Two competing philosophies to address the digital divide will clash in Congress this week as Democrats introduce legislation to subsidize Internet access for the poor and Republicans hold hearings critical of the FCC’s existing Lifeline program, which provides low-cost phone service for those on public assistance.

The Broadband Adoption Act, introduced by California Democrat Rep. Dorris Matsui, would reform and expand the Lifeline program to allow participants to choose between a discounted landline, cell phone, or broadband Internet access.

“In today’s digital economy, if you don’t have access to the Internet you are simply at a competitive disadvantage. For example, more than 80 percent of available jobs now require online applications,” Matsui said. “The Internet is increasingly the economic engine for growth and innovation.”

Matsui has introduced similar legislation in the past, but it has never been taken up by the Republican-controlled House.

The bill is co-sponsored by ranking member Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), communications subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and five other Democrats.

The thought of discounted Internet access is about as popular with some House Republicans as Lifeline-subsidized cell phone service, which some conservatives have derided as “Obamaphones.”

The House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on Thursday to look at Lifeline and consider its future. Members are expected to share stories of waste, fraud, and abuse, particularly over the controversial subsidized cell phone service.

Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) is a regular critic of the program and offered the House committee anecdotal reports that some subscribers have eight or more subsidized cell phones with one subscriber saying that to get one, “she just goes across the street and gets it.” Coburn claimed to have evidence in one case where a man kept a “bag full of subsidized phones that he sells for about 10, 15, 20 bucks each.”

Still seen by some as a luxury, a program that subsidizes cell phones was likely to attract critical attention among politicians.

Senators Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and David Vitter (R-La.) both drafted amendments that would end the Lifeline subsidy in its entirety, calling it a waste and abuse of resources.

The program and providers have admitted there have been lapses in eligibility verification and there was fraudulent participation in the program.

Last year, the FCC modified the program to tighten eligibility requirements:

• Required all subscribers to recertify their eligibility and to do so annually by providing documentation of income or program participation;
• Confirmed the program’s restriction of one subsidy per household;
• Started a process to create a State-by-State and/or a National Lifeline Accountability Database to prevent multiple subsidies to the same household;
• Eliminated Link-Up support except for recipients on tribal lands that are served by ETCs that take part in both the low-income Lifeline and high-cost support programs;
• Imposed independent audit requirements on carriers receiving more than $5 million in annual support;
• Directed the FCC and Universal Service Administrative Company staff to take action no later than December 31, 2013, to offer an automated means of determining enrollment in the Medicaid, Food Stamps, and Supplementary Security Income programs, the three most common criteria for Lifeline eligibility;
• Set an interim base subsidy amount of $9.25 per month for non-tribal subscribers.

Lifeline was first enacted by Congress in 1985, during the Reagan Administration. In 2005, the Bush Administration expanded the program to include cell phone service.

AT&T continues its quest to make landline service a really bad deal with the introduction of a new bill-padding fee that wireless customers will not have to pay.

AT&T’s $1.99 “Tennessee Regulatory Inspection Fee” appeared on customer bills in March, much to the surprise of customers.

“My regular service is only 22 bucks,” Charles “Buck” Meyer told the Chattanooga Times Free Press. “If they add $2 to it, that’s almost a 10 percent increase. I’ve been on the fence about switching off my landline for some months, and this could be the thing that pushes me over the edge.”

AT&T says it is entitled to recoup the money it pays to the Tennessee Regulatory Authority. The $1.99 fee appearing on March bills is a “one-time” fee until AT&T figures out how much it plans to charge customers on an ongoing basis. Most companies subject to TRA fees build them into the monthly cost of the service. AT&T is the only phone company in the state to break the fee out on the bill and collect the money separately.

In 2009, when the company lobbied for widespread deregulation of phone bills in Tennessee, it claimed deregulation would not bring about increased rates.

Meyer does not see it that way. He considers AT&T’s new fee a stealth rate hike.

“Slip a little line item on there that’s just a couple bucks and is a one-time deal,” he told the newspaper. “Then pretty soon it’s on there every month.”

The new fee is permitted because of a 2009 change in Tennessee’s statutes that now allow companies to pass along regulatory fees on customer bills.

Companies like AT&T heavily lobbied for statewide deregulation of telephone bills that year, and spent $180,000 in campaign contributions to lawmakers, their political action committees or party organizations. AT&T hired at least 20 lobbyists to help push deregulation through the Tennessee legislature. Critics of the bill warned its passage would lead to rate increases, something AT&T denied at the time.

