser to the group.

What the rest of the city never knew is that the Alliance for Digital Equality (ADE) is little more than an AT&T astroturf effort — a front group almost entirely funded by AT&T that actually did almost nothing to bring Internet access to anyone.

The Alliance for Digital Equality, a group supposedly focused on erasing the digital divide, spends an inordinate amount of time running radio ads under the alias of “Alliance for Equal Access” for competition in cable-TV… when that competition comes from AT&T U-verse. Listen to two radio commercials run in Georgia and Tennessee, both AT&T service areas, promoting legislation that was introduced at the behest of AT&T and promoted by ADE. (2 minutes)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

In fact, an investigation by a Tallahassee newspaper reviewing the group’s federal tax returns found four of every five dollars spent by ADE went to board members, consultants, lawyers, and media companies for the purpose of promoting AT&T’s agenda against Net Neutrality and for the company’s various business interests:

Marks also didn’t mention when he brought ADE to the City Commission in September 2010 that AT&T has been paying him since the early 1990s as a lawyer and consultant.

Tax returns for ADE show it got $7.36 million from AT&T from 2007 through 2009. Among its expenses, it spent $2.7 million on consulting and legal fees, $1.2 million on travel, $1.1 million on media and communications and $931,509 in pay to officers and board of advisers members.

ADE spent nothing on projects to provide Internet access to underserved areas from 2007-09. It wasn’t created to do so. The group’s mission, as reported to the IRS, was to advocate “technology inflows to underserved communities by interacting with elected officials, policymakers at all levels of government and private sectors.”

In those interactions, ADE presented the same message as AT&T in opposition to greater price regulation of the Internet.

View the 2007, 2008, and 2009 tax returns for the Alliance for Digital Equality yourself.

Some of ADE’s officers and board members are familiar to Stop the Cap! readers as loyal AT&T advocates.  Even worse, many of them routinely play the “race card” whenever AT&T’s agenda is threatened.  Take Shirley Franklin.  She is the former mayor of Atlanta, but these days her biggest constituent is AT&T.  Last August, Franklin helped lead an attack against Free Press, a consumer advocacy group, that she said “target[ed] women, African-Americans and other minorities” after the group complained about the ties between several civil and minority rights organizations and AT&T.

ADE unsurprisingly is also all-for the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile

Julius Hollis, chairman and founder of the Alliance for Digital Equality, was even more strident.

“I am extremely disappointed in the Free Press, not only in its policies and tactics that they are attempting deploy in their strategy paper, but equally disturbing are its attempts to portray the African-American and Latino consumers as expendable in their efforts to promote Net Neutrality,” Hollis said last year. “In my opinion, this is going back to the tactics that were used in the Jim Crow era by segregationists. It’s no better than what was used in the Willie Horton playbook by Lee Atwater who, upon his deathbed, asked for forgiveness for using such political behavior tactics.”

Stop the Cap! exposed ADE ourselves as a “dollar-a-holler” advocate in August 2010 when we learned the majority of the group’s funds came from AT&T.

Anne Landman, managing editor of the Center for Media and Democracy, told the Tallahassee Democrat the purpose of groups almost entirely sponsored by a single corporate interest is to obfuscate the messenger. “It’s a nontransparent way of operating,” she said. “People don’t know who’s behind these efforts. So it’s fake, and it’s phony, and it gives people wrong information. It’s designed to purposely fool people.”

The newspaper spent months trying to track down financial reports, tax filings, and other documentation about the group, and ran into repeated resistance.  At one point, written requests sent to the group’s headquarters in Atlanta were returned unopened and marked “refused.”

ADE’s corporate influence is bad enough, but when the group uses race, gender, and economic cards to attack real public interest groups, it raises eyebrows, particularly when the group doing the attacking is financed by a corporate entity.  The Black Agenda Report, a website that can hardly be accused of racism, called out Franklin and the organization she represents.

The newspaper’s investigation also found all of ADE’s employees were actually independent contractors.  Non-profit group experts claim the entire structure of ADE is unusual because it funnels all of its money through contractors.

Tallahassee Mayor John Marks is apparently one of them, having received $86,000 as a member of ADE’s board of advisers in addition to AT&T paying him directly as a lawyer and consultant.

With the recent revelations, Tallahassee’s broadband grant is now in ruins and will be returned, unspent.  Marks is reportedly under investigation by the FBI for potential corruption.  And another AT&T astroturf effort has been exposed and has blown up in the company’s face.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WCTV Tallahassee Mayor Under Fire Over ATT-ADE Ethics Scandal 3-29-11 – 9-15-11.flv[/flv]

Stop the Cap! has compiled almost a year of coverage of the burgeoning scandal in the Tallahassee mayor’s office, courtesy of WCTV-TV, which has doggedly pursued the scandal with assistance from its news partner Tallahassee Reports.  (10 minutes)

A Tampa woman claims that a cable installer who engaged in alleged inappropriate sexual conduct has left her traumatized for life, and she may end up moving to cope with the bad memories that she cannot escape.

Katelyn Breadmore broke her silence Tuesday in an exclusive interview with WWSB-TV in Sarasota-Bradenton, Fla.

Breadmore told the station she has trouble sleeping at night and dreams that the installer is hiding in her closet.

