Phillip "Don't over-complicate this" Dampier

Promises made during election campaigns that are later dropped for political expediency are broken promises.

Those are wise words for both the Obama Administration and the FCC as they ponder what to do about broadband regulation.  President Obama campaigned on developing an effective National Broadband Plan and preserving the integrity of the Internet with Net Neutrality policies.  Both will now be tested in how they respond to a recent court decision which has thrown a wrench into broadband policy initiatives.  At issue:

• How Americans access the Internet;
• What kind of Internet they find once they access it;
• How much money is it going to cost at the end of the month for what kind of service.

These are all laid on the table of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski with a big bow attached, courtesy of Comcast.  The nation’s largest cable company threw a hissyfit when the FCC rebuked them for throttling the speeds of their Internet customers.  They sued and won more than they bargained for when the DC District Court ruled the Commission lacked the authority to regulate broadband as an “information service,” a dubious premise cooked up by former FCC chairman Michael Powell.  The concept was akin to a police officer placing you under arrest on the authority of a bottle of green tea.  Of course you could get away with that too as long as nobody challenged it in court.

Chairman Genachowski could choose to kick the ball down the field to be played another day by appealing the court decision or trying to get Congress to pass new legislation.  Or he can strike decisively and effectively by declaring broadband to be what it actually is — a “telecommunications service.”  Under that declaration, the FCC can implement its National Broadband Plan, which will dramatically improve access for rural America and promote better broadband service for those who already have it.  The Commission can also move forward on common sense Net Neutrality policies that tell providers not to interfere with online traffic for monetary reasons.  It can even give the Commission the authority to keep a watchful eye for the next clever scheme that benefits providers at the customer’s expense.

But that depends on Chairman Genachowski standing up to the broadband industry, their friends in Congress, and the inevitable industry-funded BS Festival from astroturfers designed to sucker people into supporting industry positions.

The threats and concern trolling are already parading across the Beltway:

• “The industry would declare war on the FCC“: That war has been underway ever since the litigious broadband industry first started running to friendly courts whenever it encountered a regulatory nuisance just waiting to be overturned on “free speech for corporations”-grounds.  Chairman Genachowski needs to borrow from President George W. Bush and declare, “bring ’em on!” He can fight industry propaganda about “lost jobs” and “investment” with facts found in every provider’s quarterly financial reports showing bountiful harvests of profits, while spending and costs decline.  It’s not the FCC’s fault Verizon fired more than 13,000 employees in the past few years.  The FCC didn’t tell Verizon to stop upgrading its copper wire network to fiber optics to remake traditional landline phone service into something far better and eventually even more profitable.
• “Congress would be upset by an overreaching Obama Administration”: That would mostly be the same Republican members who reflexively oppose every aspect of the Obama Administration’s legislative agenda.  Considering warmed-over health care reform is still being called “socialist” and an “apocalypse” by these people, there isn’t a Pick-Me-Up Bouquet in the world that could get them to support this administration.  Ordering a ham sandwich and leaving the Swiss cheese off would probably result in some members of Congress reciting Glenn Beck’s declaration the omission is proof Obama is working with lactose-intolerant high officials of the Chinese Communist regime.
• “Verizon, AT&T, and others will step up spending on Astroturf Campaigns”: If a consumer like myself can sniff out an industry-funded campaign to convince consumers to support policies directly challenging their own wallets, why can’t Washington policymakers?  The industry talking points rarely change anyway, and those shouting the loudest usually try to obscure who paid for the megaphone.  When in doubt, simply ask “is there any industry money funding your organization?”  If they won’t say, you have your answer.
• “But they’ll sue”: When are they not suing?  Of course the industry will challenge the legality of any policy that puts their quest for unlimited profits at a disadvantage.  We live in a system of checks and balances between private enterprise and public oversight and regulation.  The struggle for the perfect balance between the two will persist forever, but after an era of reckless deregulation and abdicated oversight responsibility, the resulting Great Recession should provide strong evidence the pendulum needs to swing in the opposite direction.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski

USA Today today published a piece on Genachowski’s coming decision which hit all the aforementioned bases.