AT&T Tennessee president Geoff Morton told the Times Free Press back in 2009, “the company needs to compete with rivals and is not interested in raising rates.”

AT&T refused to say how much it will collect from the new fee, but Morton said the company is now lobbying for another law that would gut the fees AT&T pays to the TRA to oversee the quality of phone service in the state.

“In the previous administration, telecommunications inspection fees increased despite a dramatic decrease in telecommunications services regulated by the commission,” AT&T spokesman Bob Corney told the newspaper. “We are hopeful that legislation will pass this session to reduce the regulatory burden on landline telephone customers in Tennessee.”

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WMC Memphis ATT Mystery Fee 3-21-13.mp4[/flv]

WMC’s “Ask Andy” segment has some non-answers from AT&T about their new $1.99 “regulatory authority inspection fee.” When the Memphis consumer reporter called AT&T, the company said, “no comment.”(1 minute)

The Wall Street Journal’s not-living-in-the-real-world editorial page strikes again.

The commentary pages have always been the weakest part of the Journal, primarily because they screech pro-corporate talking points in contrast to the more balanced reporting in the rest of the newspaper.

Mr. Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. decided to distort broadband reality (again) in yesterday’s edition with a glowing commentary on how wonderful broadband providers are in his piece, “Springtime for Broadband.” The only thing missing was a border in fine print labeled, “Sponsored by Verizon, AT&T, and your cable company.”

While your Internet bill is being hiked at the same time your provider is slapping usage limits on your connection, Jenkins dismisses consumer-fueled complaints about broadband price gouging, assaulting Net Neutrality, and overall poor customer service as part of Washington’s “broadband policy circus.”

Charges fly hourly that Google or some other company is guilty of gross insult to net neutrality (that sacred principle nobody can define). Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden has introduced legislation to regulate data caps and Internet pricing. Law professor Susan Crawford, until recently a White House technology adviser, clearly craves to be America’s next go-to talking head on broadband. Lately she’s been everywhere calling for a crackdown on the competing “monopolists” who supply Internet access.

How dare they complain, decries Jenkins in a robust defense of the 21st century version of the railway robber barons.

Comfortably playing patty cake with provider-fed talking points from the industry echo chamber, Jenkins is ready for battle, facts or not.

But wireless providers have invested big money to deploy high-speed mobile networks, and fixed and mobile are inevitably beginning to compete. The latest evidence: Australia recently predicted that up to 30% of households will go the all-wireless route and won’t be customers for its vaunted national broadband project.

Not exactly. The basis for this 30% figure is the National Broadband Network’s own business plan, which warns –if– the company raised prices to a maximum theoretical level, up to 30 percent of its customers would rely on wireless instead… by the year 2039. That is 26 years from now. You have nothing better to do in the meantime, right?

In fact, conservative critics of the fiber network, some defending the big wireless cell phone industry in Australia, have suggested fiber optics is a big waste of money because “wireless is the future.”

That old chestnut again.

“Now you can present a bulletin without touching a typewriter … it’s just there on the computer system, you don’t need a reel to reel tape recorder. I’ve got a touchscreen in front of me. Back then I had a big cartridge deck,” said Ray Hadley on 2GB radio. “Can you imagine the advances in technology in the next 26 years? I can’t. I can’t comprehend it. By the time they finish the NBN, it could be superseded by something we don’t even know about.”

NBN Myths, a website set up to tackle the disinformation campaign from political and industry opponents has one simple fact to convey: “Despite what you may have read from certain clueless commentators, there is not a single country or telecommunications company anywhere in the world that is attempting to replace fixed networks with wireless in urban areas, or even planning to do so in the future.”

Even Telstra, the biggest telecom company in Australia scoffs at such a notion, noting a growing number of its customers have both wired and wireless service, and they do not depend on one over the other.

Research firm Telsyte found that 85 per cent of Australians want speeds of 50Mbps or higher, speeds impossible for wireless to offer. In fact, when the NBN fiber network became available to Australians, almost half the current users as of October last year had chosen an even-faster 100Mbps plan option. But Australians also want mobile broadband, and they are signing up for that as well.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics notes the number of mobile broadband Internet connections also grew by around 40% in Australia between 2009 and 2010. But here is the Achilles heel of wireless: it cannot deliver the same speeds or capacity, and providers charge high prices and deliver low usage caps. As a result, the wireless industry has pulled off a coup: they earn enormous revenues from networks they have successfully rationed. The total amount of data downloaded over Australia’s wireless networks actually fell on a per user basis, despite the growth in customers.

