The Denver Post this morning did a major disservice to its readers in a heavily slanted editorial objecting to the reclassification of broadband service to restore the FCC’s traditional oversight authority over Internet providers.

In their piece For Web and Broadband Regulation, Less is More, the editors at the Post delivered less facts and more industry talking points.  It even mislead readers by quoting from two Republican FCC commissioners, completely ignoring the Democratic majority that would likely prevail in a vote on the matter.

The editorial forgets to mention why this debate is taking place.  Readers should have been made aware the broadband industry the Post celebrates as successful under a light touch regulatory philosophy effectively-won total deregulation in a game changing court decision that stripped the FCC’s authority to provide checks and balances over today’s duopoly broadband market.

Comcast sued after the FCC punished the company for deliberately interfering with customers’ broadband speeds for certain Internet applications (despite Comcast’s initial denials).  The Post characterizes such behavior on the part of the nation’s largest cable company as “only a couple documented issues, which were quickly resolved.”  How does the Post think these were resolved?  The FCC used the authority it now no longer has to pressure Comcast to stop.  What stops the next “documented issue?”

AT&T’s former chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre gave Americans plenty to worry about in 2005 when the nation’s largest phone company infamously declared that popular web sites should not be expected to use AT&T’s “pipes for free.”  That attitude is still being defended today by millions of dollars in lobbying, fake grassroots astroturf campaigns, and industry bought-and-paid-for “research studies.”  Why spend all that money on a “resolved” issue?

But the most offensive part of the Post‘s piece was a completely dishonest attempt by the editors to imply there is widespread bipartisan opposition to common sense broadband regulation like Net Neutrality.

We had the opportunity Wednesday to talk with two FCC commissioners about the dual proposals for reform. They voiced concerns about an FCC move to redefine broadband networks as highly regulated telecommunications services.

Meredith Attwell Baker, who was nominated to the commission by President Obama, called the reclassification dangerous, adding it was a “brand new model.” FCC Commissioner Robert M. McDowell, nominated by President George W. Bush, worried about the unintended consequences that might come out of an additional layer of regulation.

How clever of the Denver Post to dangle the implication that Baker, being appointed by Obama, is somehow an ally.  She is not.  The Post only spoke with the two Republican minority commissioners for its editorial.  Atwell was appointed by Obama under long-standing FCC rules which require that only three Commissioners may be members of the same political party.  There is no practical difference between Atwell and McDowell.  Why didn’t the newspaper speak to at least one of the majority Democrats on the Commission, all of which are expected to support Chairman Genachowski?  Because that would have dramatically weakened the provider’s editor’s arguments and talking points.

Of course, there is nothing “brand new” about Title II authority.  It has been used successfully to oversee today’s increasingly deregulated landline marketplace to protect rural Americans who don’t have competitive choices should their phone company provide abysmal service.  What was new was the defective mechanism used by former FCC Chairman Michael Powell, under the Bush Administration, to oversee broadband using what the courts determined was phantom authority.

There is nothing about those regulations “ill-suited” to restoring the FCC’s lost authority, which is the ultimate game plan here.  Providers have fed talking points, which editors at the Denver Post apparently devoured, suggesting everything from unintended consequences to the sky falling down should the FCC be able to implement its National Broadband Plan on its terms.  Providers want the power to control and implement broadband deployment on their terms — the same ones that have left millions without any real broadband options at all, and the rest of us with slow service at high prices.

We hope that process ends with succinct and limited rules that apply to broadband providers, but leave them relatively unfettered so the Internet continues to be a place for entrepreneurs, thinkers and dreamers to pursue their ideas.