Astroturf Campaigns and Legal Threats: “If the FCC changes the way it treats high-speed Internet, then “everybody in the industry would sue,” says Scott Cleland, chairman of NetCompetition.org, an Internet forum supported by cable and phone companies. “It would be like an 8.0 earthquake under the sector,” he adds. “Hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested (in broadband) in the belief that there’d be a market rate of return, not a regulated rate.”

Cleland is a notorious industry mouthpiece, but at least he openly acknowledges his strings are pulled by the industry that generously funds his anti-consumer, pro-provider rhetoric.

Republicans: The FCC’s two Republican commissioners have said they’d fight a move to reclassify broadband.

No surprises there, and you can expect most Republicans in Congress to also take the industry’s position on these matters.  Guess what?  They still won’t vote for you even if you compromise with the broadband industry.

USA Today, itself headquartered in suburban Washington, delivers up the beltway solution always pressed on pliable Democrats – compromise away your principles and split the difference:

If Genachowski wants to defuse the issue, he could try to engineer a compromise. For example, he could agree to take broadband reclassification off the table as long as providers make legally binding promises to offer consumer protections called for in the National Broadband Plan and to agree to treat all Web services equally. But it will be hard to please everybody as advocates gear up for a fight.

That’s the understatement of the year.   It’s also a classic case of reinventing the wheel.  What USA Today‘s reporter suggests is exactly what the FCC used prior to the Comcast case to regulate broadband — an “understanding” with the industry without clear-cut regulatory authority.  That lasted until the three judge panel laughed it out of court.  The FCC has no authority in its current form to make legally binding promises with an industry that contemptuously dismisses the notion it should have any in the first place.  Without reclassification, the judge certain to hear the next court case challenging the “understanding” will almost certainly throw that out as well.

Declaring regulatory authority does not, as the industry likes to pretend, mean that your Internet Service Provider will be saddled with 1930s telephone rules.  It merely gives the FCC the authority to move forward on its agenda to improve broadband, protect its integrity, and help coordinate a plan for the future that first takes your interests to heart, not simply those on Wall Street.

For a change of pace, let’s choose the clearly marked road of reclassification and avoid the deregulatory dead end of broken promises offered by the broadband industry or the equally awful decision to build a new road in a futile effort to win bipartisan brownie points.

[Article Correction 4/15/2010: The original piece laid blame for the classification of broadband as an “information service” on former FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.  In fact, the classification was made by former FCC Chairman Michael Powell, who served during the first term of the Bush Administration.  We regret the error.]

FCC Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

America’s broadband blueprint could wither on the vine of good intentions if some of America’s largest telecommunications companies prevail in efforts to derail the parts they dislike.  This morning, Reuters reports Julius Genachowski, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, and his circle of advisers are weighing options to try and keep the Obama Administration’s broadband policies on track.

They have their work cut out for them.

Net Neutrality vs. Restraint of Trade

In January, the Federal District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia gave a hostile reception to the Commission’s argument it had the authority to order Comcast to stop throttling the speeds of their broadband customers.  Although Comcast complied, they also filed suit claiming the FCC overstepped its boundaries when it interfered with the company’s business practices.

A favorable court ruling for Comcast could create major problems for the Obama Administration’s Net Neutrality plans and broadband industry oversight in general.

Those monitoring the DC Circuit suspect the court will find for Comcast, but to what degree is unknown.  A narrow ruling could simply find the FCC erred in how it censured Comcast.  A broader ruling could require the Commission to seek more explicit authority from Congress to oversee broadband.  A sweeping ruling could wipe away the Commission’s ability to involve itself in broadband oversight, period.

Plan B: Regulate Broadband Under Existing Telephone Rules

One way around a court ruling unfavorable to Commission oversight powers would be to regulate broadband services under the existing rules governing phone service.  The most controversial aspect of those rules are found in “common carrier” provisions — including those that could potentially force open the broadband networks offered by cable and telephone companies to third party competitors.

