Schuyler County

The fastest thing in Schuyler County, N.Y., isn’t broadband — it’s the Watkins Glen International speedway.

County officials hope to change that, voting unanimously this month to approve an agreement with the Southern Tier Network to bring a regional fiber optic system into the county.

The not-for-profit local development corporation established to build and manage the regional fiber network doesn’t sit well with some county residents, however, including one retired Verizon employee who dismissed the project.

Odessa resident Karen Radenberg called fiber optics technology “old school” and said no private company will connect to the fiber network to expand broadband service.

Radenberg urged the county to consider that communications companies have now moved on to using 4G wireless technology instead of fiber.

“That’s ridiculous,” countered Legislature Chairman Dennis Fagan (R-Tyrone).

Fagan

Fagan pointed to nearby Ontario County’s fiber middle-mile and institutional network which has signed companies, including Verizon, as customers.  Verizon reportedly uses the Ontario County network to deliver backhaul connectivity to its cell tower network in the area.  Ontario County is served by several different landline companies including Frontier Communications, Verizon, and Windstream.  Time Warner Cable is the dominant cable provider, but large sections of the county are deemed too rural for cable television service.

Fagan said the new fiber network will improve the chances private companies will expand broadband across the county, but also help deliver an important upgrade to the region’s emergency responder communications system.  The extremely hilly terrain across much of the southern tier creates problems because of signal gaps.  The new fiber network will allow the county to build radio repeaters into areas where the existing network of microwave communications towers cannot reach.

Schuyler County currently has no plans to sell Internet connectivity to the public, but hopes existing private cable and phone companies — including Time Warner Cable and Verizon Communications — will consider utilizing the network to expand service.  Neither company has shown much interest expanding service to new areas recently, most likely because expansion costs will not be recouped fast enough.

If the county network reduces the cost to expand service, more homes and businesses may now fall within a “Return on Investment” formula that could mean the difference between broadband and dial-up.

Cogeco Cable is cracking down on customers who shop around for a better deal.

After dumping its money-losing Portuguese Cabovisao operation earlier this year, the company is looking to recoup its losses, and Canadian consumers are paying the price.

Chief Executive Louis Audet told investors Cogeco has tightened up promotions, giveaways, and credit standards to weed out bargain hunters and those who ultimately never pay their cable bill.

“If somebody else wants these undesirable customers, they’re theirs for the taking,” Audet said. “There’s too many promotion hoppers out there who are jumping from one supplier to the other.”

Audet

At least 9,000 customers left Cogeco during the second quarter, but that did nothing to hurt Cogeco’s bottom line.  Profits nearly quadrupled to $81.5 million according to Audet, but much of that is due to changes in accounting related to its sold-off Portuguese operation. Closer to home, Cogeco revenue inside Canada grew 12.4% from one year ago to $345.6 million.

Cogeco bought Televisao in 2006 for $465 million.  It sold it in February for just over $59 million.

Cogeco Cable, which serves subscribers in smaller cities and suburbs in Ontario and Quebec, is Canada’s fourth largest cable operator with more than 875,000 cable subscribers. Its biggest competitors are Bell (in Ontario and Quebec) and Telus, which has some landline operations on the Gaspé Peninsula in eastern Quebec.

Most of Cogeco’s promotions and retention offers appeal to customers threatening to take their business to the phone companies. But Audet signaled the promotional pricing had become so aggressive, some customers have learned to bounce back and forth between providers to maintain lower pricing indefinitely.

By tightening up customer promotions, Audet said, the company can achieve a “stable” customer base that pays regular Cogeco prices.

As AT&T joins Verizon selling off its Yellow Pages publishing unit and payphones keep disappearing from street corners, the media is writing the landline obituary once again.

CNN Money asks today whether we’re witnessing the death of the landline.

In as little as 20 years, the concept of a wired phone line may become the novelty a rotary-dial phone represents today.  Yes, traditional phone lines will still be found in businesses and in the homes of those uncomfortable dealing with a mobile phone, but America’s largest phone companies are well aware the traditional telephone line is in decline.

[flv width=”412″ height=”330″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/ATT Archives What is the Bell System.flv[/flv]

The Bell System, as it was known until the 1980s, used to comprise AT&T, Bell Labs, Western Electric, Long Lines, and two dozen local “operating companies” like New York Telephone, Mountain Bell, etc.  This AT&T documentary, from 1976, explores how “the phone company” used to function.  New innovations like “lightwave” are showcased, promising to deliver voice phone calls over glass fibers one day.  

Much of the technology seen in the documentary may be unfamiliar if you are under 30 (and check out how customer records were maintained back then), but those who remember renting telephones in garish colors from your local phone company will recognize the phones that occupied space in your home not that long ago.  The only part of the landline network that hasn’t changed much in the last 40 years is the wiring infrastructure itself, which has been allowed to deteriorate as customers continue to depart.

