It’s time for every consumer across the country to help our friends in North Carolina, who are now facing the prospect of a Broadband Dark Age with the passage of a cable-industry-written bill designed to protect their monopoly prices and deliver America’s worst broadband experience.

The grand lie that is the Level Playing Field/Local Government Competition Bill (H.129) claims it will protect broadband competition in the state.  It will, if you are Time Warner Cable facing top-rated, super-fast service from community broadband networks that compete with them in communities like Salisbury and Wilson.

The power to protect North Carolina’s broadband future is now in the hands of Gov. Bev Purdue.

The North Carolina Senate abdicated their responsibility to serve the interests of state residents.  On Tuesday, they voted 39-10 for this consumer atrocity:

Yesterday, the House added insult to injury voting 84-32 for the bill custom written by and for Time Warner Cable:

Not a single Republican in the House stood up for you.

Faison

Several legislators that still remember they represent the interests of voters and not out of state big cable and phone companies were appalled.

Rep. Bill Faison (D-Caswell, Orange), who has been a champion of better broadband across North Carolina, reminded the Assembly the bill should have been named the Time Warner Cable Anti-Competition Bill, written by a New York City-based company that will prevent cities from using their collective buying authority to provide themselves (finally) with the broadband service the private sector has steadfastly refused to deliver.

Faison noted Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt made $27 million in compensation last year — the same as the entire cost of Wilson’s GreenLight fiber-to-the-home cable system.

Faison openly pondered what the cable company has been paying to employ the six full time lobbyists who have been trolling the halls of the state legislature for months, and exactly how much next year’s rate increase will be to pay for their services.

Even the former chairman of the state Republican party called H.129 an enormously arrogant piece of legislation.

Luebke

Another hero for consumers, Rep. Paul Luebke (D-Durham), noted the bill’s immediate impact will be to keep rural North Carolina a broadband desert.  Luebke called H.129 a bad bill that denies service even to communities where no broadband service exists.

But Rep. Marilyn Avila (R-Time Warner Cable) wanted to ensure no one could say there was a broadband problem in North Carolina, so she supported an amendment that allows areas to be declared served if even a single home has broadband service in a particular census block.  That provision delivers beneficial protection to CenturyLink, who can spend their time, money, and attention on a merger with Qwest, the last remaining independent Baby Bell.  While they focus on making themselves bigger through mergers and acquisitions, the phone company faces no competitive pressure to expand service in rural North Carolina, and will face no meaningful competition for the indefinite future.

While Gov. Purdue’s office has made noises about vetoing this bad legislation, it is essential that we let the governor know we need an absolute commitment on her part to veto H.129.  We’ve seen how Big Telecom plays their dirty pool, so we cannot afford to sit back and allow their lobbyists to wear the governor down.

Gov. Purdue

When Time Warner Cable tried to slap an Internet Overcharging scheme on consumers in New York, North Carolina, and Texas in 2009, Stop the Cap! made a commitment to join forces with all of the impacted communities to present a united consumer front against provider abuses.  H.129 qualifies.  That’s why we urge everyone to contact Gov. Purdue and let her know she must veto H.129, an anti-consumer, anti-broadband bill.

Please call -and- e-mail her office:

• E-Mail: [email protected]
• Phone: +1 919 733 2391

Minor Correction Made 5/6 – 5pm ET: We made an error referring to a census tract instead of a census block in the original piece.  One of our readers dropped us a note correcting us, which we are happy to do.  A “tract” actually has many “blocks” in it.

[Important Update — 7:53am ET 4/7 — Because of a technicality, it is important for everyone to reference H.129 when calling your state senators.  Members of the Senate Finance Committee are still evaluating the House version of the bill — H.129, so senators will more readily identify the bill we are opposing when we reference the House version (and not S.87).  You can also call it the “Level Playing Field” bill, but with disgust.  Include the fact you found the name highly ironic, since the only thing it will “level” are the state’s community broadband networks — right to the ground.  If you already called, why not just send a follow-up e-mail opposing H.129.]

Stop the Cap! has learned lobbyists for North Carolina’s cable and phone companies are growing concerned over increasing opposition to their custom-written duopoly protection bill that will ruin community broadband developments across the state and threaten ones already up and running.  Now they’re in a mad dash to push S.87 (the Senate version of H.129) through the Senate Tuesday before you have a chance to call and express outrage over this corporate protectionism.

