Although the price tag may be too rich for your blood, a municipally-owned utility today announced it was bringing America’s fastest broadband to residents and businesses in greater Chattanooga, Tenn., delivering 1 gigabit per second access for $350 a month.

That’s 200 times faster than what the average American broadband consumer receives, and just a fraction of what many Chattanooga area businesses pay other providers for that level of service

“One gigabit broadband service could be compared to the introduction of electric power in the 1930’s. At that time, most people saw electricity as an alternative to the oil lamp for producing light but the larger implications were soon realized,” said Harold DePriest, president and CEO of EPB. “We believe true high-speed Internet access, to both our urban and rural areas, will make Chattanooga the frontier of a new generation of opportunity and provide our community with a platform for engineering the 21st century.”

The mega-fast fiber-to-the-home broadband comes not from a multi-billion dollar private company like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, or Time Warner Cable, but rather a small city-owned utility that has served Chattanooga’s electricity needs since 1939.

Just over one year old, EPB Fiber Optics is the latest service from the city’s municipal utility. EPB’s fiber broadband network was built after overcoming legal actions filed to stop it by Comcast and the state’s cable lobbyist group.

Since launching service in 2009, EPB’s fiber division has won over 169,000 residents in its 600 square mile service area in Tennessee and northwest Georgia.  This despite the presence of Comcast and AT&T’s U-verse operations, both competing with EPB for customers.  Neither the cable or phone company comes close to matching the speeds and demand EPB has managed to achieve.  In fact, AT&T’s U-verse launch week event in July was marred when an AT&T technician pepper-sprayed a local woman’s pets, and she wasn’t even a customer.

Google acknowledged the arrival of another provider extending 1Gbps broadband to Americans, noting it is still in the process of selecting locations for its own “Think Big With a Gig” 1Gbps fiber service.

“We’re excited to see enthusiasm for ultra high-speed broadband,” spokesman Dan Martin said in an e-mail statement. “It’s clear that people across the country are hungry for better and faster Internet access.”  Chattanooga now joins Hong Kong and just a handful of other cities delivering gigabit broadband.

Atkinson

A broadband industry trade group funded by large telecommunications companies was left making excuses for EPB’s thunder-stealing announcement.

“I can’t imagine a for-profit company doing what they are doing in Chattanooga, because it’s so far ahead of where the market is,” Robert D. Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation told the New York Times.

Atkinson is closely involved with several industry backed front groups, including the Alliance for Public Technology (AT&T & Verizon) and the Internet Education Foundation (Comcast & Verizon).

The irony of a telecom industry group that supposedly celebrates broadband innovation downplaying today’s achievement by EPB was not lost on DePriest.

When the Times asked DePriest why EPB would offer such a high speed service, DePriest said, “The simple answer is because we can.”

EPB’s latest announcement throws down the gauntlet against the idea that broadband innovation comes only from large commercial telecom companies.  Phone and cable operators claim their record of innovation will be harmed if municipal providers like EPB are able to offer service, claiming “private investment will dry up.”

It’s the same argument they use for deregulation and minimal oversight.  Yet it was a municipally-owned provider that established a network far superior to what Comcast and AT&T have in Chattanooga, launched America’s first residential 150Mbps service, and today launched America’s first residential 1Gbps broadband service.  EPB charges lower everyday prices for its bundle of TV, phone, and broadband services, too.

The cost to taxpayers?  Nothing.

Local residents can’t wait to get the service.

Keith in Soddy Daisy, Tenn., commented about EPB service: “I’m still waiting on it to become available where I live. It’s getting close because I see them stringing fiber all over the place. The crazy thing is that there are people in their service footprint that only have dial-up. Can you imagine going from having dial-up to having 1 Gbps symmetrical fiber as an option?”

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WTVC Chattanooga EPB 1GBPS 09-13-10.flv[/flv]

WTVC-TV in Chattanooga investigates EPB’s newest 1Gbps broadband service.  (1 minute)

Phillip "It's Haunting Time for AT&T, Verizon and their good friends at Digital Society" Dampier

Imagine if you lived in a country where broadband competition actually delivered real innovation and savings, overseen by a consumer protection agency that made sure providers in a barely competitive marketplace actually delivered on their “highly competitive” rhetoric.

Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN) will deliver exactly that, with a check and balance system that makes sure advertiser claims meet reality and that “robust competition” means… robust competition.

One industry-backed front group, Digital Society, doesn’t think that idea is fair to big telecom companies (like those funding its operations), and wants none of that here in the States.