While telephone companies have grudgingly accepted their more regulated status under the Commission’s regulatory service model, broadening it to also cover broadband will start World War III, according to Susan Crawford, former special assistant to President Barack Obama for science, technology, and innovation policy.

With billions in profits at stake, large telecommunications companies from AT&T and Verizon on the telephone side to Comcast and Time Warner Cable on the cable side would likely file lawsuits demanding such regulatory policies be deemed unconstitutional or also exceed Commission authority.

One warning sign that Obama’s FCC is not the same as the one in place under President Bush arrived in last week’s approval of a merger between Skyterra, a satellite company planning a nationwide 4G mobile network, and private capital equity firm Harbinger.  The FCC included provisions in the approval permitting the agency to review any plans by SkyTerra to lease or provide wholesale access of its spectrum to AT&T Mobility or Verizon Wireless.  In effect, the Commission can veto moves by the two mega-carriers to become even larger through SkyTerra.

AT&T and Verizon Wireless called the FCC’s approval terms “flawed” and “manifestly unwise and potentially unlawful.”

Congressional Action: Reopening the Telecommunications Act of 1996

The presidential signing ceremony for the 1996 Telecommunications Act

Another possible option for the FCC is to seek expanded authority with the passage of new telecommunications laws enacted in Congress.  The last wholesale review of telecom policy was during the second term of the Clinton Administration.  The 1996 Telecommunications Act was a gift to the industry, delivering sweeping deregulation, allowing increased consolidation and reduced oversight.

Opening the door to a 2010 Telecom Act would bring millions of dollars in lobbying by large players to preserve, protect, or expand their positions in the marketplace.  Many providers still favor telecommunications reform that would further deregulate their businesses.

Amit Schejter, professor of telecommunications policy at Penn State University, told Reuters he doesn’t believe Congress can pass such legislation at this time, especially with a divided, partisan Congress.

Not everyone is concerned that the FCC’s position between a rock and a hard place is all that unusual.  The last administration’s FCC rarely tangled with the telecommunications industry.  That Chairman Genachowski may be leading the Commission in a different direction is welcome news for some.

“The only reason this looks new and shocking is that for so long the FCC hasn’t made a decision opposed by a major company,” Ben Scott, policy director for Free Press told the Washington Post. “The FCC has spars with companies on a regular basis and this is good news.”

William Randolph Hearst

The Progressive Movement of the 1900s-1920s

After the reform-driven progressive movement of the early 20th century was finished taking on the railroads, they turned their attention to so-called “utility services.”  These were telephone, energy, and water providers.

The progressive movement of the early 1900s split into at least two camps:

• Individualist Progressives — Most people in this camp belonged to Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive Party, also known as the Bull Moose Party.  The Progressive party was made up mostly of disaffected centrists who left the Republican Party after Roosevelt failed to secure the 1912 Republican nomination for president.  A rift had developed between Roosevelt and then-president Taft over how much energy should be devoted to breaking up corrupt big business and corrupt politicians.  The Progressive Party believed the Republicans had developed an unholy alliance with big business, monopoly trusts, and corrupt politicians on the state and federal level.  These individualist progressives believed in a well-regulated capitalist system, and with respect to energy companies, they demanded honoring the services and pricing promised consumers.  Once those conditions were met, government should stay out of it.  These progressives opposed abusive trusts and monopolies and supported competition.  The Progressive Party had support in states like New York, Illinois, California, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — all states with a heavy manufacturing business base that suffered from monopoly abuses.
• Reformist Progressives — Reformist progressives believed essential services should be in the hands of public trusts or municipalities, operated as non-profit “utilities” answering to the communities they served.  They were major advocates for municipal utility projects, and believed it was immoral for important services to be left in the hands of for-profit businesses, much less trusts and monopolies.  Many reformist progressives rallied behind the newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who loudly advocated radical reform in his newspapers.  Hearst even formed the Municipal Ownership League, a local party in New York City, whose primary goal was to force for-profit utilities out of the marketplace — turning services over to municipalities to run for “the public good.”  Reformist progressives often applied moral values to private enterprise, suggesting an improved capitalist model required companies to also consider the social good of operating in the public interest.

