Phillip “How far will $20 get me in your office?” Dampier

Congress is famous for obfuscation when it comes to introducing legislation that promises one thing and delivers something quite different. Take the 2003 “Clear Skies Initiative,” which would have allowed the energy industry to increase polluting emissions, or “The Disclosure of Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid Composition Act,” which allows frackers to keep secret the ingredients of millions of gallons of chemicals pumped into the ground to displace natural gas, and potentially your potable drinking water.

So it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) wants to “protect” the open and free Internet by introducing a new bill that opens and frees the telecom companies that steadfastly support his campaign coffers to install paid Internet toll booths. Like many pieces of legislation coming from some House Republicans these days, “freedom” only extends to corporate interests, not to you or I (unless we want to start a corporation of our own.)

Reclassifying broadband as a telecommunications service under Title II of the Communications Act is the Holy Grail for Net Neutrality supporters. It offers clear oversight authority that would make future lawsuits from Comcast, Verizon and other telecom companies untenable. Earlier court decisions have laid a foundation for broadband oversight under Title II, but the FCC itself must take advantage of that opportunity, and so far it has not.

Congressman Latta has introduced legislation to make sure the FCC can never take that step. His bill would specifically prohibit the FCC from reclassifying broadband Internet access as anything beyond an unregulated “information service.”

According to Latta, only with his legislation can America be assured the Internet will stay “open and free.” — “Open and free” for the picking by companies who dream of new revenue monetizing Internet traffic. Not satisfied charging some of the world’s highest prices for Internet access, many of the largest cable and phone companies in the country now want the right to “double-dip” — charging consumers to reach Internet content and content producers for delivering it. It would be like paying postage to mail a letter and having it arrive postage due or letting the phone company charge both the caller and the person called for a long distance telephone call.

“The legislation comes after the FCC released a proposal to reclassify broadband Internet access under Title II as a telecommunications service rather than an information service,” says a press release from Latta’s office.

Would I lie to you? Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio)

That is patently false. In fact, FCC chairman Thomas Wheeler has twisted himself into a human pretzel with clever language and a clear determination not to reclassify broadband under Title II. Wheeler prefers sticking to the rickety Section 706 faux-authority for Net Neutrality — the same section that keeps handing FCC lawyers loss after loss in federal court. After Wheeler announced his intention to propose allowing Internet companies to build paid fast lanes for Internet traffic, the resulting backlash from content companies and the public made him grudgingly offer a “discussion” about utilizing Title II.

That kind of “discussion” will be familiar to every 16-year old teenage girl who is told “we’ll talk about it” after asking mom and dad if she can take her new 22-year old boyfriend on vacation and stay in their own hotel room.

Ironically, detractors like Latta are the ones that usually accuse Net Neutrality of solving a problem that doesn’t exist. But that didn’t stop Congressman Latta from introducing legislation to stop the current ex-telecom lobbyist chairman of the FCC from going all Elizabeth Warren on us, suddenly imposing draconian pro-consumer regulations against those job creators at the cable companies Wheeler used to represent. But on the bright side, when Wheeler doesn’t do what Latta’s bill wouldn’t let him do, Latta can still declare victory against “big government.” If you live in Latta’s district, you can read all about it in the forthcoming government-subsidized, no-postage-needed “newsletter” he and other members of Congress will pelt your mailbox with right before election time.

“In light of the FCC initiating yet another attempt to regulate the Internet, upending long-standing precedent and imposing monopoly-era telephone rules and obligations on the 21^st Century broadband marketplace, Congress must take action to put an end to this misguided regulatory proposal,” said Latta. “The Internet has remained open and continues to be a powerful engine fueling private enterprise, economic growth and innovation absent government interference and obstruction. My legislation will provide all participants in the Internet ecosystem the certainty they need to continue investing in broadband networks and services that have been fundamental for job creation, productivity and consumer choice.”

Consumers not included. Maybe he just forgot.