Our sources tell us the bill has been yanked from the Senate Commerce Committee and is moving faster than North Carolina’s cable and DSL broadband to the Finance Committee, where bill sponsors hope for a quick voice vote and no public comment allowed.

The engineer of the legislative railroad in the Senate is Sen. Tom Apodaca (R) who serves the western North Carolina counties of Buncombe, Henderson, and Polk — areas with broadband challenges of their own.  Apodaca’s lead role pushing an anti-broadband bill is ironic considering his campaign website lists his priorities as:

• “Great schools for our children.” Western N.C. residents without broadband service at home are forced to resort to sitting in their cars in school parking lots or spend hours at overburdened public libraries to access Wi-Fi networks to complete homework assignments.  Great schools in a digital economy require great broadband – both in school and at home
• “Better paying jobs.” Digital economy jobs are always in demand and bring good salaries.  But those with inadequate broadband will find the kind of entrepreneurial experience and independent study required to excel in these fields hampered by satellite fraudband service or dial-up that limits possibilities and leaves North Carolina behind.
• “Let people keep more of the money they earn.” It’s a great idea, and competition for big cable and phone companies guarantees it.  In Wilson, consumers don’t face annual rate hikes for their cable service.  Can your community say that?  When their network is paid off, Wilson’s GreenLight will start paying off for local residents as well, keeping money in the community.
• “And access to quality health care.” As Google intends to prove in Kansas City, Kansas — great health care and excellent broadband go hand-in-hand to deliver better patient outcomes at a cheaper price.  Every health care provider wants faster broadband to increase efficiency and reduce costs and medical care errors.  S.87 delivers the equivalent of just another metal filing cabinet and fax machine to the back office.  Allowing communities to build fiber broadband changes everything.

What has proven so perplexing to consumers across the state is how a bill written by and for the cable and phone companies that does not deliver a single new broadband connection is getting such love and care from a legislature that is supposed to represent the interests of voters, not multi-billion dollar out of state corporations.  It confuses some of America’s high tech companies as well, including Google, Alcatel-Lucent, and Intel.  They’ve all signed a joint letter opposing H.129/S.87.

In fact, one of the reasons Google picked Kansas City, Kansas for its 1Gbps network is the friendly working relationship it has established with local utilities, which are all owned by the community of Kansas City.  It no doubt speaks volumes to Google that the North Carolina legislature would rather be at war with their towns and cities for the benefit of Time Warner Cable, AT&T and CenturyLink, than allowing communities to build their own broadband networks.  At a time when the FCC has ranked North Carolina worst in the nation, members of the Senate are being asked to guarantee that will remain so for years to come.

So What Should I Do?

Get on the phone -and- e-mail your state senator and demand a NO vote on S.87. If you are shy, you can call before or after business hours and leave a message on their voicemail. It takes less than five minutes.  Your calls make a huge difference because so few constituents ever call state legislators.  Here are your talking points:

Apodaca

1.  At a time when we need all the broadband improvements this state can muster, S.87 destroys those efforts for the benefit of a handful of out of state phone and cable companies. It’s classic protectionism — the same companies that helped write this bill are fully exempted from its onerous requirements.  The practical reality for rural North Carolina is either waiting for existing companies to deliver service they were always free to provide (and won’t), or allowing communities to do it themselves where appropriate.  Why should rural North Carolina have to depend on out of state corporations for basic broadband service many still don’t have?

2.  Not a single company has been harmed by community broadband projects in North Carolina.  In fact, it has created incentive to improve products and services while keeping prices stable, a welcome relief for consumers enduring annual rate increases far outpacing inflation.  Why is the state Senate trying to pass legislation that will guarantee higher bills and worse service?

3.  North Carolina’s fiber networks are not economic failures risking taxpayer dollars.  In fact, protections for taxpayers are already a part of the state code.  The General Assembly has already established: (1) rules governing Public Enterprises (NCGS Chapter 160A, Article 16); (2) strict rules in the Budget and Fiscal Control Act governing all municipal budgets and expenditures, including hearing and disclosure requirements (NCGS Chapter 159, Article 3); and (3) strict oversight of municipal borrowing by the Local Government Commission (NCGS Chapter 159).  S.87 attempts to micromanage public projects to the point where they simply cannot function and pay off bondholders and will, for future projects, ensure they never get off the ground.