Where individualist progressives had control, rate regulation and oversight was the usual model when dealing with electric companies.  California and Wisconsin, fed up with the railroad abuses, saw many similarities in  electric monopolies.  In the end, they applied the same rate regulation philosophy used with the railways for all utility services.  Both states regulated rates charged based on their perception of fair pricing.  Beyond that, they tended to leave private providers alone.  New York’s governor Charles Evans Hughes was an individualist progressive who advocated regulatory crackdowns on monopolies who abused the terms and conditions under which they offered service.  Once they met that obligation, Hughes believed the free market would manage to sort out the rest.

That was all fine and well for communities already served by electric companies, but what about vast numbers of smaller communities bypassed for electric service?

Defenders of the free market, and the companies themselves argued that only through deregulation would providers get sufficient investment to expand their service areas into previously unserved communities.  Apply rate regulation and other government interference and investors will look elsewhere.

Reformist progressives disputed this assertion, believing hunger for quick profit was responsible for the disinterest in serving rural communities, where construction costs were higher and rapid return on investment was unlikely.  Besides, they argued, since most of these companies provided monopoly service, it wasn’t as if they faced imminent price-cutting competition.

Reformers advocated bypassed communities should form their own municipally-run electric companies or cooperatives, managed by local government and answerable to local ratepayers.  This solution was attractive to many communities, especially the growing number of planned new communities that came during the boom years of the 1920s.

As municipal power attracted attention, some in the private power sector balked.  Not only were these companies delivering good service to customers, they were often doing it at far lower prices.  Many large utility companies and their allies made municipal power a political issue, attacking the concept as anti-American.  Their argument: Public money should never be spent to construct services traditionally provided by private companies, even when those companies had yet to wire those communities for service.

Charles Evans Hughes

As political lobbying for bans on municipal power projects grew more intense, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst declared all-out war on the electric monopolies.  Hearst advocated that electricity be a delivered only through not-for-profit municipally-run utility companies.

Hearst even went as far to seek the governor of New York’s office several times in the early 1900s, to implement his progressive reforms.  Hearst’s platform included advocacy of public power delivered for the social good. That meant companies would extend service to outlying areas as soon as practical instead of when it was grossly profitable.  Power companies would charge a fair price for good service.  Companies would also advocate for customer safety and work with government to define safety regulations instead of reflexively opposing them at every turn.

In one of several runs for office, his opponent was the aforementioned then-current governor Charles Evans Hughes, who promptly went on the attack.

Hughes had one word for Hearst’s reform views: Socialism

Governor Hughes told the Republican Club of New York in 1908, “Our government is based upon the principles of individualism and not upon those of socialism…. It was founded to attain the aims of liberty, of liberty under law, but wherein each individual for the development and the exercise of his individual powers might have the freest [sic ] opportunity consistent with the equal rights of others.”

Hearst lost the governor’s race each time he ran, and was outmaneuvered by the private industries he sought to reform.  In fact, the industry managed to outwit regulatory advocates at every turn.

For example, since states were permitted only to regulate commerce within its borders, giant national electricity holding companies, also known as “trusts,” typically escaped such regulation by opening headquarters out of state, which allowed them to ignore local and state regulations.  In Riverside, California, Southern Sierras Power Company was able to ignore California state regulations because its head offices were in Denver, Colorado.  That kept pesky state officials out of Sierras’ books to verify whether the rates it charged were fair.