Much of Jenkins’ commentary is spoon-fed by the industry-funded Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, which produces industry-sponsored studies designed to tell America all is well in our broadband duopoly.

In the latest federal survey, the average broadband speed in America is up to 15.6 megabits per second, from 14.3 a year earlier. Nearly half of customers who six months ago made do with one megabit or less have now moved up to higher speeds. Since 2009, the U.S. has gone from 22nd fastest Internet to the eighth fastest.

The 15.6Mbps figure comes from the Federal Communications Commission. The statistics about our global speed ranking come from Akamai’s voluntary speed test program. Other studies rate America much lower. More importantly, while providers in the U.S. try to squeeze out more performance from their copper networks, other countries are laying speedier fiber networks that are destined to once again leapfrog over the United States. Most charge less for their broadband connections as well.

Jenkins also quotes the ITIF which touts 20 million miles of fiber were laid in America last year. But the ITIF, when pressed, will admit the majority of that fiber was “middle mile” connections, institutional or business network fiber you cannot access, or fiber to cell towers. Fiber to the home expansion has stalled, primarily because Verizon has suspended expansion of its FiOS network to new areas after Wall Street loudly complained about the cost.

Jenkins argues that if we leave providers alone and stop criticizing their growing prices, declining competition, and fat profits, the marketplace will suddenly decide to invest in network upgrades yet again.

“The day may come when even Verizon, which visibly soured on its $23 billion FiOS bet, rediscovers an urge to invest in fixed broadband infrastructure to meet growing consumer lust for hi-def services,” writes Jenkins.

Would Wall Street rather see providers invest in network upgrades or return profits to shareholders? Investment expansion in the broadband industry comes when a company senses if they do not spend the money, their business will be swept away by others that will. Cable broadband threatens telephone company DSL, so AT&T cherry-picked communities for investment in its half-measure U-verse fiber to the neighborhood network. Google Fiber, should it choose to expand, will be an even bigger threat to both cable and phone companies. Municipal fiber to the home networks upset the incumbent players so much, they spend millions of ratepayer dollars in efforts to legislate them out of existence.

Jenkins’ view that giving the industry carte blanche to do and charge as it pleases to stimulate a better broadband future is as fanciful as NBN critics in Australia suggesting fiber upgrades should be canceled in favor of waiting 20+ years for improved wireless to come along.

He even approves of Internet Overcharging schemes like usage caps and consumption billing, calling it proper price discrimination in a “fiercely competitive” environment to defray a network’s fixed costs.

Do you think there is fierce competition for your broadband dollar?

Broadband’s fixed costs are so low and predictable, it literally calls out consumption pricing as just the latest overreach for enhanced profits. As Suddenlink’s CEO himself admitted, the era of big expensive cable upgrades are over. Incremental upgrades are cheap, the costs to offer broadband are declining, so it is time to reap the profits.

Jenkins closes with one recommendation we can agree with: “A low-tech way to stir up broadband competition would be to relax the regulatory obstacles to the actual physical provision of broadband.”

We can start by scrapping all the state laws the industry lobbied to enact that prohibit community-owned broadband competition. If big cable and phone companies won’t provide communities with the quality of broadband service they need to compete for 21st century jobs, let those communities do it themselves.

Cable operators and publicly owned utilities in Tennessee are battling for control over the prices companies pay to use utility poles, with facts among the early casualties.

The subject of “pole attachment fees” has been of interest to cable companies for decades. In return for permission to hang cable wires on existing electric or telephone poles owned by utility companies, cable operators are asked to contribute towards their upkeep and eventual replacement. Cable operators want the fees to be as low as possible, while utility companies have sought leeway to defray rising utility pole costs and deal with ongoing wear and tear.

Little progress has been made in efforts to compromise, so this year two competing bills have been introduced by Republicans in the state legislature to define “fairness.” One is promoted by a group of municipal utilities and the other by the cable industry and several corporate-backed, conservative front groups claiming to represent the interests of state taxpayers and consumers.

Some background: Tennessee is unique in the pole attachment fee fight, because privately owned power companies bypassed a lot of the state (and much of the rest of the Tennessee Valley and Appalachian region) during the electrification movement of the early 20th century. Much of Tennessee is served by publicly owned power companies, which also own and maintain a large percentage of utility poles in the state.