Nick Brown doesn’t object too much to Australia’s plan to deliver fiber-to-the-home connections offering 100/50Mbps service to 93 percent of residents.  He just doesn’t want the Australian government overseeing how private providers use (and how much they can charge to access) the publicly-owned network:

Internet Service Providers in Australia will be forced to compete with each other via the “Competition and Consumer Commission”.  The problem with this is that a supposedly ubiquitous commission deciding what is and what isn’t competition and fair pricing stands a fair chance of not actually playing out in any other fashion than simply being a price fixing commission.

[…]Because the NBN will only act as a wholesaler and treat all ISP retailers equally, ISP’s no longer have the ability to develop their own unique contracts that would reduce costs to consumers.  All backhaul would be priced to all ISP’s at the same rate.  So realistically no company has a significant advantage over the other.  That does potentially create a good deal of choice, but that does not necessarily ensure competition.  This would be akin to going to the grocery store and on the shelf were 5 different brands of soft drink, but every single brand tasted exactly like Coca-Cola.  You would have a lot of choice in that situation, but there would be no real competition between those 5 brands, because taste is the competitive factor.  For the Australian, this means that ISP’s will likely be forced to start bundling services to gain advantages over one another.  Something that is not always considered attractive here stateside.

NBNCo is responsible for the deployment and installation of Australia's fiber to the home network.

Brown’s bitter-tasting public-broadband philosophy is based on the inaccurate notion that incumbent private providers are just itching to deliver state-of-the-art broadband service across Australia.  If the darn federal government didn’t get in the way and steal their thunder with a nationwide fiber network, Aussies would be enjoying world class Internet access over copper phone wires and usage-limited wireless 3G networks right now.  Even worse, the Australian government that will finance the entire operation also has the temerity to set ground rules for private companies reselling access to consumers and businesses!  How dare they oversee a network bought and paid for by Australian taxpayers (he objects to the funding as well.)

Brown must also still be living in Australia if he missed the parade of American providers repricing services to push people into “triple-play bundles” whether they want them or not.  And we don’t even get the fiber to go with it.  For most Australians, they no longer care whether it’s Diet Coke, Pepsi One, Cherry Coke, or even RC Cola for that matter — as long as it arrives on a fiber network built by and for their interests (instead of Telstra’s), it’s far better than what they have now.

In reality, broadband issues hold a front-and-center position in Australian politics, and the Labor Government which supports an aggressive national broadband plan that puts America’s proposed broadband improvements to shame was -the- issue that keeps that government in power today.  Why?  Because Australia is well behind others in providing broadband access at reasonable speeds and prices.  Australian private providers maintain a nice little arrangement delivering sub-standard, near-monopoly service at some of the highest prices around, all usage-limited and speed throttled. Despite years of negotiations with big players like Telstra, the privatized phone company, broadband improvement has moved at a glacial pace (too often by their design).

The development of the National Broadband Network for Australia was driven by private provider intransigence.  Even Brown recognizes the logistics of the proposed fiber network is “very smart and very common sense” for a country like Australia, which he considers a close cousin geographically to the United States.  Brown also admits the use of fiber straight to the home “‘future proofs’ Australian networks and would allow for easier improvement in the future.”

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/ABC Radio Battle of the broadband 8-11-2010.mp4[/flv]

ABC Radio National offered a comprehensive review of the competing plans from Australia’s political parties to address broadband issues as the country drops to 50th place worldwide in broadband excellence.  (9 minutes)

While Australia ponders a fiber future, today’s broadband picture across the country is less idyllic.

The minority of Australians receiving service over cable broadband, available mostly in the largest cities, continue to face usage-limited service and higher prices than American providers.

Most Australians get their service from DSL connections offered by Telstra and third party companies leasing access to Telstra facilities.  Telstra’s network is based almost entirely on aging copper wire that cannot deliver broadband to most rural populations.  Telstra’s long term broadband plan for Australia depends on milking every last cent out of those copper wires while raking in even bigger profits from usage limited and expensive wireless data plans.  Just last month, Telstra was fined $18.5 AUS million dollars for monopolistic behavior by impeding competitive access to its telephone network.  No wonder the country had enough.