When regulators sought to construct a formula for fair regulated pricing, creative bookkeeping and debt structuring made even confiscatory rates permissible.  Companies learned to use business regulations against the regulators.  For instance, when a regulator believed rates could be lowered, power companies increased their debt obligations, at least on paper.  They paid outrageous administrative fees to the holding companies they themselves often quietly controlled.  Or they used creative accounting tricks to make it appear free cash was obligated to satisfy investors who held company debt and had to be repaid under government rules within a limited time frame.  Companies were able to “prove” to regulators their current rates were fair, and there was no leeway to reduce them.

Only after municipal power companies began providing service at dramatically lower, and sustainable prices did suspicion reach a fever pitch that regulators were being played.

Tomorrow: A “New Deal” for Americans

New York City streets in 1890. Besides telegraph lines, multiple electric lines were required for each class of device requiring different voltages.

Broadband as a vehicle for social transformation.

What a concept.  At the heart of the public policy debate for broadband improvement are the implications of universal broadband service in every American home.  What such transformation brings to ordinary consumers, entrepreneurs, employers and employees — even the digital economy as a whole, is open for debate.  At the heart of it is an argument over who is best suited to deliver that transformation – private industry or government, or perhaps both.  It’s an argument at the heart of various public policy debates these days, be they on health care, the environment, energy, housing, or telecommunications.

It’s also a discussion Americans have had for well over 100 years.

Back in the 1880s, the topic was electrification and the debate was over who should provide it, who pays and how much, and how or if it should be regulated.

On one side were the electric companies which demanded free, unfettered access to customers with a minimum of government red tape.  On the other were social engineers who saw electricity’s potential to create a dramatic social transformation in America, redefining how Americans live, work, and play — if they could access dependable electricity at a reasonable price like the one serviced by companies such as industrial electrician Eugene.  In the middle were consumers, who wanted the service but didn’t want to get stuck with a gouging bill at the end of the month.

The parallels between electricity and broadband deployment and improvement are obvious as the story unfolds.  The implications go much further than you might realize, especially when one considers much of what we take for granted in our lives today came from yesterday’s debate over electricity.  It’s why today’s National Broadband Plan may bring about social and cultural changes far more profound than worrying about who is next in line to get 100Mbps service.

The 1880s — Electricity Arrives in Big Cities

As American business moved full speed into the modern industrial era, electricity supply moved along with it.  In earlier decades, most businesses located adjacent to natural resources that would power machinery — water being one common choice, coal another.  Water powered mills could grind wheat into flour, and many American cities grew up next to major waterways and the businesses that relied on them. Coal could be used to generate steam-power and fire furnaces capable of making wrought iron and steel, and today’s “rust belt” cities were yesterday’s economic powerhouses.  Gas powered lighting provided streets and homes with light long before electricity arrived, with all of the inherent dangers from open-flame-based lighting.

Electricity service was offered primarily for commercial use in the early days.  That’s because the costs of power generation and wiring were very expensive.  Only commercial customers could pay the rates demanded by power companies for service.  Electricity companies argued that given unfettered access in the market, with limited regulation and increased private investment, they could set about expanding service to residential homes.  From the 1890s forward, service did expand into urban neighborhoods.  Remember, this was long before the concept of “suburbs.”  Most Americans lived and worked within city boundaries.

Line capacity to homes during this era was much more limited than what homeowners find today. When the first well-to-do homeowners signed up for electrical service, they were looking primarily for home illumination.  There were few electric-powered appliances around at the time, so demand for high capacity lines simply didn’t exist for residential customers, and they were rarely offered anyway.

For reasons of price, demand and availability, the majority of revenue from electricity would come from its commercial use.

The 1910s — Great Industry Consolidation

By the advent of World War I, the days of hundreds of independently operated electricity companies were over.  Industry consolidation was rampant in the decade before the Great Depression, as locally-owned companies became part of ever-growing consolidated holding companies, or trusts.  Much like the consolidation of railroad lines, the results were not good news for consumers, unless they happened to own a lot of stock in those companies.  Rates skyrocketed, especially for residential customers.  Only businesses, threatened with higher rates, convinced electric companies they would switch to in-house power generation.  That threat kept their rates stable and relatively low in comparison.