These are all noble goals, but they cannot be achieved if a handful of giant broadband providers start extorting fees from content producers and engaging in other abusive behaviors.  The Post seems to think America is a world-leader in broadband, yet we are not.  This country is now handily beaten by several Asian nations and even cities within the former Soviet Union and its east European bloc.  Just this week Ookla released a speed index report that tells the truth about America’s broadband experience:

Here are the top 10 U.S. cities and their corresponding 30-day average speeds:

1. San Jose, Calif. 15.02 Mbps
2. Saint Paul, Minn. 14.53 Mbps
3. Pittsburgh, Pa. 14.18 Mbps
4. Oklahoma City, Okla. 12.12 Mbps
5. Brooklyn, N.Y. 12.10 Mbps
6. Tampa, Fla. 12.05 Mbps
7. Bronx, N.Y. 12.01 Mbps
8. New York, N.Y. 11.85 Mbps
9. Denver, Colo. 11.68 Mbps
10. Sacramento, Calif. 11.34 Mbps

The global top 10:

1. Seoul, South Korea 34.49 Mbps
2. Riga, Latvia 27.88 Mbps
3. Hamburg, Germany 26.85 Mbps
4. Chisinau, Republic of Moldova 24.31 Mbps
5. Helsinki, Finland 20.58 Mbps Mbps
6. Stockholm, Sweden 19.97 Mbps
7. Bucharest, Romania 19.68 Mbps
8. Sofia, Bulgaria 18.99 Mbps
9. Kharkov, Ukraine 18.15 Mbps
10. Kaunas, Lithuania 17.46 Mbps

With evidence like this, the editors at the Post need to get out from behind those telecom talking points and visit today’s real broadband world.

Illinois politics is business as usual — if you’re a high-powered business like AT&T, that is.  They’ve just proven how easy it is to sucker the fifth largest state’s legislature and several newspaper editorial boards with a dog and pony show of promises that it will have few regrets (and no consequences) for breaking later on.

Once again, AT&T is upset about the terms it agreed to in efforts to rebuild its nationwide reach through frenzied mergers and acquisitions.  This time it’s the 1999 merger with Ameritech.  AT&T claims the promises its partner SBC made to state regulators to green-light the deal are now too hard to honor. If only you and I could lobby legislators to walk away from our own personal responsibilities.  “I can’t pay my town taxes because the neighborhood has changed since I first moved here, so it would be unfair of you to ask.”

The argument apparently worked in the Illinois General Assembly which passed AT&T’s Get Off the Regulatory Hook Bill (Senate Bill 107) unanimously earlier this month.  The bill has now been sitting on Governor Quinn’s desk for more than two weeks, and AT&T is getting nervous.  Letters to the editor and AT&T-friendly editorials have started appearing in the Illinois press in a coordinated effort to beat the drum loud enough to get the governor’s attention to sign the bill unchanged.

Memories are short.  The Illinois Commerce Commission established ground rules for AT&T precisely because its predecessor provided abysmal service in the state.  As part of a hard-fought campaign to secure Ameritech, AT&T promised Illinois it would:

• provide reliable landline service in rural Illinois at a fair price;
• provide DSL broadband to at least 90 percent of Illinois customers;
• recognize that landline service remains an essential utility for millions of residents, many of whom don’t have the option of switching to another provider.

That was then, this is now.

These days, those requirements are apparently too tough on AT&T.  The company complains Illinois residents can switch to Comcast phone service (from the Worst Company in America 2010) or sign up for cell phone service from AT&T or a few other providers, assuming one has reception.  With all of this “competition,” AT&T argues there is no reason to continue regulating the company’s landline services, especially in rural areas AT&T could probably do without anyway.

Illinois is just the latest stop on AT&T’s big budget deregulation traveling circus, starring high-paid lobbyists and astroturf friends, all coordinating to unshackle their benefactor from pesky regulations.

The state’s legislature is evidently a million miles away from its fellow midwestern states who have been chauffeured down AT&T’s Promise Avenue before, only to discover it quickly became a one-way toll road for consumers.  Ask Wisconsin.

AT&T’s Message — Less is more.

AT&T routinely promises less regulation will magically open the door for its much-coveted U-verse platform.  Every elected official would love to claim he or she brought much-needed cable competition to their district, so promises of telco-TV are quite an incentive for legislators.  The formula is simple — you deregulate us and we’ll bring more U-verse deployment to your state.