Brown labeled the Australian government’s buyout of Telstra’s copper wire network a “negative,” as if they were stuck with a pig in a poke.  That suggests Brown does not understand the actual plan, which relies on reusing existing infrastructure like poles and underground conduit to install fiber at an enormous savings — both in billions of dollars in reduced costs and deployment time.  The alternative would require the government to obtain agreements with Telstra-owned facilities to share access or construct their own facilities from the ground up.  Telstra has no incentive to spend money to upgrade their networks, much less decommission them.  Logistically, the plan cuts through enormous red tape and guarantees Australians no one will be stuck waiting decades for the eventual retirement of copper phone wiring.

Call it Fiber Optic Broadband for Copper Wire Clunkers — the government has not nationalized the phone network — it wants to buy it a fair price, from a willing seller who will be able to use the new network to deliver some of its own services.

The horror show for groups like Digital Society is the thought private companies will actually be forced to deliver the competition and real savings they routinely proclaim in press releases, but never actually deliver to consumers.  The Australian people will own the fiber playground private companies will play on, so why shouldn’t they have the benefit of oversight to make sure the game is played fairly?

Australia’s Competition & Consumer Commission is equivalent to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and a state Attorney General all rolled into one.  The ACCC is an independent statutory authority that works for consumers.  It promotes and enforces real competition and fair trade.

The ACCC’s involvement in broadband regulation includes: stopping false advertising, helping intervene and resolve disputes over access and billing issues, and being an impartial observer about broadband uptake and measuring how competition actually delivers better service and savings for consumers.

What Brown dismisses as “a price fixing commission” is in reality a consumer protection agency with enforcement teeth.  The ACCC has a solid track record.  For instance, the broadband industry in 2009 itself admitted the ACCC stopped a “race to the bottom” in wild advertising claims:

In August last year, we sat down with the CEOs of the major telecommunication providers, Telstra, Optus and Vodafone Hutchison Australia. They acknowledged that there was a problem, exacerbated by a “race to the bottom” by industry participants in their advertising practices. The CEOs showed a ready willingness to resolve the issue on an industry-wide basis.

After analysing complaints, the ACCC identified the 12 most prevalent types of potential misleading conduct made in telecommunications. Some of these included:

• use of terms such as “free”, “unlimited”, “no exceptions”, “no exclusions” or “no catches” when this is not the case;
• headline price offers in the form of “price per minute” for calls made using mobile phones and phone cards when there are other fees/charges which are not clearly disclosed; or
• headline claims relating to price, data allowances, total time allowances, speeds and network coverage, where the claims cannot generally be achieved by consumers.

The three industry leaders have provided a court enforceable undertaking to review and improve advertising practices so that consumers are better informed about the telecommunications products they purchase. They have undertaken that their advertising will not make these claims in circumstances where they are likely to be misleading to consumers.

Further the majors have also agreed that they will take reasonable steps to ensure that this commitment will extend to any other players with whom they have commercial agreements which allow them to control the advertising and promotion of goods or services.

Australians are starting to receive consent forms for free installation of fiber broadband in their homes.

I can see why Digital Society, a group partly funded by telecommunications companies, would object to the ACCC stopping Big Telecom’s ill-gotten Money Party-gains.

ACCC also put a stop to promotions that tricked consumers into signing up for mobile data plans that included “free” netbooks, high value gas gift cards, or cash rebates.  The Commission discovered these “promo plans” weren’t giving away anything at all — they simply added the retail cost of the “free” item to the plans’ charges.

The ACCC received a court enforceable undertaking from Dodo Australia Proprietary Limited for the advertising of some of their mobile plans. Dodo had advertised that consumers would receive either an Asus Eee PC, a fuel card or a cash payment when they signed up to a ‘free offer’ plan.

However, cheaper mobile cap plans that did not include the ‘free’ offers were comparable in value and services. After raising these concerns with Dodo, they promptly ceased publishing the ‘free offer’ advertisement and undertook to ensure the affected customers would receive the goods for free, either by way of cash refund or by reducing the monthly charges for the ‘free offer’ plans.

That mean and nasty ACCC, ruining all of the fun for providers delivering tricks and traps for their customers.  Caveat emptor, right?

But the most ludicrous claim of all comes towards the end of Brown’s piece, when he claims the National Broadband Network will leave Australians with even higher priced, usage-capped access:

Australia traditionally has had low bandwidth caps.  Even just five years ago while most Americans were enjoying unlimited bandwidth with their broadband connections, I was living in Melbourne, Australia and was limited to a 1GB cap per month via my Telstra connection.  The likelihood of seeing 100Mb uncapped connections is highly suspect.  Australians may enjoy these speeds, but they will likely be extremely expensive with low bandwidth caps or limited to high priced premium tiers.