When electric customers began complaining about ever-increasing rates and limited service areas, government began to take an interest.  Government authorities found great similarities between electric companies and the railroad monopolies.  Industry consolidation and too little competition brought ever increasing prices for consumers.  It also reduced expansion of service into new areas, because no other providers were competing to get there first.

The 1920s — Profit Motive & Public Response

During the boom years of the 1920s, electricity service was widely available in most urban areas, but few provided much more than low capacity lines suitable for lighting and small electric appliances.

Those who believed electricity would deliver social transformation to average Americans were stymied by power companies that wouldn’t deliver enough capacity to make the latest big appliances work.  Blenders, mixers, toasters and other small electrical appliances could work, assuming you didn’t have too many lights turned on at the same time, but washers, refrigerators and electric ovens were out of the question.

When consumers inquired about upgrading their service, they were refused by most electric companies.  After all, most power company executives believed “illumination-grade” service was more than sufficient for virtually every American.  In all, they consistently refused to upgrade facilities to at least four-fifths of their customers, telling them they could make do with what they had.

The electrical industry defended this position for years, and even paid for studies to defend it.  A willing trade press printed numerous articles claiming the vast majority of Americans would never require higher voltage service, and it was too expensive to provide anyway.  A select minority of customers, typically the super-wealthy, were the exception.  In fact, marketing campaigns specifically targeted the richest neighborhoods, offering “complete service,” because the industry believed it would quickly recoup that investment.  That, in their minds, wasn’t true for middle class and low income households.  In fact, low income neighborhoods of families making between $2,000 and $3,000 were often bypassed by electric companies completely.

When asked why it was fair for companies to bypass some neighborhoods, while offering enhanced service to others, the industry said it was just a matter of good business sense.

A review of 1928 revenues for 57 electric companies led Electrical World to conclude that only 10 to 20 percent of utility customers were “prospects for complete electric service at indicated competitive rates.”

But the magazine also found when full service was offered at reasonable prices, demand for appliances increased, along with the electrical usage to power them.  Despite the potential for increased revenue, the overwhelming majority of power companies kept the same high priced, low capacity service.

After regulators finished dealing with the railroad robber barons, many turned to the electricity monopolies. Towards the end of the 1920s, power companies were primarily expanding service only to those customers that guaranteed major profits.  That largely meant commercial customers.  Between 1923 and 1929, the percentage of total electricity distributed in the United States taken by manufacturers rose from 48.2 to 52.9 percent.

If you lived in an urban neighborhood, you probably had electricity, but you grumbled about the bill and the frequent brownouts from inadequate voltage.  If you lived outside of the immediate area, you didn’t have electricity and the prospects for obtaining it from a private company were bleak.  The costs to deliver it at a rate of return that would satisfy investors was simply too high.

• Part 2: Broadband: The 21st Century Equivalent of Electricity — The Progressive Movement
• Part 3: Broadband: The 21st Century Equivalent of Electricity — FDR & The New Deal

Despite hundreds of consumer complaints from residents in and around Baton Rouge, the Louisiana Public Service Commission has refused to vote itself the authority to threaten AT&T with a fine up to $175,000 for poor service.

Ignoring an agreement by AT&T to adhere to minimum service standards in return for permission to acquire BellSouth Corporation in 2006, the Commission oddly decided not to enforce those conditions for the protection of AT&T customers.  On Wednesday, in a 3-2 vote, the PSC instead decided to “study” the matter and to further consider whether or not it should impose the same minimum service standards on all of Louisiana’s phone companies.

Commissioner Foster Campbell, of Bossier Parish in northern Louisiana, was stunned by the vote’s results.

“You’re telling AT&T that no matter what they do, no matter how bad their service, we’re not going to do anything?” he asked.

Campbell told his fellow Commissioners he’s worn out after taking large numbers of calls from upset residents in northern Louisiana.