Why was the company so darn big back then?  Because it had to be, the documentary says, to serve a big America.  Hilariously, the company defends its then-status as a “regulated monopoly” telling viewers “[a] regulated monopoly works well in communications because you don’t duplicate facilities and you produce real economies over the long haul.”  (14 minutes)

CNN reports nearly one-third of all American homes no longer have landline service, double the rate from 2008, triple that of 2007.  Verizon is feeling the heat the most, with revenue down 19% over the last five years.  AT&T has seen their revenue drop 16.5% over the same period.

But things are not all bad for phone companies willing to spend money upgrading their networks.  Verizon’s top-rated FiOS fiber to the home service is a compelling competitor to Comcast and Time Warner Cable.  AT&T’s U-verse has gotten a respectable market share larger midwestern cities and draws customers who like its DVR box and the chance to stick it to the local cable company they’ve hated for years.

But where both companies have decided against investing in upgrades — notably in their rural service areas — the traditional phone line is trapped in time.  Only the network it depends on is changing, and not for the better.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/ATT 1993-1994 You Will Ad Campaign Compilation.flv[/flv]

Back in 1993, AT&T produced seven advertisements dubbed the “You Will” series, showcasing future technologies AT&T would “deliver to you.”  Eerily, the vast majority of these predictions came true, but mostly from companies other than AT&T.  While the phone company predicted what would eventually become E-ZPass, Apple’s iPad, Apple’s Siri, the smartphone, Skype, Amazon’s Kindle, the cable industry’s home security apps, video on demand, and GPS navigation, most of those innovations were developed and sold by others.  

AT&T spun away Bell Labs and became preoccupied selling Internet access, cell phones and reassembling itself into its former ‘hugeness’ through mergers and buyouts. With limited investment in innovation, AT&T risks being left as a “dumb pipe” provider, selling the connectivity (among many others) to allow other companies’ devices to communicate. (Alert: Loud Volume at around 2 minutes) (4 minutes)

Verizon decided to ditch its rural service areas to FairPoint Communications in northern New England and Frontier Communications in 14 other states.  The results have not been good for the buyers (and often customers).  FairPoint went bankrupt in 2009, overwhelmed by the debt it incurred buying phone lines in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.  Frontier has watched its sales fall ever since its own landline acquisition, and the company has gotten scores of complaints from ex-Verizon customers about broken promises for improved broadband, billing errors, and poor service.

Analysts predict AT&T will start dumping its rural landline customers in the near future as well, letting the company focus on its U-verse service areas.  But who will buy these cast-offs?  CNN reports nobody knows.  CenturyLink and Windstream, two major independent phone companies, don’t appear to be in the mood to acquire neglected landline facilities they will need to spend millions to repair and upgrade.

One thing is certain — both AT&T and Verizon are tailoring business plans to favor Wall Street approval.  The companies’ decisions to temporarily boost revenue selling pieces of its operations has helped stock prices, but has also made the companies shadows of their former selves.  Nearly 30 years ago, customers still paid the phone company to rent their home telephones, relied extensively on the companies’ lucrative White and Yellow Pages for directory information, and discovered new technology innovations like digital switching thanks to Bell Labs, the research arm of AT&T — today independent and known as Alcatel-Lucent.  Today, people in some cities cannot even find a telephone company-owned payphone.

[flv width=”360″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WJBK Detroit Quest to Find a Working Pay Phone 4-10-12.mp4[/flv]

WJBK in Detroit this week ventured out across Detroit to see if they could find a pay phone that actually works.  That old phone booth on the corner is long gone, and some admit they haven’t touched a pay phone in 20 years.  (2 minutes)

A California woman is suing Verizon Communications for selling her faster Internet service, at a higher price, the company cannot actually deliver.

Patricia Allen of Santa Monica filed suit in Los Angeles after Verizon sold her an upgrade to her current DSL plan that turned out to be anything but.  Allen was paying $23.99 a month for 768kbps service, but in March, 2011 Verizon promised they could give her a speed upgrade to 1.5Mbps for $11 more per month.

Exactly one year later, Allen learned her “upgraded service” performed no better than her original Internet plan, which itself only managed around 500kbps, and called Verizon to complain.

Verizon technicians quickly responded Allen could never get the benefits of a faster speed plan because she lived at least two miles from her local Verizon central office.  DSL speeds degrade with distance and can also be impacted by the quality of the landline network Verizon maintains in southern California.  Because Allen lives too far away to receive anything better than 700kbps service, she was advised to downgrade her $34.99 DSL plan back to the one she started with.

Allen requested a refund for the extra $11 a month she was paying for the last year for promised speed improvements Verizon never delivered, but the company flatly refused her request.  Allen is now taking her case to the California courts, and her legal representatives are seeking to have the case designated a class action covering all Verizon landline customers in California who, like Allen, are paying for Verizon-marketed speed upgrades they actually cannot receive.