Some of Tennessee’s largest telecom companies believe they can guarantee themselves low rates by pitching a case of private companies vs. big government utilities, with local municipalities accused of profiteering from artificially high pole attachment rates. Hoping to capitalize on anti-government sentiment, “small government” conservatives and telecom companies want to tie the hands of the pole owners indefinitely by taking away their right to set pole attachment rates.

The battle includes fact-warped editorials that distort the issues, misleading video ads, and an effort to conflate a utility fee with a tax. With millions at stake from pole attachment fees on tens of thousands of power poles throughout the state, the companies involved have launched a full-scale astroturf assault.

Grover Norquist’s Incendiary “Pole Tax”

Conservative Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform wrote that the pole attachment fee legislation promoted by public utilities would represent a $20 million dollar “tax increase” from higher cable and phone bills. Even worse, Norquist says, the new tax will delay telecom companies from rushing new investments on rural broadband.

In reality, Americans for Tax Reform should be rebranded Special Interests for Tax Reform, because the group is funded by a variety of large tobacco corporations, former clients of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and several wealthy conservative activists with their own foundations.

Norquist’s pole “tax increase” does not exist.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) provides guidelines and a formula for determining pole attachment rates for privately owned utilities, but permits states to adopt their own regulations. Municipal utilities are exempted for an important reason — their rates and operations are often already well-regulated.

Stop the Cap! found that pole attachment revenue ends up in the hands of the utility companies that own and keep up the poles, not the government. Municipal utilities stand on their own — revenue earned by a utility stays with the utility. Should a municipal utility attempt to gouge other companies that hang wires on those poles, mechanisms kick in that guarantee it cannot profit from doing so.

A 2007 study by the state government in Tennessee effectively undercut the cable industry’s argument that publicly owned utilities are overcharging cable and phone companies that share space on their poles. The report found that “pole attachment revenues do not increase pole owners’ revenue in the long run.”¹

The Tennessee Valley Authority, which supplies electricity across Tennessee, regularly audits the revenues and costs of its municipal utility distributors and sets end-user rates accordingly. The goal is to guarantee that municipal distributors “break even.” Any new revenue sources, like pole attachment fees, are considered when setting wholesale electric rates. If a municipal utility overcharged for access to its poles, it will ultimately gain nothing because the TVA will set prices that take that revenue into account.

Freedom to Distort: The Cable Lobby’s Astroturf Efforts

Another “citizens group” jumping into the battle is called “Freedom to Connect,” actually run by the Tennessee Cable Telecommunications Association (TCTA). Most consumers won’t recognize TCTA as the state cable lobby. Almost all will have forgotten TCTA was the same group that filed a lawsuit to shut down EPB’s Fiber division, which today delivers 1,000Mbps broadband service across the city and competes against cable operators like Comcast and Charter Cable.

One TCTA advertisement claims that some utilities are planning “to double the fees broadband providers pay to the state’s government utilities.”

In reality, cable companies have gone incognito, hiding their identity by rebranding themselves as “broadband providers.” No utility has announced it plans to “double” pole attachment fees either.

TCTA members came under fire at a recent hearing attended by state lawmakers when Rep. Charles Curtiss (D-Sparta) spoke up about irritating robocalls directed at his constituents making similar claims.

“What was said was false,” Curtiss told the cable representatives at the hearing. “You’ve lost your integrity with me. Whoever made up your mind to do that, you’re in the wrong line of work.”

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/TCTA Pole Attachment Fees Ad 3-13.flv[/flv]

TCTA — Tennessee’s cable industry lobbying group, released this distorted advertisement opposing pole attachment fee increases.  (1 minute)

The Chattanooga Free-Press’ Drew Johnson: Independent Opinion Page Editor or Well-connected Activist with a Conflict of Interest?

In its ad campaign, the TCTA gave prominent mention to an article in Chattanooga’s Times-Free Press from Feb. 27: “Bill Harms Consumers, Kills Competition.”

What the advertisement did not say is it originated in an editorial published by Drew Johnson, who serves as the paper’s conservative opinion editor. Johnson has had a bone to pick with Chattanooga’s public utility EPB since it got into the cable television and broadband business.

That may not be surprising, since Johnson is still listed as a “senior fellow” at the “Taxpayers Protection Alliance,” yet another corporate and conservative-backed astroturf group founded by former Texas congressman Dick Armey of FreedomWorks fame.

Johnson’s journalism credentials? He wrote a weekly column for the conservative online screed NewsMax, founded and funded by super-wealthy Richard Mellon Scaife and Christopher Ruddy, both frequent donors to conservative, pro-business causes.