4.  Now that the FCC ranks North Carolina dead last in broadband, isn’t it be time to allow new entrants to shake up the market and deliver some competition? Since when is legislating for less broadband better for this state?  The communities of Wilson and Salisbury now have the tools to compete with any wired city in America to attract new digital economy business and jobs.  S.87 sends exactly the wrong message — telling business the state wants to wait for the cable or phone company to eventually (if ever), deliver service other states now take for granted.  Businesses cannot wait.  We cannot wait.

5.  Provisions of this bill are unconstitutional.  By placing illegal regulatory burdens on only public providers of communications services (defined broadly) H.129/S.87 will harm municipal convention centers, public safety networks, smart grid systems, tower leasing contracts, and even make seemingly free public Wi-Fi networks vulnerable to lawsuits if the large incumbents want in on those services.

6.  The only real level playing field in broadband is the one that already exists without S.87.  Tell your senator you are tired of seeing these cable company-written bills come up in the Legislature year after year when the state has more important matters to worry about.  Time Warner Cable will do just fine without S.87, just as they do well in every other state where these kinds of bills would never get passed into law (or even proposed).

Senate Representation By County

2011-2012 Session

(click on your member’s name for contact information)

Rep. Marilyn Avila (R-Time Warner Cable)

Rep. Marilyn Avila (R-Time Warner Cable) is coming under increasing scrutiny across North Carolina as her cable lobbyist-written, anti-community broadband bill — H.129 — faces negative reviews in the media across the state.

Avila’s bill would set conditions under which community-owned broadband networks could operate, while specifically exempting existing cable and phone companies.  Most observers on the ground predict Avila’s bill would kill any further expansion of public broadband networks in the state and tie the hands of those already in operation, which would inevitably drive them out of business.  Avila’s bill, ghost-written by the state’s cable companies, even has the prescience to allow the fiber systems to be sold off to cable and phone companies at fire-sale prices for as little as pennies on the dollar, without a public vote.

Last week, the state legislature’s Finance Committee put Avila’s bill on a temporary hold “to allow public input” on the bill, but also to permit scrambling by lobbyists to deal with several surprise amendments that attempt to exempt existing community networks.

That time-out has given the press a chance to examine the proposed legislation and its impact on North Carolina’s efforts to improve its mediocre broadband rankings, now 41st in the country.  More than a few in the media do not like what they see in H.129.

The Associated Press notes the state legislature was finally allowing the public to weigh in on a matter that directly impacts their Internet experience:

North Carolina lawmakers aiming to stop cities from building their own broadband networks decided Thursday to allow public comments the next time they consider the latest effort by telecom companies to keep local governments out of the business.

The House Finance Committee will hear from the public next Wednesday as it reviews legislation that would sharply restrict the chances for municipalities to step in when cable and phone companies decide not to build high-speed Internet systems in lightly populated areas. Opponents say telecom companies aren’t extending super-fast Internet at reasonable prices, and that keeps smaller communities behind in the wired world of commerce.

“They don’t want to provide these services in a lot of areas because it’s expensive, and they don’t want municipalities to offer these services. That’s an unlevel playing field for our citizens,” said Rep. Deborah Ross, D-Wake.

Legislation unveiled Thursday was changed to ease the rules for communities in which at least half the households have no access to high-speed Internet except through a satellite provider. Another change ensures the new rules don’t affect the municipal networks already established in Wilson, Salisbury, Morganton and Iredell County, which have borrowed to build their systems.

Cable and phone companies have been urging the General Assembly to restrict municipal broadband services since a 2005 state appeals court ruling upheld the right of towns and cities to offer their residents broadband. Companies argue that local governments have an unfair advantage because they don’t have to pay taxes and can subsidize their rates by shifting profits from their electricity or gas customers, undercutting the corporate competitors.

Except community broadband providers in North Carolina are not doing any of those things.

In fact, smaller providers start at a competitive disadvantage because they cannot enjoy the savings larger providers get from their extensive buying power — winning lower costs on everything from programming to equipment and services.

Community providers are not winning most of their customers from “underpricing” their service — they are earning them by delivering better service, which was precisely the point.