Politicians trip over one another running to the nearest microphone over promises like that.

“This legislation is the key to opening up investment in the telecommunications industry in Illinois,” said state Sen. Michael Bond. “By modernizing our system, we are showing providers that we are worthy of their investment.”

But hasn’t AT&T already made a trip to that well before?  Last June, AT&T issued a press release crediting deregulation undertaken in 2007 for making U-verse expansion possible in Illinois:

AT&T U-verse is being expanded in Illinois thanks to legislation passed in 2007 and supported by State Senators Larry Bomke and Bill Brady and State Representatives Raymond Poe, Rich Brauer, Robert Flider and Bill Mitchell. The Cable and Video Competition Law provides an environment that encourages new video providers, such as AT&T Illinois, to invest in Illinois to compete against incumbent cable providers.

What will AT&T want next to finish U-verse deployment in Illinois – tax-free status?

That U-verse was designed to save AT&T’s landline business from a torrent of disconnect requests always gets missed by elected officials.  Basic landline service over copper wire is a dying business.  If AT&T doesn’t deploy U-verse, its ultimate destiny as a landline provider will be the horse and buggy industry of the 21st century.  Regulators need not throw away valuable consumer protections to protect a multi-billion dollar company already well-aware of what it needs to accomplish to stay profitable.

What consumers end up with — Less service for more money.

Despite the flowery rhetoric that competition is breaking out all over Illinois, 78 percent of state residents continue to rely on landline telephone service. That numbers 6.5 million consumers. Among the well-represented holdouts are fixed income seniors, and for most of them, a $200 monthly deluxe triple-play package of services is out of the question.

For customers that cannot afford higher rates, the Illinois Citizens Utility Board fought for and won a three year rate freeze and reprieve for AT&T’s budget-minded Consumer’s Choice telephone packages that were slated to be discontinued.  These packages don’t bundle unneeded calling features or extra services, instead providing affordable basic telephone service.  But after three years, AT&T can cancel these packages and raise prices at will, particularly in rural areas where competition is minimal to non-existent.  State oversight of AT&T is also history, leaving little recourse for consumers who suffer through poor service or AT&T’s legendary billing nightmares.

Supporters also promoted the deregulation legislation as a “jobs bill” — a ludicrous contention for legislation that contains no section pertaining to jobs.  Perhaps they meant more jobs for AT&T’s lobbying crew.  In fact, landline phone companies like AT&T are slashing jobs by the tens of thousands and will likely continue to do so.

Illinois Senate Bill 107 allows AT&T to set the stage to follow Verizon’s example — exiting rural areas, leaving the bulk of their investments and potential profits in large cities like Chicago.

Newspaper editorials like this one in the State Journal-Register in Springfield mean well but are breathtakingly short-sighted.  The editorial staff gushes about the benefits U-verse will bring Springfield, without any evidence U-verse will actually be universally available in the community anytime soon:

On a less philosophical level, we believe the new telecom law will be beneficial to most Illinois consumers because it should promote competition for household cable TV, Internet and phone service. In markets like Springfield, it could allow AT&T and Comcast to go head-to-head throughout the city, not just in the few areas where AT&T’s U-verse service is now available. That’s what cable customers have been demanding for decades.

AT&T customers have learned not to hold their breath waiting.  Any regular visitor to the company’s own support forums will quickly discover customers frustrated by lack of availability, hit or miss service, and no coverage map.  One customer summed it up:

I have NEVER in my life had to fight so hard to spend money on something.
Not even my wife makes it this hard on me to get something.
I have NEVER in my life (aside from when I got my AT&T POTS service) had a company work so slowly to accomplish something to try and attract a perspective customer or keep a current customer.