Since Stop the Cap! originally reported this story, new facts have come to light:

Comcast has released a statement indicating the accused installer, Shane Wheatley, is not a Comcast employee.  He is a contractor working for FTS Communications, a third party company hired by Comcast to handle installations and other customer service work.

“We are appalled by the alleged behavior of Mr. Wheatley and can confirm that he is no longer working on any Comcast accounts. Comcast is prepared to cooperate fully with authorities in their investigation if asked,” said Bill Ferry, Regional Vice President of Government Affairs, Comcast Cable.

The Sarasota County’s Sheriff Office also reported Wheatley was charged after a lengthy investigation which included at least one failed lie detector test — a test Wheatley demanded.

A trial date for Wheatley has not yet been announced.

[flv width=”360″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WWSB Tampa Victim speaks about cable man’s lewd behavior 9-20-11.mp4[/flv]

WWSB aired this exclusive interview with a Tampa-area woman who says a contractor working for Comcast left her traumatized for life.  (3 minutes)

The Florida Attorney General’s office is taking notice of an increasing number of consumer complaints regarding service providers auto-renewing contracts for subscription services without notifying customers in advance.

Among the worst offenders is satellite radio and Internet streaming provider SiriusXM, which some consumers say is notorious for shady billing and collection policies.

SiriusXM provides free trial service in any new and most used vehicles where receivers come pre-installed.  Most dealers activate the service trial for consumers, and pass along the name, address, and phone number of the individual buying the vehicle.  Within two weeks, SiriusXM will begin mailing customers invitations to convert their free trial into a paid subscription, usually with a discount offer.  Consumers who sign up for promotions like SiriusXM’s “5 months for $25” are invited to charge their subscription with a major credit card over the phone.

That’s where the trouble starts, several customers report.

Unbeknownst to them, SiriusXM will “automatically renew” active subscriptions with a credit card on file for “the convenience of the customer,” once the promotion expires.  Customers usually find out when they find a substantial charge on their credit card, often representing the next quarter of service, billed at the regular price of $12.95 per month, plus a “music royalty fee” and any additional state and local taxes.

Some subscribers find even bigger headaches when taking advantage of discounted annual rates that als0 auto-renew.  If the subscriber isn’t automatically billed for the renewal on a credit card, they will often find a bill in the mail, along with a fee for mailing the unexpected invoice.

Getting SiriusXM to cancel surprise bills can become a major headache, and has led to thousands of complaints with the Better Business Bureau.  SiriusXM’s overseas call centers can leave customers waiting on hold for more than half an hour, only to be connected with an English-challenged, uncooperative customer service agent that refuses to waive unexpected charges.

To be fair, SiriusXM’s subscriber agreement provides warnings that canceling service requires more than ignoring a billing statement.  Service will continue (along with billing) for up to three months before the service is suspended and the account is turned over to collections.  Consumers should not consider -any- SiriusXM plan or promotion a one-time, non-renewing offer.  Every promotion we’ve encountered will end with an account converted to regular price service.

Florida state law requires providers like cable, satellite, and phone companies to warn subscribers at least 30 days in advance of any scheduled automatic renewal of a contract.  The law gives consumers time to opt out before they find themselves committed to a service they no longer want.  But many customers accuse SiriusXM of ignoring the law, and the first indication the radio service has been renewed arrives in the form of a bill.

Coping with the third party collection agency SiriusXM uses can be even more difficult than dealing with the company directly, according to several complaints.

Customers who have filed complaints with the BBB report the company usually bends to customer demands at that point.

We have had some long-standing experience dealing with SiriusXM customer service ourselves.  Here are some tips:

1. Don’t give them a credit card number over the phone.  Tell them to send you a bill in the mail and you will write them a check.  You can make a “one-time” credit card payment on their website that has never resulted in auto-payments for us.  Most of the automatically-renewing charges we’ve encountered came from overzealous telephone customer service representatives enrolling us in the “auto-payment” service without our authorization.
2. You almost never have to pay regular SiriusXM prices.  Their retention offers can be renewed over and over again just by telling them the regular price is too high.  But retention plans do not include “best of” channels from the sister provider (Sirius customers can get certain XM channels and vice-versa).  Routine promotions these days are 5 months for $25 or a year for $77 if you don’t want the hassle of calling every five months to renew your retention deal.  Either is much better than $12.95 a month.
3. Although getting “late fees” and “paper billing fees” waived is easy, getting the bill-padding “music royalty fee” forgiven is not.  But you can try.
4. The “lifetime” promotion only covers the life of the receiver (or your automobile).  It’s not a good deal.
5. When you sign up for a promotion, use a calendar application to start reminding you 30 days before it expires so you can call and extend it.  If your promotion expires, you will be billed regular prices and it is a major hassle to get them to waive or discount those charges in-between promotions.
6. If you want to listen to the music channels on offer from SiriusXM these days, you can sample them for free using their streaming service.

SiriusXM recently announced they intend to raise their monthly subscription price to $14.49 in January — just another reason not to pay the regular price.

[flv width=”360″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WFTS Tampa Satellite radio irks some customers 9-19-11.mp4[/flv]

WFTS-TV in Tampa reports on increasing complaints about SiriusXM’s billing and auto-renewal practices.  (4 minutes)