Time Warner Cable would like to thank the city of Charlotte and the state of North Carolina for the generous handouts of taxpayer-funded corporate welfare that helped make their newly-christened $82 million data center possible.

In return, Charlotte residents pay the nation’s highest cable bills, according to a piece in the Charlotte Observer.

Time Warner Cable maintains a cozy relationship with state and local officials — friendly enough to help win the company a state Job Development Investment Grant worth up to $2.9 million in public tax dollars in return for hiring 225 workers in their eastern national data center. Critics contend Time Warner was going to need to hire workers with or without the grant.

According to WhiteFence, the average Charlottean paid $51.18 for standalone high-speed Internet services in October.

The group surveys pricing from utility providers nationwide and builds a national price index for different services, including broadband.

No city pays higher prices that Charlotte, N.C., according to the group. The WhiteFence Index also shows Internet pricing is rising steadily, up from less than $40 charged this past May.

The Libertarian Party of North Carolina is probably the biggest opponent of corporate welfare handouts in the state:

By taking money from the taxpayers and giving it to businesses in the form of “corporate incentives,” our state and local governments are playing a game of Reverse Robin Hood. They are robbing from the poor and giving to the rich. The Libertarian Party of North Carolina denounces all corporate welfare programs as fiscally irresponsible and calls for their immediate abolition.

Millions of dollars are taken every year from our taxpayers and stashed into various funds and programs at all levels of government. The purpose of these funds is supposedly to attract businesses to our area and help them expand, under the theory that this will create jobs and promote general prosperity.

This theory has two fundamental defects. First of all, the government has no place in deciding which jobs should be created and maintained. A free market is infinitely better equipped to respond to the economic needs of businesses and consumers. When the government starts funding already successful companies, it becomes harder to compete in the marketplace if you have a new company with an innovative idea or service.

More directly, we can not have general prosperity until we rid ourselves of our excessive tax burdens. The first cause of economic prosperity is when consumers have money to spend. But we have less and less spending money, as governments take more and more from our paychecks. And then they use that money taken from us as legal bribes to entice their corporate favorites to come to North Carolina.

A community-owned cable system that critics called “a municipal broadband failure” is proving to be anything but as it aggressively launches a broadband speed war and is narrowing its losses on the road to profitability.

MI-Connection is the community-owned cable system serving Mooresville, Davidson, and Cornelius, N.C.

Originally acquired in 2007 from bankrupt Adelphia Cable, MI-Connection has been a favorite target for municipal broadband critics who have painted the operation as an experiment gone wrong and a financial failure. But the system’s latest financial results and its forthcoming free broadband speed upgrades tell a different story.

Residents will see major boosts in their broadband speeds for no additional charge in December thanks to a broadband service upgrade. Meanwhile, competitor Time Warner Cable has announced new fees for cable modem rentals that will raise many customer bills by $4 a month. (MI-Connection does not charge customers a rental fee when they have just one cable modem on their account.)

The speed increases will provide the fastest download-upload speed combination in the area, thanks to faster upstream speeds. These upgrades launch Dec. 10:

• 8/4Mbps service upgrades to 10/5Mbps
• 12/4Mbps service upgrades to 15/5Mbps
• 16/4Mbps service upgrades to 20/5Mbps
• 20/4Mbps service upgrades to 30/10Mbps

Also on that date, MI-Connection will launch its fastest Internet tier yet, tentatively dubbed Warp Speed, offering 60/10Mbps service with a free wireless router for bundled customers, selling faster service at up to $20 less per month than what Time Warner charges:

• $99.95/month broadband service only
• $89.95/month when bundled with one other service
• $79.95/month when bundled with phone and television service

Warp Speed will be the fastest residential broadband available in Mecklenburg and Iredell counties.

MI-Connection hopes accelerating improvements in broadband will also accelerate additional earnings. MI-Connection continues to earn the bulk of its revenue from television, with broadband and phone lagging behind. But the biggest growth in revenue year over year comes from broadband service.

Last summer, MI-Connection reached another milestone — it delivered its first cash payments back to the communities that took a chance on owning and running their own telecommunications provider. Although the total amount of $277,000 was modest, and the company still has to pay down debt incurred from purchasing and upgrading the cable system, it was a symbolic victory against anti-government, anti-municipal broadband naysayers.

More elusive is tracking the amount of money saved by residents finding Time Warner Cable and area phone companies ready and willing to offer stunning rate cuts in customer retention efforts.

Stop the Cap! has tracked some of those offers over the past several years, based on reader input.

Time Warner Cable’s retention department has offered North Carolina customers with active competition in their area prices as low as $100 a month (after taxes and fees) for triple play packages that include a free year of Showtime and 30/5Mbps broadband. Customers who only want broadband and television have been able to negotiate rates averaging $70 a month, especially after pointing out MI-Connection provides a year of its own phone, broadband, and TV service for $89.99 a month, including three free months of HBO.

“Year after year, renewing these prices just takes a phone call mentioning you received a flyer from MI-Connection offering more for less,” says Stop the Cap! reader Sam, who we contacted this morning for an update on our earlier story in April. “Whether you stay with Time Warner or switch to MI-Connection, you can easily save dozens of dollars a month just mentioning one provider to the other.”

Courtesy: Davidson News

Sam remains a Time Warner Cable customer based on what he calls “a simple matter of economics and what my wife wants to spend.” But he still supports the fact MI-Connection is there, even though it has created some early headaches for Mooresville, Davidson, and Cornelius.