But there’s more.  Had the Journal-Register picked up the phone and checked with their neighboring states, they would have learned U-verse is not the competitive nirvana it’s routinely promised to be.  In Wisconsin, rates for cable, broadband, and phone service continue to increase, not decrease.  Most of the savings built into introductory packages for new customers expire after one year, and some providers limit the discounts to once per household.  That means once your new customer discount package expires, you may never get it again.  Then it’s a lifetime of ever-increasing pricing.

AT&T-backed bills also never require the company to completely wire every community for its U-verse service.  The company can bypass neighborhoods, towns and villages, or buildings it feels are not cost-effective to serve.  There are states that deregulated AT&T to their specifications and years later, communities are still waiting for service to reach their areas.  Illinois will be no different, and if AT&T determines U-verse isn’t worth the investment in large swaths of southern Illinois, so be it.

The Citizens Utility Board is correct when it predicts most of the investment will end up in Chicago, even at the expense of other parts of the state.  AT&T always follows the money.

AT&T’s Astroturf Friends Join the Parade

AT&T’s friends are also writing letters to the editor demanding action, without disclosing they are bought and paid for sock puppets.

Take the Illinois Technology Partnership, which claims to represent a grand union of consumer and private interests for the betterment of Illinois’ high tech future.  In reality, it’s yet another AT&T astroturf group that works against consumers.

Their claim:

The Illinois Technology Partnership is the Illinois-based project of Midwest Consumers for Choice and Competition, a non-profit organization of individual consumers interested in technology, broadband, and telecommunication issues with state projects throughout the Midwest region.  ITP brings together industry experts, thought leaders, and Illinois consumers to foster an environment that will encourage emerging technologies, jobs, and investment, and spur economic growth on the state and local level.

Reality Check:

Both ITP and the ironically-named “Midwest Consumers for Choice and Competition” are both creatures of AT&T.  Thad Nation, behind all of these groups, invents AT&T-supported astroturf campaigns in various states where the company delivers service.  Over the past few years, Nation has cooked up TV4Us, Wired Wisconsin and Technology for Ohio’s Tomorrow, among others.  But his real day job is the founder and senior partner at Nation Consulting, a politically-connected lobbying firm:

At Nation Consulting, Nation focuses on assisting corporate clients with strategic planning in government and public relations, and managing crisis communications.

Our team has worked on the “inside” of the offices of Governors, Congressional members, and state agencies. We’ve worked at every level of government, and we have the relationships necessary to help you navigate state and federal bureaucracies to accomplish your goals. We know how government works – and we know what government can do for you.

Getting government officials or bodies to do what you want isn’t easy. Government is inherently a slow, bureaucratic entity. When you want elected or appointed officials to change policy, you need a comprehensive plan – and the resources, relationships and quick-thinking to implement that plan.

We come to you with decades of experience in advocacy, moving legislators and engaging state agency leaders to action. Let us help you build and drive an aggressive advocacy agenda.

Regardless of your industry, the internet has a role to play in achieving your public relations goals – and we have the experience and the expertise to implement a plan suited to your needs. Whether you need to effectively use social networking sites, manage a blog, conduct email campaigns or use Web 2.0 tools, Nation Consulting can help you maximize your online presence in a way that is both cost-effective and beneficial to your business or organization.

Ordinary consumers can’t afford Nation Consulting’s services so he doesn’t work for them.

As usual, AT&T’s connections don’t end there.  Many of the “partners” listed on ITP’s website are themselves also backed by AT&T — the Illinois State Black Chamber of Commerce and Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce just two examples.  Several of ITP’s partners follow Nation’s efforts wherever he goes, also ending up affiliated with his other astroturf projects.

A letter to the editor appearing in The Daily Herald signed by Lindsay Mosher, executive director of ITP, applauds the state legislature for passing AT&T’s custom-crafted deregulation bill:

This legislation will spur significant private investment, increase broadband access and create jobs for Illinois residents at no cost to taxpayers.

The legislature deserves our thanks for taking this step.

Now it’s up to Governor Quinn to finish the job and sign the bill without changes, as some have suggested.