Brown can’t blame the private company that delivered his abysmal Internet service without his “free market knows best” philosophy falling apart.  It wasn’t the Australian government that provided him a 1GB monthly usage allowance — it was Telstra, and five years later the company is still usage-limiting Australian broadband consumers.  The National Broadband Network was designed to tackle that problem once and for all.  Brown apparently doesn’t realize the last argument private providers have used to justify usage caps — insufficient overseas capacity — is being addressed by new super-high-capacity undersea fiber cables stretching across the Pacific.  The issue of “usage cap” abatement is among the top bullet points for constructing the NBN.

Brown would be right when he suggests that Australians may enjoy faster speeds, but with low usage caps and high prices — if Telstra was the only company providing the service.  The new network will provide speeds faster than most Americans enjoy, with enormously expanded capacity.  Providers like Telstra have an incentive not to deliver the unlimited service that fiber network can deliver, as it will reduce their profits.  But since any company can access the network and compete, Telstra’s loss in market power will also erode their pricing power.  When a consumer protection mechanism is added, Telstra won’t just be answering to their shareholders’ demands for greater value.  They’ll also answer to the ACCC and the consumers who will pay for and maintain the network.

That may not add up to mega-profits for Big Telecom, but it certainly makes a whole lot of sense to consumers and small businesses who will finally be able to get 21st century broadband at a reasonable price.

Even worse for Digital Society’s friends — AT&T and Verizon — who fund the group through its connection with Arts+Labs, it might provide a blueprint for how America’s broadband future should be built.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/ABC TV National Broadand Network 8-15-10.flv[/flv]

ABC-TV (Australia) debated the merits of competing broadband plans from the incumbent Labor government, which supports a National Broadband Network delivering fiber to the home, versus a cheaper plan from the coalition opposition which promoted a private industry-favored initiative delivering improved broadband only to rural areas.  The Labor government initiative won the day when two rural independent members of Parliament, Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor announced they’d support Prime Minister Julia Gillard, giving her the 76 votes required to form a minority Labor government.  Windsor is an enthusiastic supporter of the NBN, telling Sky News “’you do it once, you do it right, you do it with fiber.”  Oakeshott said Labor’s plan to deliver real broadband for the 21st century was a major reason he backed the Labor government.  For the first time ever, fiber optic broadband was the key factor in determining who would govern a country.  (5 minutes)

Broadband for America is the product of the nation's largest phone and cable companies.

Broadband for America has begun assaulting the airwaves with a high-priced advertising campaign claiming that “broadband is leading the [economic] recovery” but is threatened by “1930s telephone regulations,” urging Congress to get involved to stop broadband reform.

The 30 second ads blanketed cable and several Sunday morning news shows yesterday.

What the ads don’t mention is Broadband for America is actually one giant front group backed by large phone and cable companies.  In a study released last fall, Stop the Cap! found virtually every single “coalition” member, including so-called “independent consumer advocacy groups,” do substantial business with, or have received significant financial contributions or board assistance from companies including AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast.

Well-financed by the telecommunications industry it directly represents, Broadband for America seeks further deregulation and wants Congress to stop the FCC from enacting broadband reforms ranging from “truth in marketing” and billing to Net Neutrality.

The “honorary co-chairs” of the group are Michael Powell, the same Bush Administration FCC chairman that badly bungled the FCC’s approach to broadband policy thrown out in the courts earlier this year, and former Congressman Harold Ford, Jr., who left public service for a very lucrative career in “dollar-a-holler” advocacy and working as a lobbyist for the economic-vampire investment bank Goldman Sachs (something Broadband for America left out of his online biography.)

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Broadband for America 30 sec spots.flv[/flv]

Broadband for America, a telecom-backed astroturf group, is running these advertisements promoting the agenda of AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast to try and stop broadband reform policies.  (1 minute)

Mehlman

A telecom industry front group acknowledged today American broadband in the last decade has not won any awards for speed or price, but if you just give the industry ten more years of deregulation, there will be more competition than ever to change that.

For the Internet Innovation Alliance’s Bruce Mehlman, the cable and phone companies have done a fine job bringing broadband to Americans, especially considering the industry is only ten years old.  If you leave things the way they are today, the next decade will bring even more competition from phone and cable companies, he promises.

But consumer groups wonder exactly how a duopoly will ever deliver world class service in the next ten years when it has spent the last ten hiking prices on slow speed broadband and now wants to limit or throttle usage.