TPA has plenty to hide — particularly the sources of their funding. When asked if private industry backs TPA’s efforts, president David Williams refused to come clean.

“It comes from private sources, and I don’t reveal who my donors are,” he told Environmental Building News in January.

Ironically, Johnson is best known for aggressively using Tennessee’s open records “Sunshine” law to get state employee e-mails and other records looking for conflicts of interest or scandal.

Newspaper readers may want to ask whether Johnson represents the newspaper, an industry-funded sock puppet group, or both.  They also deserve full disclosure if the TPA receives any funding from companies that directly compete with EPB.

The Institute from ALEC: The Institute for Policy Innovation’s Innovative Way to Funnel AT&T and Comcast Money Into the Fight

Another group fighting on the side of the cable and phone companies against municipal utilities is the Institute for Policy Innovation. Policy counsel Bartlett D. Cleland claimed the government is out to get private companies that want space on utility poles.

“The proposed new system in HB1111 and SB1222 is fervently supported by the electric cooperatives and the government-owned utilities for good reason – they are merely seeking a way to use the force of government against their private sector competitors,” Cleland said. “The proposal would allow them to radically raise their rates for pole attachments to multiples of the national average.”

The facts don’t match Cleland’s rhetoric.

In reality, the state of Tennessee found in their report on the matter in 2007 that Tennessee’s pole attachment fees are “not necessarily out of line with those in other states.”²

In fact, some of the state’s telecom companies seemed to agree:

• EMBARQ (now CenturyLink) provided data on fees received from other service providers in Tennessee, Virginia, South and North Carolina. In these data, Tennessee’s rates ($36.02 – $47.41) are similar to those in North Carolina ($23.12-$52.85) and Virginia ($28.94 – $35.77). Rates were lower in South Carolina.
• Cable operators, who have less infrastructure on poles than telephone and electric utilities, paid even less. Time Warner Cable provided mean rates per state showing Tennessee ($7.70) in the middle of the pack compared to Florida ($9.83) and North Carolina ($4.86 – $13.64).

In addition to his role as policy counsel, Cleland also happens to be co-chair of the Telecommunications and Information Technology Task Force of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Members of that committee include Comcast and AT&T — Tennessee’s largest telecom companies, both competing with municipal telecommunications providers like EPB.

¹ Analysis of Pole Attachment Rate Issues in Tennessee, State of Tennessee. 2007. p.23

² Analysis of Pole Attachment Rate Issues in Tennessee, State of Tennessee. 2007. p.12

The corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) took a hit in the Georgia legislature last week as the clock ran out on several initiatives backed by its members and supporters on behalf of the group’s corporate clients.

While H.B. 282, a municipal broadband ban introduced by Rep. Mark Hamilton (R-Cumming) was soundly defeated in an unusual, bipartisan 94-70 vote, two other measures supported by Hamilton never came up for votes, including one that would have placed restrictions on city employees speaking out against corporate-ghostwritten bills like the public broadband ban he introduced.

Hamilton is no stranger at ALEC. He received $3,527.80 in ALEC “scholarships” in 2008 alone, according to the Center for Media and Democracy. Those payments covered certain travel expenses, wining and dining, and entertainment for state lawmakers (and often their families) bought and paid for by ALEC’s corporate members which include large telecom companies. After 2008, ALEC no longer had to disclose their scholarships and neither do many politicians who receive them.

In the last cycle, Hamilton cashed checks well into the thousands of dollars from AT&T, Charter Communications, Comcast and Verizon. That doesn’t include $1,000 from the Georgia Cable TV Association.

Rep. Don Parsons, another bill supporter, happens to be an active member of the ALEC Telecommunications and Information Technology Task Force. He has received $5,735.48 during his first three years in that role.

ALEC’s principle role is to get corporate-backed legislative ideas written into state laws. The group maintains a large database of pre-approved legislation ready-made for introduction in any statehouse. Simply change a few words here and there and suddenly it isn’t AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner Cable or Comcast introducing the bills they helped draft, it is Reps. Hamilton and Parsons.

In 2013, these two representatives went over the top for their corporate friends at ALEC.

Mark Hamilton’s H.B. 228: The “Keep Your Mouth Shut Else or Else” Act

Among the most overreaching bills introduced in the 2013 session was Rep. Hamilton’s H.B. 228 – an untitled bill that would prohibit local government employees from using government computers, fax machines or email to promote or oppose legislation by the General Assembly. It would also prohibit employees from contacting members of the General Assembly or the governor to discuss the impact of pending legislation on local governments, unless the employee is registered as a lobbyist or information is requested directly by a member of the General Assembly.