As is too often the case, readers are done a disservice when a newspaper prints a self-interested letter to the editor or guest editorial without fully disclosing who is behind it.  Mosher could have signed her letter “AT&T lobbyist” and been more honest.  In fact, in addition to her position at ITP, she’s also employed by another Chicago lobbying firm — Resolute Consulting.  It specializes in issue advocacy as well, and doesn’t work for free.

AT&T spends an enormous amount of money carefully crafting its issues advocacy campaigns designed to convince consumers they are representing your best interests.  Wouldn’t using all this money to lower your phone bill and provide better broadband service be a better allocation of resources if, as AT&T claims, this is all to benefit consumers?

Here’s another question — if an individual consumer in western New York can expose all of these incestuous ties between supposedly grassroots consumer groups and the telecom companies and interests that fund them, why can’t the news media in Illinois?  If they only followed the money, the real story about Senate Bill 107 could have been told before it sailed through the legislature unopposed.

Now, the only chance Illinois consumers have is if Governor Quinn loses the bill.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Fox News Big Brother Getting Bigger 5-11-10.mp4[/flv]

Fox News has a special way of conflating consumer protection rules with a “takeover” of private business. Megyn Kelly moderates a “fair and balanced” debate between Jim Harper of the Cato Institute and Josh Silver of Free Press. (4 minutes)

Kelly frames the debate as an Obama Administration “takeover of the Internet, is it good or bad?”

With a setup like that, Silver had his work cut out for him.

Unfortunately, whenever Silver spoke, Kelly interrupted, at one point telling him discussions about “Net Neutrality” were way above the heads of the typical Fox News viewer.

For viewers keeping score at home, here is how Kelly divided up the time:

• Harper: 1 minute, 17 seconds with no interruptions
• Silver: 47 seconds, interrupted twice

Kelly’s framing of the issue put her squarely in Harper’s camp, which effectively added an extra 104 seconds of Obama paranoia cheerleading.

We report. You decide.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski has gotten the message.  After a report earlier this week in the Washington Post that the chairman was contemplating leaving broadband unregulated, without Net Neutrality protections, thousands of calls and e-mail messages poured into FCC headquarters protesting the report and asking for action.  Many also called their members of Congress and the White House demanding the administration keep its word on broadband reform policies.

Late Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal published news that Genachowski had apparently changed course:

In a move that will stoke a battle over the future of the Internet, the federal government plans to propose regulating broadband lines under decades-old rules designed for traditional phone networks.

The decision, by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, is likely to trigger a vigorous lobbying battle, arraying big phone and cable companies and their allies on Capitol Hill against Silicon Valley giants and consumer advocates.

Breaking a deadlock within his agency, Mr. Genachowski is expected Thursday to outline his plan for regulating broadband lines. He wants to adopt “net neutrality” rules that require Internet providers like Comcast Corp. and AT&T Inc. to treat all traffic equally, and not to slow or block access to websites.

The Journal’s framing language about “decades-old rules” aside, the decision by the chairman to reclassify broadband as a “telecommunications service” was the only way forward for an agency who had its authority cut from beneath it by a recent court decision.

The news that Genachowski was considering leaving things as-is, totally deregulated, met with opposition from both leaders of the House and Senate Commerce Committees which have jurisdiction over the FCC.  Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California) and Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) wrote Genachowski urging the Commission to consider “all viable options” to regain authority over broadband.  When Congress speaks, the FCC listens.

The Commission had two choices — keeping broadband “regulated” under Title I of the Telecommunications Act under the now court-discredited “information service” paradigm, or reclassifying it under Title II as a “telecommunications service,” where the Commission enjoys the prospect of already court-tested and approved authority to regulate.  Either way assured legal challenges, but under Title II the Commission faced just a single lawsuit to reaffirm its authority to regulate such services.  Under Title I, every reform attempted by the Commission would face provider lawsuits, with precedent on the side of the cable and phone companies to win.