“The conservatives have demagogued MI-Connection to death to win seats in local government but recently have stopped attacking it as an outright failure and are now claiming they want to make it successful so they can sell it off in a few years, probably to their pals at Time Warner,” Sam reflects.

“At the rate MI-Connection is cutting their losses, it might actually be profitable then,” Sam argues. “Selling it would be stupid. But a lot of the current crowd is hellbent on selling it no matter what, mostly for ideological reasons, and after Time Warner buys it for cheap, we’ll all pay even more when they put the rates back up.”

Critics of MI-Connection have help from various astroturf groups, backed largely by telecommunications companies who oppose government involvement in broadband. Particularly notorious is the “Coalition for the New Economy,” which issues negative reports about municipal broadband while burying the fact the group is funded in part by AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and other Big Telecom lobbyists.

The “Coalition” issues various reports mostly summarizing news accounts about community broadband that highlight struggles and ignore successes, while concluding that community broadband is interfering with private providers trying to hurry upgrades into neglected areas.

“A report from some group that lies never brought better broadband access to anyone in North Carolina,” Sam said. “MI-Connection has become a thorn that must be pulled from Time Warner’s backside because MI actually does provide better service.”

Despite a pledge to run this year’s Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., without a penny of corporate money, a new filing with the Federal Election Commission reveals Democrats raised millions from AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and several big banks and energy companies.

Convention officials originally promised the convention would be self-sustained without corporate money, but that promise was long gone with last week’s quiet report to the FEC. Millions arrived courtesy of a convention civic committee that openly welcomed corporate cash.

The Los Angeles Times reports New American City, which paid for hospitality and administrative costs, raised $19 million — nearly all from corporations.

Digging deeper into the FEC filings, Stop the Cap! reveals where some of the Democrat’s money came from and where some of it went:

• AT&T spent $175,475 on “delegate bags” decked out with AT&T’s logo and $123,087 on “catering for suites.” That was in addition to a straight $1 million cash contribution;
• Time Warner Cable handed over $600,000 . The cable company was also the premier sponsor of the host committee’s media welcome party;
• CenturyLink handed over $10,500 to the DNC via New American City;
• Google Foundation contributed $100,000;
• National Cable Satellite Corporation (parent company of cable-industry financed C-SPAN): $2,500
• Turner Broadcasting System (now owned by Time Warner (Entertainment)): $25,000
• Verizon Wireless handed over $50,000

While accepting the contributions violates the Democrats’ commitment not to accept corporate money, election observers concerned with the pervasive influence of corporate cash are not giving Republicans a free pass. With no restrictions on fundraising, the GOP raised nearly $56 million from AT&T and other telecommunications entities, big oil and gas companies, hedge fund managers, big banks, and wealthy individuals.

Country Cablevision, a small cable operator providing service in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains in rural northwestern North Carolina, will deploy fiber to the home service to Mitchell and Yancey counties, home to more than 33,000 people, thanks to $25.3 million (75% grant/25% loan) from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service.

The money is intended to fund broadband expansion in areas currently not served by the cable operator. When the project is complete in 2013, 97% of all homes in both counties will have access to the fiber network. Faster Internet speeds and competitive phone service will also be available to area businesses, and medical facilities in both counties will enjoy improved high speed connectivity.

Country Cablevision is one of the first cable operators in the country choosing to upgrade to an all-fiber network instead of extending its current, traditional cable infrastructure into currently unwired areas.

Modern utilities came to rural America through some of the most successful government initiatives in American history, carried out through the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) working with rural cooperatives, nonprofit associations, public bodies, and for-profit utilities. Today, USDA Rural Development Utilities Programs carries on this tradition helping rural utilities expand and keep their technology up to date, helping establish new and vital services such as distance learning and telemedicine.

CNN faces another challenge to its declining brand as Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings prepares to launch a competing network, viewable only in airports.

Since 1992, CNN has dominated airport televisions with its CNN Airport Network, a live channel showing a custom-programmed feed of CNN that assures it will never televise graphic video coverage of commercial air accidents or incidents to its viewers.

CNN makes its money selling advertising opportunities on the channel, which it claims is seen by nearly 248 million air passengers yearly in more than 40 airports for an average of 47 minutes each.

But much like CNN’s declining ratings, airport travelers have increasingly tuned out the channel, preferring to spend their waiting time with their own mobile devices. As the times have changed, Clear Channel has proposed that airport viewing change with it.

The media conglomerate announced this week it is unveiling a new TV service for airports that will air programming from major television networks and cable channels. With more than 100 content deals signed thus far, ClearVision intends to give CNN a run for advertiser money.

Toby Sturek, Clear Channel’s head of airports, told Reuters the company is in discussions with about 20 mostly medium-sized airports to host the new service. ClearVision has already signed Raleigh-Durham International, where CNN Airport Network is not seen. ClearVision will launch in that North Carolina airport this November.

Sturek said airport owners want a variety of programming to show waiting passengers, and CNN no longer cuts it with advertisers, which he says have shown little interest in supporting CNN’s venture. Sturek says they simply do not see the value of advertising on the airport channel. Still, industry insiders estimate CNN Airport Network earns the Time Warner-owned news channel at least $10 million annually.

ClearVision intends to challenge CNN’s dominance by giving viewers a greater range of programming, and starting next spring, its viewing monitors will also act as Wi-Fi hotspots, letting mobile devices connect and stream the same content for free to enhance a personal viewing experience. Because the service will be available over Wi-Fi, viewers will avoid eating away their monthly data allowance with wireless providers.

Eventually, ClearVision intends to serve up multiple channels of video content. Sturek says that will allow one viewer to watch the latest business news headlines while another watches “America’s Got Talent.”