The suit claims Verizon is well aware it is selling speed upgrades to customers who live too far away from the company’s facilities to actually benefit from the enhanced service, and pockets the proceeds without delivering improved service.  The suit alleges Verizon is engaged in unethical, unscrupulous, immoral, and oppressive business conduct in violation of California state law.

Verizon’s spokesman Rich Young called the lawsuit “baseless and without merit.”

Verizon Class Action Copy

Stop the Cap! has written extensively about the American Legislative Exchange Council’s pervasive influence on state telecommunications policies long before Trayvon Martin and Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law put a spotlight on the shadowy corporate-backed group in the national media.

ALEC’s mission is clear.  It acts as a go-between between corporate interests who customize business-friendly state legislation in their favor and the legislators willing to introduce those bills as their own. ALEC provides the cover some legislators need to protect their image in the public eye.

A handful of legislators in safe districts are bold enough to openly admit introducing legislation written by a company like AT&T.  Take Kentucky Republican Sen. Paul Hornback.  He introduced a deregulation measure in Kentucky’s state Senate that would do away with universal landline service and almost entirely deregulate AT&T’s operations in Kentucky.  When the media found out Hornback introduced legislation AT&T actually wrote, he didn’t seem to mind one bit and doubled down on the apparent conflict of interest.

Sen. Paul Hornback (R-AT&T)

“You work with the authorities in any industry to figure out what they need to move that industry forward,” Hornback said, defending his bill that would do exactly that, at the expense of Kentucky consumers facing rate hikes AT&T has pushed in other states where similar measures were passed.

Hornback is the exception to the rule.  For more timid legislators concerned about their next election campaign, ALEC is only too happy to provide cover.

When ALEC’s connection to Florida’s controversial “Stand Your Ground” law was exposed, it swept the secretive group into the Martin media tornado.  When reports surfaced connecting the dots between ALEC and some of America’s largest corporations, Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, Intuit, and Pepsi fled ALEC’s membership roster.  No soft drink company wants to be connected to a controversial Florida gun law.

First Coca-Cola and Kraft Foods, Now AT&T

Today, Color of Change, a group dedicated to amplifying the voice of African-Americans to make government more responsive to minorities set its sights on AT&T, one of ALEC’s most prominent members.

They have a major fight on their hands.  Few corporations have used ALEC as effectively as the descendant of Ma Bell.  AT&T’s enormous lobbying machine has frequently used ALEC to help introduce deregulation measures in states across the country.

“Even after we wrote AT&T to let them know that more than 85,000 ColorOfChange members have asked that they disassociate themselves from ALEC, the company has remained silent,” says Color of Change. “It’s clear that they think we will just go away.”

Throwing away their membership in ALEC would be a major blow to AT&T’s lobbyists who are well-connected inside the group. AT&T has several leadership roles within ALEC’s various state chapters:

ALEC State Chairs Affiliated With AT&T

• Arkansas:
  — Ted Mullenix, AT&T
• California:
  — Pete Anderson, AT&T
• Connecticut:
  — John Emra, AT&T
• Louisiana:
  — Daniel Wilson, AT&T
• Mississippi:
  — Randal Russell, AT&T
• Texas:
  — Holly Reed, AT&T

How do these ALEC-involved lobbyists influence elected officials?  They wine and dine lawmakers and their families, encouraging them to introduce legislation favorable to AT&T.

Everyone Knows Randy Russell – AT&T’s Go-To-Guy in Mississippi

Beckett

AT&T lobbyist Randy Russell has been representing the interests of Big Telecom in Mississippi for more than a decade.  Originally registered as a lobbyist for AT&T predecessor BellSouth, Russell today also serves as ALEC’s state chairman in the Magnolia State.

When he isn’t spending his time in the state capital — Jackson — he’s wining and dining lawmakers who might be future supporters of AT&T’s business agenda in the legislature.

Lucky for AT&T Russell found Rep. Jim Beckett (R-Bruce).  And what a find.  Beckett is in the catbird seat, serving as chairman of the House Public Utilities Committee — the oversight committee responsible for ensuring that when someone in Mississippi picks up a phone, there is actually a dial tone.

Unfortunately for Mississippi consumers Beckett has AT&T’s Russell on his speed dial.

The Cottonmouth Blog discovered both men have spent a lot of time together:

It seems that Russell and AT&T picked up the food tab for Rep. Jim Beckett and his wife at the ALEC meeting in at the Westin Kierland Resort in Scottsdale, Ariz. from November 30 to December 2, 2011.  AT&T also paid for a few rounds of golf for Rep. Beckett while there.  All said and done, AT&T paid $565.39 to cover expenses for Rep. Beckett and his wife on their three day trip to Scottsdale.