The telecommunications industry and their allies have attempted to frame such reclassification as a government takeover or regulation of the Internet.  Some of these companies even threaten to challenge any reclassification as a violation of their First Amendment rights, an absurd notion for a company that transports content from third parties to its customers.  Since when does a provider get to assert ownership over speech from someone else?  It’s overreach like this that helped fuel the demand for Net Neutrality in the first place.  The policies the FCC seeks to enact as part of the National Broadband Plan, including Net Neutrality, do not regulate or “take over” the Internet — it guarantees that providers can’t block or control that content for monetary gain.

Genachowski is signaling he’s intent on reclassifying broadband not to saddle broadband providers with 1940s telephone regulations, but to assure the Commission and the Administration it can bring the National Broadband Plan to reality without provider roadblocks thrown up along the way.

Sources have leaked details to the media that suggest Genachowski will propose a novel “third way” of broadband reclassification — asserting the right to regulate broadband under Title II, but exempting broadband providers from most of the regulatory provisions that were written to deal with Ma Bell.  In other words, the changes would turn the clock back, before the DC Circuit Court threw out the FCC’s regulatory authority to spank Comcast for throttling its customers’ broadband speeds.  With Title II authority in place, Genachowski hopes a court hearing the same case would have found for the FCC, not against it.

The telecommunications industry has already gone over the top suggesting Genachowski’s plan represents Broadband Armageddon.

One of the industry’s good friends is Senator John Ensign (R-Nevada).  He has their talking points down word for word:

“Using this heavy-handed approach to regulation … will jeopardize private investment and innovation in broadband and inject regulatory uncertainty throughout the entire Internet,” Ensign said in a statement.

“We would expect a profoundly negative impact on capital investment,” warned Stanford Bernstein analyst and lover of big cable Craig Moffett in a research note to clients Wednesday night titled “The FCC Goes Nuclear.”

“The only potential winners are the satellite providers, DirecTV and Dish Network, for whom incremental broadband regulation would dramatically reduce the risk of competitive foreclosure in the video business at the hands of bottleneck broadband providers,” he wrote.

The hue and cry over any broadband regulations or court decisions unfavorable to the industry always results in claims it will “dry up investment,” “retard growth,” or downright ruin the Internet for everyone.

Some in the business press even suggest today’s unveiling of Genachowski’s “third way” represents uncharted waters for America’s broadband story.

But how soon they forget.

When SBC and AT&T won approval to merge, one of the conditions was that the new super-sized AT&T respect Net Neutrality concepts for a period of two years.  They agreed:

Net Neutrality
1 . Effective on the Merger Closing Date, and continuing for 30 months thereafter, AT&T/BellSouth will conduct business in a manner that comports with the principles set forth in the Commission’s Policy Statement, issued September 23, 2005 (FCC 05-151).

2. AT&T/BellSouth also commits that it will maintain a neutral network and neutral routing in its wireline broadband Internet access service. 15 This’ commitment shall be satisfied by AT&T/BellSouth’s agreement not to provide or to sell to Internet content, application, or service providers, including those affiliated with AT&T/BellSouth, any service that privileges, degrades or prioritizes any packet transmitted over AT&T/BellSouth’s wireline broadband Internet access service based on its source, ownership or destination.

So for two years, AT&T lived under the same rules the FCC seeks to enforce nationwide for all broadband providers.  Did the company shut down?  No — it grew larger with additional mergers and acquisitions.  Did  broadband expansion stop?  No — AT&T has since unveiled its U-verse service and faster broadband in many cities across its service area.  Has it reduced investment in broadband?  What do you think AT&T is spending on deploying U-verse?

The sky never fell, the investment never disappeared, and there was no panic in the streets.  When consumer protections are enacted, the same companies that are currently proclaiming that such changes will ruin their businesses will be singing a different tune to their Wall Street investors once they are enacted.

Read Chairman Genachowski’s Full Statement Below the Jump!