“At a time when the Internet economy is thriving and driving robust productivity and economic growth, it is reckless to suggest, let alone adopt, policies that threaten its success. Reclassification would heap 80 years of regulatory baggage on broadband providers, restricting their flexibility to innovate and placing them at the mercy of a government agency. These businesses thrive on dynamism and the ability to evolve quickly to shifting market and consumer forces. Subjecting them to bureaucratic red tape won’t promote innovation, consumer welfare or the economy, and I encourage my House colleagues to support this legislation, so we can foster continued innovation and investment within the broadband marketplace.”

Guess not. The Internet should only be about business in Latta’s mind. Consumers that support Net Neutrality are nothing more than parasites sucking away valuable potential profits from the dynamic, flexible and innovative world of traffic shaping, usage caps, and double-dipping.

Latta isn’t interested that your provider is turning your weekend Netflix binge into an exercise of maddening rebuffering futility as your cable/phone company waits for protection racket proceeds a paid peering agreement with Netflix. That is because he doesn’t represent you. He represents AT&T, Time Warner Cable, Comcast, and CenturyLink.

Latta can afford to travel through the Internet toll booth when one considers who his top contributors keeping his campaign flush with cash are:

• More than $32,000 in contributions from AT&T and its executives;
• $29,500 from Tom Wheeler’s old haunt — the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (Big Cable lobby);
• $15,000 from the American Cable Association (Small Cable lobby);
• $21,000 from Time Warner Cable and its executives;
• $16,000 from Verizon and its executives;
• $11,400 from CenturyLink;
• $11,000 from Comcast (they are ditching Ohio customers to Charter after merging with Time Warner Cable so why throw good money after bad).

Latta’s close friendship with Big Telecom is so obvious, it has made co-sponsoring his fact-free bill about as popular as Justin Bieber at an NAACP convention. Even his like-minded Congressional colleagues are staying away. But his industry friends sure appreciate his efforts on their behalf.

One wonders why his constituents return him to office when he would be obviously much more comfortable in his next job — lobbying for AT&T or Comcast. Before our Internet connections slow, let’s hope his constituents hasten a much-needed turbo-speed departure for the congressman, already a shadow employee of AT&T.

227194356 05 28 14 LATTA Broadband Bill (Text)
 

Mayor Atkins

A North Carolina community concerned about alleged abuse of homeowners’ private property rights by Time Warner Cable has revoked all of the company’s easement agreements, exposing the cable operator to lawsuits from residents.

Mayor Miles Atkins observed Time Warner crews burying fiber optic lines on the property of local residents, well outside of the rights-of-way established by the local government along town-maintained streets.

The Charlotte Observer reported Atkins also personally witnessed crews burying cables outside his home — on a street where there is no right-of-way for utility companies.

Like many towns in North Carolina, Mooresville never established rights-of-way on older streets where above-ground utilities were installed decades earlier. Agreements with the owner of the utility pole governs the cables attached. In Mooresville, this generally includes electric, telephone, and two cable companies — Time Warner Cable and the community-owned MI-Connection, formerly owned by Adelphia Cable. Most rights-of-way and easement agreements in Mooresville cover buried cables.

Mooresville senior engineer Allison Kraft notified Time Warner Cable that the town has revoked all of its easement agreements with the company until Time Warner can prove it placed its buried cables only within the approved town rights-of-way.

If the cable company is found to have placed cables without permission on a homeowner’s private property, the resident can sue for damages and force the company to remove the offending line.

One Mooresville resident was suspicious of the town’s motives, however.

“I’m sure the town’s ownership of a competing cable company had nothing to do with their decision,” said Mooresville resident Scott Turner.

But Charley Patterson is happy the town is taking action, suggesting utility violations of easement boundaries are rampant.

“During the building of our church’s new parking lot, we found not one but several utilities that had buried cable in areas well out of the easement boundaries,” Patterson wrote. “There were seven utilities with buried cable. Our construction progress was dramatically impacted trying to identify where and who had buried the cable. And some had the gall to try to tell us that we had to pay for them to relocate when they were 20 to 30 feet on our property, not at all in the easement.”

AT&T U-verse cabinets attract unsightly trash and graffiti in San Francisco.