The original argument communities like Wilson and Salisbury had with state cable and phone companies was with the quality and level of service offered in their communities.  They solved the problem themselves with the development of fiber optic service that provides ultra-fast broadband connections that residents and small businesses simply could not get from other providers.

Some lawmakers believe community networks get in the way of cable jobs and phone company investment, and they want to “clear the playing field for business.”  But for many communities in the state, the playing field is empty and will remain so indefinitely.

Broadband: Utility or Convenience

For some lawmakers, the debate is both generational and philosophical.  Ruth Samuelson (R-Mecklenburg), told the AP she doesn’t believe providing broadband is a core part of government.

Among the older population who have not grown up with the Internet, broadband can be seen more as a luxury and less of a utility.  A few generations earlier, a similar debate erupted over telephone and electric service, which faced identical controversy in regions underserved by private utilities.

A reminder of these earlier challenges was part of the Winston-Salem Journal’s argument against H.129’s adoption:

“The broadband battle is not being waged in the heavily populated portions of the state such as the Triad. Here, the for-profit companies moved in a long time ago. They can make a very nice profit here because the population density is adequate to provide a good return on the infrastructure needed for high-speed Internet service.

“Over the past decade, however, North Carolina’s smaller municipalities, such as Wilson, Salisbury and Morganton, have built their own systems because their leaders recognized that broadband Internet is now an essential utility, just as electricity and natural gas are. The Internet-service providers did not step up to provide that essential service, so the municipalities did. In doing so, the cities followed a path they took nearly a century ago when the biggest electrical power companies did not provide service to these areas.”

North Carolina blogger-activist Mark Turner wrote in the News & Observer broadband has the capacity to transform North Carolina’s economic future in much the same way power and phone service did a century earlier:

While farm life has never been easy, at one time it was significantly harder. In the mid-1930s, over 97 percent of North Carolina farms had no electricity, many because private electric companies couldn’t make enough money from them to justify running the lines.

Aware of the transformational effect of electrification and recognizing the need to do something, visionary North Carolina leaders created rural electric cooperatives, beating passage of FDR’s Rural Electrification Act by one month. Through the state’s granting local communities the power to provide for their own needs where others would not, over 98 percent of farms had electricity by 1963, and our state has prospered.

The Internet is no less transformational than electricity. Through this world-changing technology, lives are being shared, distance learning taking place and innovative new businesses springing up. Sadly just as in the days before electrification, many North Carolina communities (particularly rural ones) are being left behind, stuck in the Internet slow lane.

The Journal argues Internet Service Providers essentially want to keep these communities in the slow lane, with a powerful cartel that doesn’t deliver service, and does not want cities to provide it either.  The cable and phone companies can’t have it both ways, the paper says. “They can’t delay bringing high-speed service to North Carolina communities but then turn around and lobby the legislature to deny local governments the authority to establish municipal service if their residents want it,” the paper editorializes.

“The private providers are trying to make a big-government argument here, one that includes clichés about unfairness and Big Brother. But that is not the case. In this situation, residents and businesses are tired of waiting for Internet-service providers to arrive, so they’ve exercised their democratic rights to seek an alternative solution through their local governments.

“Had the private companies tried to make their argument 15 years ago, they might have deserved some sympathy. But not in 2011. The Internet and high-speed access to it have now been available in North Carolina homes for well more than a decade.

“They ignored a market, and local governments stepped in to provide a critical service. The legislature should kill this bill.”

Mark Turner in the News & Observer argues nothing about H.129 is really an ideological right or left-wing debate.  He reminds readers the Internet itself was a government invention delivered through public rights-of-way established by local and state government, or over airwaves that are literally owned by the public.

“Like the electric lines that were once strung by hand to all corners of our state, our cities should retain the right to bring Internet service to their communities – especially where the private providers will not,” Turner wrote.

The Rural-Urban Disconnect: Choices in Raleigh, Sneaking Onto Wi-Fi in Spruce Pine

Spruce Pine, N.C., where one of the most popular hangouts in town is a parking lot where Wi-Fi signals deliver the only Internet service some residents can get.

The Journal points out North Carolina’s broadband debate is taking place in the state capital – Raleigh, a city much like the Triad region, served by both cable and phone companies.  Against that backdrop, legislators may assume ubiquitous urban and suburban broadband leaves local governments with few excuses for getting into the business in the first place — an argument the cable lobby is using to its advantage with some legislators.  But as soon as one ventures off Interstates 40, 77, or 95 — it does not take too long to find oneself in a broadband backwater.