… Continue Reading

Consumer advocates are celebrating the defeat of telecommunications bills designed to favor AT&T’s corporate interests in Wisconsin.

Assembly Bill 696 and Senate Bill 469 were designed to give AT&T and other telephone companies the option of no longer being classified as telecommunications utilities.

Once that happened, the state Public Service Commission would lose the authority to oversee much of their operations.  In practical terms, it means phone companies could raise their rates at will and never have to justify them by reporting their profits and expenses to the Commission.  Another provision would have eliminated the PSC’s authority to deal with phone service complaints on behalf of consumers and businesses.  But considering the bills would have also eliminated the universal service requirement, AT&T and other phone companies could have simply disconnected land lines in unprofitable areas of the state and left rural Wisconsin with no phone service to complain about.

The legislation was introduced by Senator Jeff Plale in the Senate and Representative Josh Zepnick in the Assembly.  Both men are Democrats serving districts in Milwaukee.

Potentially motivating the legislation were substantial campaign contributions from AT&T.  For Plale, who is the top recipient of telecom contributions among all Democrats across the state, AT&T provided $4,000 and the cable industry donated $6,446 from 2003 through 2009, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. Zepnick received $1,400 from cable providers and AT&T during the period.  In total, at least a half million dollars in contributions from the phone and cable companies have been spent on Wisconsin legislators over the past six years.

Zepnick’s legislative maneuvering to push through the bill in the waning days of the state legislative session collided with Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker, who pulled the rug out from under AT&T and other telecom interests by referring the bill to the Legislature’s budget committee for review — a black hole from which the bill had no chance of emerging.

That triggered a reaction from Zepnick and his friends in the telecom front group community.

Zepnick told Wisconsin newspapers he wasn’t sure what to make of Decker’s diversion of his legislation, which political observers suggest is nonsense.  At the end of every legislative session, large numbers of orphaned bills are dumped in study committees or never taken up in both bodies.

“If it doesn’t get done, that’s going to be a huge missed opportunity for Wisconsin,” Thad Nation, executive director of AT&T-backed Wired Wisconsin told the Associated Press.  Nation claimed the bill would have traded regulatory authority away in return for more investment in the state by communications providers. “As other states move forward, Wisconsin will be left behind.”

Consumer advocates suggested Nation had it exactly backwards.

“It eliminates the regulations the Public Service Commission has used to ensure affordable and reliable landline telephone service for decades,” said Charlie Higley, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board, who told the AP three million landlines still exist in Wisconsin.  That turns back the clock on service standards.

With AT&T and other providers left to increase rates at a whim, the only thing moving forward, and upwards, would be Wisconsin phone and cable bills.

Not every legislator bought AT&T’s position that less regulation equals more service.

Rep. Gary Hebl (D-Sun Prairie), opposed the legislation from the day it was introduced, suggesting he would push for amendments to ensure the PSC would continue to protect landline phone customers and, for the first time, extend that power to cell phone service.

“If a service provider is not doing their job, consumers should have recourse. That’s one of our jobs as legislators,” he told AP. “We have to be sure that consumers get the service they paid for and it’s properly provided to them.”

As late as last week, AT&T had a dozen lobbyists working the Wisconsin legislature for votes.  Wired Wisconsin, which is actually an extension of corporate lobbying firm Nation Consulting, pushed the idea that Google would bypass Wisconsin for its Think Big With a Gig fiber to the home network if the state didn’t adopt the deregulation bill the firm was promoting.

Ultimately, the proposed legislation passed the Wisconsin Assembly but was never taken up by the state Senate.  Since being shelved for the session, Wired Wisconsin has moved on to re-tweeting Broadband for America pieces bashing Net Neutrality and FCC broadband oversight.  As Stop the Cap! readers know, Broadband for America is the largest telecom Astroturf effort ever, with dozens of members that are funded by Verizon or AT&T or equipment manufacturers whose businesses depend on contracts with large telecom companies.