The greatest wish-come-true of ALEC is introducing legislation supported by unshackled corporate interests while muzzling local governments from objecting to the legislation.

In the community broadband battle, large cable and phone companies have limitless budgets to spend opposing public broadband with scare mailers, push polling, newspaper, radio and even television ads. Local officials fighting to defend their interests in better broadband do not. Hamilton’s bill would have taken this imbalance even further, making it a crime for any agencies, authorities, bureaus, departments, offices, and commissions of the state or any political subdivision of the state to provide members of the General Assembly with information about their broadband problems. Communities could not correct misinformation, explain a bill’s unintended consequences, or request changes to the bill.

“HB 228 is utterly ridiculous,” said Conyers City Manager Tony Lucas. “When did a local government, contacting one of our representatives or our governor, become professional lobbying? It’s respective governments conducting business for or on behalf of our citizens.”

Don Parsons’ H.B. 176: AT&T’s “Put Your Cell Tower Wherever You Want” Act

Rep. Parsons had trouble coming up with a good name for his latest legislative gift to AT&T. Originally entitled the “Advanced Broadband Colocation Act,” that title was eventually scrapped because it was not snappy enough. In its place, the “Mobile Broadband Infrastructure Leads to Development (BILD) Act” was suddenly born.

But after reading both it and a substitute amendment, we call it the “Put It Anywhere Act,” because the bill’s real intent is to largely strip away cell tower location authority from Georgia’s local governments.

Parsons does not host an AT&T cell tower in his backyard in Marietta, but other Georgian homeowners might had the bill passed.

H.B. 176 allowed cell towers to be placed anywhere a wireless company wanted with very limited local input. Companies were under no obligation to prove that the new towers were needed. Local governments could no longer veto their choices, much less limit additions to existing towers or suggest more suitable alternative locations.  Parsons’ bill even removed authority from local governments to insist that companies remove abandoned towers before constructing new ones.

Parsons went all-out for AT&T. Knowing that resource-strapped local governments often have bigger priorities, he set a deadline on cell tower applications at 90 days for existing towers, five months for new ones. Unless the community rejects a proposal showing good cause, it would be deemed automatically approved.

Amy Henderson, director of communications for the Georgia Municipal Association, scoffed at claims the bill was designed to streamline the cell tower application process.

“Dictatorship is just streamlined government,” she told the Rockdale Citizen. “It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s in the best interest of the public.”

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Youtube – Rep Parsons on HB176 3-2-13.flv[/flv]

Rep. Parsons’ rambling YouTube video featuring a laundry list of AT&T talking points about the need for cell companies to throw up cell towers wherever they please because it is good for business (even if it isn’t so good for you or your neighbors). Parsons’ video then launches into a hissyfit directed at the Georgia Municipal Association, unhappy with Parsons’ sweeping transfer of authority away from local communities in favor of AT&T and others. Al Gore never sighed this much. It garnered a whopping 41 views on YouTube to date and in the spirit of open dialogue, Parsons disabled comments on the video.  (17 minutes)

Private vs. Public: A Phone-y Debate

At the heart of most of ALEC’s legislative initiatives is a sense that public institutions are somehow hampering private enterprise. Community broadband is considered an especially dangerous threat because incumbent providers claim public broadband represents unfair competition.

But as ALEC itself demonstrates, corporate welfare is alive and well in the statehouses of even the reddest states. The idea that taxpayers should not be footing the bill for things the private sector can do without costing taxpayers a nickel just doesn’t fly with reality.

As Free Press reports, phone and cable companies have been on federal welfare since their inception. A 2011 Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy study shows AT&T and Verizon receiving more than $26 billion in tax subsidies from 2008–2010.

The FCC’s 2012 report on Universal Service Fund subsidies shows nearly $3 billion in federal payments to AT&T, Verizon and Windstream. In 2010, Windstream — a telecommunications company with services across the South — applied for $238 million in federal stimulus grants to improve its service in 16 states. More than 16 million taxpayer dollars went to upgrade the company’s services in Georgia.

“Phone and cable companies would not be recording the soaring profit margins that they do, if there were truly a free market,’” said Free Press Research Director S. Derek Turner. “They have created an unlevel playing field that gives them massive first-mover advantages. The real-dollar benefits of that can’t be quantified.”