“Here in Spruce Pine, broadband is a fabled, magical thing we read about, but don’t have — a big reason why my 17 year old son cannot wait to move out of here,” shares Stop the Cap! reader Morgan.  “Everything you see on television shows with people using the Internet for practically everything just does not happen here.”

Morgan shares one of the community’s broadband secrets: local hotels and other business establishments have parking lots filled with cars with people still in them sneaking online.

“They are hopping on board business and motel Wi-Fi connections to pay their bills, apply for jobs, or just complete homework assignments that require an Internet connection,” Morgan shares.  “Some businesses have locked down their Wi-Fi with passwords to stop the traffic, so there is an active underground trade of passwords of different wireless connections around the area.”

Morgan called the phone company wondering when DSL service might reach her house.

“Never, came the eventual reply — and the guy was laughing about it,” Morgan says.  “He told me if I want something better, I should probably move.”

“What burns me up is these state legislators on the other end of the state are spending their time and energy defending the companies in the broadband shortage business.  If they spent half as much time working for better broadband in western North Carolina, we would not be in this position today,” Morgan writes.  “I mean we’re at the point where people take Internet access for granted in this society and they treat places like Spruce Pine as an escape from that technology ‘to get away from it all,’ all while we live in that world perpetually.”

Morgan is hardly alone living a life without broadband.  In communities from Mars Hill to Marshall, large sections of the state simply go without.  Avila’s bill does nothing to help — it actually hurts.

The Public-Private Partnership: A Solution for North Carolina’s Unserved?

In some areas of the state, public-private partnerships (PPP’s) — also rejected in Avila’s bill — are making a difference getting broadband into rural North Carolina, reports Craig Settles, a broadband activist.

“Last year, North Carolina broadband advocates began formulating policy recommendations to make PPPs something of a standard in business models for communities that want better broadband,” Settles writes in a piece for Government Technology. “When legislation was introduced earlier this year that would effectively end further development of municipal networks in the state, this seemed like the right time to promote PPPs. Unfortunately the legislators pushing the bill effectively shut out these muni-network proponents from offering a compromise in separate negotiations.”

PPPs over some creative solutions to rural broadband challenges — especially in addressing return-on-investment concerns that keep private providers from building out networks to reach rural populations.  A community or non-profit collaborative finances and builds the infrastructure to supply the service with a much longer payback period.  While many commercial companies want a return within five years, co-ops have been comfortable paying off infrastructure projects over 10, 20, or even 25 years.  Then, the private company can hop on board the constructed network at a wholesale price that helps pay off construction costs, and allows the provider to market its services and run its own business.  The only requirement, and the one some private companies hate, is that the network is operated in the public interest and good, meaning -any- competitor can compete over the same facilities.

A successful public-private partnership in western New York could be a model to help rural North Carolina get broadband.

In the Finger Lakes Region of western New York, a hallmark PPP project has brought Ontario County a fiber network that can deliver faster broadband than anything available in nearby Rochester.  And it has the support of TW Telecom, Verizon, Frontier Communications and other companies who can use it as part of their business plans.

“This is a winning scenario,” said Ed Hemminger, CIO of Ontario County, N.Y., and CEO of Axcess Ontario, the county’s 180-mile fiber network project. “It’s the only way some communities may be able to get fiber broadband. They can finance the buildout with bond financing with a 25-year payback term. If a muni is going to partner in this manner, be extremely cautious and ensure that it’s a true open access model that not only benefits providers in the area, but also allows others to come in and compete.”

“The beauty of this scenario is that it enables private-sector companies to overcome one of their biggest hurdles to deploying networks in rural and low-income areas: the cost of laying fiber or building wireless infrastructure,” Settles writes. “Municipalities, if they’re able to swing the financing, can take up to 25 years to pay off the debt. Providers, on the other hand, have to make their money back in three to five years.”

Rebuilding America’s Economy: Investing in Infrastructure

Providing suitable broadband infrastructure is increasingly important in small cities that are afterthoughts for many cable and telephone company providers.  For Wilson, N.C.,  creating the infrastructure of a 21st century broadband network is part of an investment to attract future jobs for a city reinventing itself.