This afternoon, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered tried to referee the broadband debate, pondering whether America is a world leader in broadband or has just fallen behind Estonia.  Reporter Joel Rose was perplexed to find two widely diverging attitudes about broadband, each with their set of numbers to prove their case.

On one side, consumers and public interest groups like Consumers Union and Free Press who believe deregulation and industry consolidation has created a stagnant broadband duopoly that only innovates how it can get away with charging even higher prices.

On the other, the phone and cable companies, the groups they finance, and their friends on Capitol Hill who believe there isn’t a broadband problem in the United States to begin with and government oversight would ruin a good thing.

Compared with other nations, the United States has continued to see its standing fall in broadband rankings measuring speed, price, adoption rates, and quality.  When East European countries and former Soviet Republics now routinely deliver better broadband service than America’s cable and telephone companies, that story writes itself. Embarrassed industry defenders prefer to confine discussion of America’s broadband success story inside the U.S. borders, discounting comparisons with other countries around the world.

For Rep. Joe “I Apologize to BP” Barton (R-Texas), it’s even more simple than that.  Even questioning the free market is downright silly.

“As everybody knows, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” Barton said at a March congressional hearing to discuss broadband matters. “And y’all are trying to fix something that in most cases isn’t broke. Ninety-five percent of America has broadband.”

Industry-financed astroturf and sock puppet groups readily agree, and dismiss industry critics.

Bruce Mehlman, co-chair of the industry-supported Internet Innovation Alliance, which opposes more regulation, acknowledges that the story of broadband in the U.S. is a classic glass-half-full, glass-half-empty predicament. Still, he says he thinks broadband adoption in the U.S. is going pretty well considering broadband has only been available for 10 years.

“For the optimist, you’d say within a decade we’ve seen greater broadband deployment than you saw for cell phones, than for cable TV, than for personal computers,” Mehlman says. “It’s one of the great technology success stories in history.”

Mehlman says Americans don’t need more government intervention to make broadband faster and cheaper. “We haven’t yet and that’s in the first decade,” he says. “In the second decade, the marketplace is only going to be that much more competitive.”

Kelsey

The problems go further than that, however.

Derek Turner, research director for the public interest group Free Press, told NPR broadband rankings tell an important story. “For the providers to try to say that there’s no problem, it’s merely just a smoke screen,” he says.

Providers would prefer to measure their performance against each other instead of comparing themselves with foreign providers now routinely providing better, faster, and cheaper service than what American consumers can find.  They have to, if only because of those pesky international rankings illustrating a wired United States in decline.

Joel Kelsey at Consumers Union tells NPR there is an even bigger question here — what role broadband plays in our lives.

Because 96 percent of Americans can only get broadband from a duopoly — the phone or cable company, the only people truly singing the praises of today’s broadband marketplace are the providers themselves and their shareholders.  Consumers see a bigger problem — high prices, and particularly for rural consumers, slow speeds.

“If you talk to [the] industry,” Kelsey says, “they think of broadband as a private commercial service akin to pay TV or cable TV.”

On the other hand, Kelsey says, “There’s a lot of folks who think it is an essential input into this nation’s economy — an essential infrastructure question.”

National Public Radio reporter Joel Rose dived into the battle over broadband numbers between consumer groups and industry representatives. Is America’s broadband glass half-full or half-empty? (June 28, 2010) (4 minutes)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

Gilbert

Only in Texas.

Less than a day after the Texas Department of Agriculture unveiled its statewide broadband map, an opposition candidate running for the office of Agriculture Commissioner dismissed it as a re-election scheme that will never benefit rural Texas.

Hank Gilbert, the Democratic agriculture commissioner candidate, criticized the incumbent commissioner’s efforts as a cheap stunt that took four years to deliver and wasted taxpayer money.

“This is yet another stupid, sleazy, ‘look-at-me’ political trick designed to cover up the fact that he’s one of the best at wasting tax money in the history of the state,” Gilbert said. “That map will do nothing for people without broadband access.  I’m sure people on landline modems will be grateful to Todd—after the 45 minutes it takes them to actually view the map to determine, sure enough, that their area isn’t served by broadband,” Gilbert continued.

Gilbert is referring to a joint broadband mapping project by the Texas Department of Agriculture and telecom industry front group Connected Nation, which is stacked to the rafters with telecom industry executives with a vested interest in making sure those maps reflect the industry’s interests.