After a unanimous vote by San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors further restricting AT&T’s U-verse above-ground cabinets and extending the public a larger say about their placement, AT&T filed suit in San Francisco Superior Court claiming the company’s rights have been violated.

In 2011, supervisors voted 6-5 in a controversial decision to let AT&T install up to 726 metal cabinets in the city, connecting AT&T’s fiber network to existing copper telephone wiring. Since that vote, AT&T has installed almost 200 boxes that are supposed to avoid blocking pedestrian travel, curbs or fire hydrants and are kept away from street corners. But after the city received hundreds of complaints — mostly about pervasive graffiti — AT&T suspects the city intentionally slowed approval of more boxes.

AT&T’s lawsuit specifies the city has denied permits for 26 of the boxes since November without offering alternate locations. AT&T also accuses San Francisco of taking more than 60 days to approve or reject another 67 permit requests.

The last straw seems to have been the unanimous passage of a bill introduced by Supervisor Scott Wiener giving more weight to public comments about the cabinets. The new policy also requires AT&T to propose multiple locations on permit applications, preferably not on main thoroughfares, as well as requiring AT&T to install graffiti-resistant boxes.

San Francisco’s 311 hotline has processed hundreds of complaints showing repeated graffiti attacks on AT&T’s boxes. In many cases, AT&T has not directly responded to the city regarding the complaints, although most have been addressed eventually.

AT&T says any further restrictions on its U-verse expansion, including public input, violate state law.

In most states, so long as AT&T confines its box installations to the public utility easement, it can choose locations for its boxes without consultation.

In some states, particularly North Carolina, this has resulted in large 4-foot tall, unsightly lawn cabinets appearing in the front yards of residential homes. In several instances, multiple cabinets are installed side-by-side and are protected from traffic by nearby bollards that further extend the equipment’s footprint.

“The U-verse boxes are always placed adjacent to or across the street from an existing interconnect box,” notes San Francisco resident Bryce Nesbitt. “AT&T has chosen not to invest in a combined box that would reduce impact on the public realm. One slightly larger interconnect box could take the functions of the dual interconnect/VRAD solution AT&T is pushing everyone to accept.”

Los Angeles has filed a $10 million lawsuit accusing Time Warner Cable of skimming off money owed to the city as part of its franchise fee agreement with the cable operator.

The Los Angeles Times reports Time Warner has been allegedly stiffing the city for years when money was desperately needed to help ease budget problems during the Great Recession.

“Time Warner owes L.A.’s taxpayers millions of dollars for the privilege of having its franchise,” city attorney Michael Feuer said during a City Hall news conference announcing the lawsuit. “This is a day where we are standing up and saying enough is enough.”

The 24-page lawsuit claims despite earning more than $500 million a year from Los Angeles-area customers, Time Warner blatantly refused to live up to its obligations to the city by not paying $2.5 million in franchise fees and public, education and governmental channel fees in 2008 and 2009 and an additional $7.2 million in fees in 2010 and 2011. The city contends that once in 2008 and again in 2011, Time Warner Cable withheld more than $5 million in fees the city said it was owed. The company finally paid a portion of the disputed fees, Feuer said, but then subtracted the same amount from its franchise fee payment, resulting in another underpayment, reports the newspaper.

The city has negotiated with the cable company over the dispute for some time, to no effect.

CBS head Les Moonves is ready to take the CBS television network off broadcast television and move it to a pay television platform where he can protect the network’s revenue should the Aereo video streaming service be deemed legal.

Aereo’s fate is likely to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in April, and if it should prevail providing local television signals over streaming video without paying the network for the programming, CBS is prepared to walk away from over 50 years of free over the air television.

“If Aereo should win, which we don’t think will happen, we can go ‘over the top’ with CBS,” Moonves said on Tuesday at an investor conference. “If the government wants to give them permission to steal our signal, then we will come up with some other way to get them our content and still get paid for it.”

“Over the top” refers to streaming programming over the Internet.

Cable, satellite and telco TV customers would be unaffected because CBS already receives compensation from those pay television venues. But those watching over the air would lose CBS unless they maintained an Internet-based subscription to the network.

Moonves said he will play hardball against any “systems out there that try to hurt us.”