“The city council realized that it would be a very competitive world to attract and retain the best jobs in the future,” Grant Goings, Wilson city manager told The Sun News. “Well, you can’t talk about jobs without talking about the infrastructure that brings them and keeps them. Short and simple advanced broadband is critical infrastructure.”

The Sun News reports on the state’s broadband controversies from the epicenter — Wilson is the first city in the state to deliver a fiber optic-based broadband network that beats all the others on speed.

This year, Wilson signed on its first 100 megabits per second residential customers and is the first to have residents using the highest speeds available in North Carolina, said Brian Bowman, Wilson public affairs manager.

For Wilson and other communities building out better broadband networks, using fiber optics was a natural decision because of its capacity and future ease of upgrades. The cable industry has long argued broadband is a constantly-changing business and cities have a poor track record of keeping up, but Wilson’s GreenLight service has turned the tables on that argument, leaving Time Warner Cable — the state’s largest operator — well behind the municipal provider cable interests predicted would be a failure.

Wally Bowen, founder and executive director of the nonprofit Mountain Area Information Network (MAIN), which provides broadband services in and around Asheville, says this year’s anti-broadband bill, like the others, leaves cities vulnerable to political posturing and special interest legislation. He’s tried to outmaneuver legislators who work for the interests of Time Warner and CenturyLink by building non-profit or co-op ownership into the infrastructure, if only to protect networks from being forced to play defense year after year as private companies try to pick them off in the state legislature.

“Government-owned infrastructure creates political vulnerabilities given how incumbents are behaving,” Bowen said. “Our nonprofits are comprised of representatives from private-sector companies, private colleges, hospitals and so forth, in addition to local government. So there are limited legal grounds for attacking the nonprofit via laws passed in the legislature.” Some incumbent Internet service providers still will try these tactics anyway, but the makeup of these nonprofits can give them a stronger position from which to defend themselves.”

For many voters in the state, watching certain legislators toil on behalf of billion-dollar phone and cable companies while ignoring North Carolina’s broadband problems should bring consequences.

“My friends and I continue to watch these events with interest and will vote against those legislators who obviously would feel more comfortable working inside Time Warner Cable’s headquarters, because they are effectively on their payroll already,” Morgan says.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/North Carolina Community Networks Best Broadband.flv[/flv]

Despite provider-financed arguments in opposition of North Carolina’s community broadband networks, here is a fact incumbent cable and phone companies simply cannot argue with: Fibrant and GreenLight deliver far better broadband service with the fastest speeds in the state, all without slowdowns or Internet Overcharging schemes like usage limits.  (4 minutes)

Bennett

We received word this afternoon proponents of community-0wned broadband in North Carolina were under attack by the ironically-named Innovation Policy Blog from the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a thinly-disguised, industry-funded think tank.

Charges and counter-charges are flying fast and furious. Well-travelled muni broadband consultant Craig Settles says the authors are in the pockets of Time-Warner Cable, and urges people around the country to lobby NC legislators to kill the bills:

The battle is now fully joined in NC. But it’s not just their fight, and it’s not a fight solely about broadband. This fight affects everyone who believes that communities deserve the freedom to choose their own best solutions to key problems involving economic development. Communities own the problems of this terrible economy.

Philip Dampier, the supporter of former New York Congressman Eric Massa who joined the broadband policy fight when Time Warner was experimenting with metered pricing, is even more shrill than Settles.

I suppose being called “shrill” is a little better than “mean and nasty,” even if perennial industry defender and comment troll Richard “I Don’t Work for a K Street Lobbyist, But I Do” Bennett doesn’t bother to spell my name correctly.

Bennett’s read of North Carolina’s H.129 is that it’s a minor little bill that does no harm.

I don’t see what our perpetual network operator-haters are so worked up about, although I can certainly see that the network equipment vendors want more outlets for their gear; more power to them. The bills actually don’t place any restrictions at all on unserved communities (where 90% or more can’t get broadband) who want to build themselves a first-class, triple-play enabled, broadband network or anything else better than dial-up. If there weren’t such an exemption, I’d be just as riled as the people I’ve quoted.

Supporting innovation from the right kind of companies.

I suspect Bennett may have trouble seeing the facts on the issue because they are obscured by the $20,000 stipend he picked up from Time Warner Cable.  That is in addition to his regular salary provided by players with a dog in the fight.