Current commissioner Todd Staples released the map with great fanfare, claiming 97 percent of Texas already had access to broadband service, with just three percent, representing 250,000 Texans without.  Those numbers were debatable, considering Connected Nation was involved.  In earlier mapping efforts, the group claimed ubiquitous broadband was already available over large sections of several communities, even though it turned out many of those homes could not qualify to receive the DSL service the group said was available.

Gilbert put a less fine point on it:

Texas Broadband Map (click to enlarge)

“Aside from the fact that he considers the federal stimulus dollars for broadband an excuse to gain further name recognition, what has Todd Staples really done to increase broadband connectivity in Texas,” Gilbert asked. He also questioned why TDA officials have said publicly, in the weeks prior to the map’s unveiling, that they didn’t know what areas of Texas were not served by broadband or high-speed internet access.

“It is a sad day when the agency and commissioner in charge of making sure rural areas get broadband don’t know which areas are underserved. It’s even more sad that the TDA had to depend on a public-private partnership with a non-profit agency to figure it out. I don’t think it will come as a surprise to anyone that telecom companies have far more granular information on existing service areas,” Gilbert said.

“Based on the information available on the website Staples is touting, anyone with a pulse, vocal chords, and the ability to dial the keys on a telephone could have collected this information from providers. I don’t see why it has taken Todd Staples nearly four years to do this,” Gilbert said.

Gilbert is apparently new to the broadband availability debate.  Telecom companies treat specifics about their broadband service areas and speeds as proprietary business information and will not disclose it to the government or any other third party, claiming it needs to protect the information for competitive reasons.  Earlier efforts to collect this information in other states met with stonewalling from providers.  Even the federal government has been unable to gather street-level statistics on broadband service from some providers.

But Gilbert has a point that a map project, especially with an industry front group in the mix, does not actually bring broadband to anyone.  Too often, such maps are used to block would-be competitors from getting federal broadband grant money, with nearby providers claiming the maps show the funding would help a community already served by broadband, even if it was not.  They also help paint a helpful picture for an industry seeking funding for middle-mile projects that divert broadband stimulus funding to help incumbent providers enhance their networks at the public expense.  In short, Texas cable and phone companies get to argue the stimulus program is a waste of money (unless they are recipients) because Texas doesn’t have a broadband problem.

Cue the Texas Cable Association:

“The map shows that less than 1 percent of all Texans cannot access some form of broadband, whether, wired, wireless or mobile. Yet – without this information – the federal government awarded more than $200 million in grants and loans to projects in Texas. Some of these projects propose to duplicate service in an area already served by multiple broadband providers.

“In addition, the federal government set a deadline for second-round funding applications that forced the Texas Department of Agriculture to again make recommendations without the benefit of the mapping data.

“As the federal government considers these new applications, the Texas Cable Association urges it to make its decisions based on the new Texas broadband availability map.

“Taxpayer dollars – in the form of government grants – should not be used to duplicate services or to provide free capital that allows grant winners to gain market advantage over private companies that have invested millions of dollars of their own money to make broadband available.”

The state cable lobby even has a 30 second ad running, thanks to the help of the mother-of-all-astroturf groups, Broadband for America — a front group for big cable and phone companies.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Texas Cable Association Broadband Ad.flv[/flv]

The Texas Cable Association has this not-too-subtle ad promoting private investment in broadband, suggesting Texas telecoms are helping, not hurting consumers and businesses.  (30 seconds)

The Staples campaign responded to Gilbert’s accusations Texas-style — by accusing their opponent of being a crook.

Staples’ campaign manager Cody McGregor said:

“Our opponent has a criminal conviction for theft, unpaid taxes, current tax liens, and allegedly accepted a bribe for $150,000. I hope all Texans will gain access to the Internet and have the ability to view www.guiltyguiltygilbert.com and get the facts about our opponent and his campaign’s trouble with telling the truth.”

Staples’ website is way over the top, accusing Gilbert of being a “villainous Obama Democrat” who is guilty of not wearing his seatbelt and being stupid.

Todd Staples owns stock in at least two telecom companies, AT&T and Fairpoint Communications, the latter of which is probably not helping his portfolio too much considering it declared bankruptcy.

Read Gilbert’s “fact sheet” on Todd Staples’ broadband mapping project below the jump.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Repeat Offender Hank Gilbert.flv[/flv]

And you thought your state’s campaign ads were too negative.  The Staples campaign goes back to the old west to drive home a message about their opponent.  (1 minute)

… Continue Reading