But that’s not all.  AT&T also picked up the tab for $151.70 worth of food and tickets while Rep. Beckett and his wife were at the Spring ALEC meeting in Cincinnati, OH in late April of 2011. AT&T also paid $22.62 for food for Rep. Beckett and his wife while he attended the 2011 Summer ALEC meeting in New Orleans.

The total amount AT&T gave to Rep. Jim Beckett and his wife in 2011 through Randy Russell?  $876.85.  The names of the Becketts appear a total of 36 times in AT&T’s 2011 lobbying report, most of it while the Becketts are at ALEC retreats.

AT&T also helped more directly with $2,500 in campaign contributions to Beckett’s campaign fund.  What did all of AT&T’s money and travel vouchers buy them?

Dialing for Deregulation

House Bill 825 — ‘The AT&T Total Deregulation Act’: A bill introduced by none other than Rep. Beckett that would effectively strip what remaining oversight exists over AT&T’s operations in Mississippi.  It’s a bill very familiar to Stop the Cap!, because it includes all of the usual “bullet points” found in ALEC’s own legislative database — all of enormous interest and importance to AT&T.

Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley, who deals with consumer complaints about AT&T’s service in the state, effectively called HB 825 an unmitigated disaster for ratepayers from Corinth in the north to Biloxi in the south:

[…] House Bill 825 would totally strip the PSC of any authority to hold AT&T accountable for rate increases and lousy landline and cell phone coverage. Presley said the bill was requested by AT&T as retaliation against the PSC for denying a rate increase and for complaining of poor cellular and residential phone service. The PSC won a case in the Mississippi Supreme Court to limit charges to customers after AT&T appealed the PSC’s ruling.

[…] Presley said the Legislature passed the first phase of deregulation in 2006 and since then complaints to the Commission about billing errors, poor service and the like have risen from 1,735 in 2006 to 4,361 in 2011 an increase of over 150%. “This is evidence enough of why this bill is bad for consumers.”

[…] Along with removing all of the Public Service Commission’s authority to investigate abuses, extortion and customer complaints, House Bill 825 also removes the Commission’s authority to designate conditions for AT&T’s receiving of millions in federal funds to promote rural cell phone service. Presley said the Commission’s authority to place conditions on those dollars has been the main tool to increase cell phone coverage in rural counties. “Rural Mississippi’s interests are gutted in this bill.” Presley said.

Cottonmouth reminds readers who may not be familiar with Mississippi that Beckett’s home district — Bruce — puts his AT&T ghost-written legislation at odds with his own constituents:

“Bruce [isn’t] exactly urban,” the blogger writes. “Matter of fact, anyone who has driven on Highway 7 right outside of Bruce and tried to make an AT&T cell phone call could tell you just how much this bill will hurt Rep. Beckett’s constituents.”

Even Beckett’s fellow Republicans serving the state PSC couldn’t stomach the legislation that guaranteed even more customer complaints.  Southern District Public Service Commissioner Leonard Bentz issued his own press release attacking the bill:

“This is a very bad bill for consumers in Mississippi,” Commissioner Bentz stated. “Even though AT&T will tell you that the oversight that we [PSC] have is limited, the little we do have is piece of mind for the consumers.”

“You don’t have to think very long to understand why this bill is bad. Think back to last time you called  in a problem to AT&T and the lack of customer service you received. This bill would make it worse. It is important to understand AT&T will lead you to believe this bill will affect only a small number of customers, but that is not so. As it stands right now, all customers with AT&T have the ability to file complaints with the Public Service Commission, and have the PSC on their side to help them navigate the system. The bill clearly states customer appeals will be removed from the PSC jurisdiction.

The third commissioner on the PSC, Republican Central District Public Service Commissioner Lynn Posey, hoped HB 825 would simply go away, seeking to bury it in a “study committee.”

Despite the universal opposition to the measure among those tasked with overseeing the state’s phone companies, Beckett decided AT&T knew better and quickly pushed HB 825 through his committee.  What makes Beckett an expert in telecommunications policy?  Not too much: He calls himself a lawyer on his biography page, but he’s also the owner of Beckett Oil & Gas.

Despite efforts by consumer advocates, a slightly-amended measure passed both the Republican-controlled state House and Senate and this week will be sent to the desk Gov. Phil Bryant for his signature.

“The small telephone companies in this state, many of them are opposed to this,” said Rep. Cecil Brown (D-Jackson). “If it hurts their business, it’s going to hurt your local communities. That’s all there is to it.”

The price the phone company paid to get Rep. Beckett on Team AT&T?: $2,500 + ALEC-sponsored free meals and travel.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KTTC Rochester ALEC 2-3-12.mp4[/flv]

KTTP in Rochester, Minn. explores the influence of state lobbyists working with ALEC who push lawmakers to introduce legislation corporations wrote themselves.  (4 minutes)