Unfortunately for those who accidentally stumble their way into the warped world of “innovation” some of our biggest telecommunications companies have in store for us, Bennett forgets to disclose who pays him.

Our argument (the one that comes without industry money-strings attached) is explored in great detail here.

For the benefit of those who don’t want to dirty themselves wading through the ITIF’s blog, here is our response in full:

Richard and I have discussed several issues impacting the broadband community over the past two years.  He always takes the side of the industry that pays him well to serve as their mouthpiece, and I represent actual consumers and do not take a penny of industry money.

The ironically named “Innovation” blog attacks the very innovation that community broadband brings to hard-pressed communities in North Carolina who want to reinvent themselves from their tobacco and cotton-past.  The reason these networks exist is because existing companies refused to provide the service needed to accomplish this task.  Richard has no idea what these communities and ordinary North Carolina consumers are going through because his article exists merely as a “drive-by” hit piece that mischaracterizes the bill, the people that oppose it, and leaves his readers thinking he doesn’t have direct ties to a company that helped write the bill.

Gone undisclosed: Bennett accepted a $20K stipend from Time Warner Cable and does work on behalf of a K Street lobbyist.  That’s “dollar a holler” reporting.

Folks, follow the money.  If a Big Telecom company is involved, Richard reflexively adopts their position, often to the detriment of consumers.  He is also factually wrong.

1) Wilson did not “buy” their fiber to the home network, they built it.
2) Davidson and Mooresville bought a bankrupt Adelphia system that needed major upgrades.  Time Warner would have done precisely the same thing the community did, only they would pay for it with rate hikes across the state (except in Wilson which has avoided rate increases from Time Warner precisely because GreenLight is running there).
3) Salisbury has had a waiting list for signups.  Not bad for a “failure.”  EPB just finished their award-winning network in Chattanooga ahead of schedule.

The public-private partnership idea has no opposition, except among providers who won’t hear of anything they don’t own, operate, and control outright.  It is telling ongoing negotiations over Ms. Avila’s Time Warner-written bill have broken down because she still objects to language that would keep those networks in business to create those kinds of success stories.

All of the pipe dreams in this piece come from the author.  I’m not an industry consultant.  I just know a much better deal when I see one.  GreenLight, EPB, and Fibrant all deliver better service than the cable company or phone company and the money paid to them remains in those communities.  They also deliver unlimited service, an issue that now becomes more important than ever with AT&T’s attempt to launch its Internet Overcharging scheme.

The key question Bennett never asks is exactly how H.129 will improve broadband in the state, whose broadband rankings are unworthy of its potential.  Answer: it won’t.  It simply delivers protection for incumbent providers who will continue to not deliver the kind of service people want and will continue to ignore rural areas they have always ignored.  When a “small government” conservative like Marilyn Avila writes micro-management requirements for these networks right down to banning them from promoting themselves and arguing over service area boundaries (conditions Time Warner is exempted from), it tells you how far certain legislators will go on behalf of large telecom companies.

As for voter approval, it already exists in the form of elections.  I haven’t seen any “throw the bums out” movement in Tennessee or North Carolina over this issue.  In fact, the only ones out of office are the last two legislators that proposed these anti-community broadband bills.  Ty Harrell resigned in disgrace and David Hoyle left office admitting, on camera, Time Warner Cable wrote the bill he introduced.

Nice try, Richard.  Maybe if Time Warner gave you $40k, you would have spent more time coming up with legitimate arguments instead of just attacking the “music men” who can name your tune after the first predictable note.

Phillip M. Dampier
Editor, Stop the Cap!

[Update 3:42pm — We just received a carbon copy of an e-mail Rep. Marilyn Avila (R-Time Warner Cable) sent out after Bennett’s piece was published (coordinated effort, anyone?).  Amusingly, she forgot to hide the carbon copy list.  Among the recipients — two lobbyists from Time Warner Cable, the state’s top cable association lobbyist, and CenturyLink.  The most hilarious part of all — her claims Bennett’s piece represented an “independent explanation” to correct the “false record” on her anti-consumer bill.  Every resident in North Carolina should be on the phones and e-mail today telling the Finance Committee to oppose H.129, and also let them know Ms. Avila’s office is sending out distorted articles written by a K Street lobbyist who accepted a $20k stipend from Time Warner Cable, the company that most strongly supports this bill.  How “independent” is that?]