Field also voted for the measure. He serves District 2 in southern-central Louisiana

This is the second time the PSC refused to fine AT&T and instead “study” the matter.  Meanwhile, customer complaints from the Baton Rouge area continue to pour into the PSC offices.

Commissioner Jimmy Field, who represents the Baton Rouge area, told AP his office had been swarmed with consumers complaining about the length of time to get service installed and outages lasting more than 24 hours. Field wanted the PSC to hang the fine over AT&T’s head again.

Complaints against AT&T in Louisiana also involve lengthy waits for repair call appointments, delays in getting new lines installed, missed appointments, and extended service outages.

In just four months last summer, the Commission confirmed 435 of the 778 complaints lodged across the state against AT&T.

Apparently if the problems don’t impact the residents you represent, there isn’t a problem.

The three commissioners that voted against the proposal to potentially fine AT&T said as much.

Skrmetta was the ringleader of the three opposed to potentially fining AT&T. He serves District 1 in east Louisiana

PSC Commissioners Eric Skrmetta, of Metairie, Lambert Boissiere III, of New Orleans, and Clyde Holloway, of Forest Hill said it wasn’t fair to single out just one company.

Skrmetta went further and said he hadn’t seen many complaints in his district, north of Lake Pontchartrain.  But he had received complaints about some of AT&T’s competitors.

Boissiere voted against the measure. He represents District 3 in central Louisiana

Boissiere, despite voting against the proposal, delivered a verbal spanking to the AT&T representative on hand.

“I don’t like your methods. I don’t like your style. I understand where my fellow commissioners are coming from,” Boissiere said.

Debbie Canale, the executive director for regulation for AT&T Louisiana, wasn’t much impressed with Boissiere’s comments.

“Our customers vote with their money and would do business with competitors, if they were unhappy with AT&T,” Canale offered.

Our Take

The three commissioners who voted against giving themselves the power to make their regulatory authority count don’t belong on any Public Service Commission.  Any member of a review board should be concerned first and foremost with the interests of the residents they represent.  The three Louisiana commissioners who voted against the proposal failed to do that.  They should be removed immediately.

The only way to impress telecommunications companies under your review is to have the power to make them pay attention to your rulings.  Stiff fines for repeated violations (and 435 in just four months is an incredible number) will make any company sit up, take notice and fix problems.

Without it, verbal scoldings are little more than lip service to a provider that can afford to be arrogant, especially in rural Louisiana where competitive choice is hardly bountiful.

Canale’s response to the Commission boils down to, “if you don’t like our service, leave.”  If only every Louisiana resident could choose another landline provider if they wanted.

Holloway, the third "no" vote, represents District 4 in western Louisiana

Ignoring a company’s problems in one region of the state virtually guarantees those problems will eventually visit another.  It is short-sighted and inexcusable to ignore hundreds of valid complaints,  condemning residents to more of the same in the future.  Voting (for a second time) to “study” the issue is an insult to residents and little more than a stall tactic.

The Commission’s suggestion it wants to impose regulatory fairness comes despite a clear agreement, less than four years old, that AT&T signed onto as part of its buyout of BellSouth.  It says AT&T will commit to certain standards of service in return for regulatory approval of the merger.  AT&T already sought to renege on that agreement in mid-2009 when it asked the Commission to suspend fines as part of their “study” about regulatory policies across the state.

So much for that hard-fought consumer protection deal.  Evidently, what AT&T agrees to one year is fodder for their lobbyists the next.  If AT&T wants changes, can consumers demand some changes of their own that assure this company will provide quality service?

As usual, AT&T’s regulatory affairs never give consumers a good deal.  For 435 residents of Louisiana, it also gave them no dial tone and a lengthy wait to get it back.

At for Commissioners Skrmetta, Boissiere and Holloway, the only question that should be on the table is whether they represent residents or AT&T Louisiana.

That is something worthy of careful study.

Louisiana's Public Service Commission is made up of five commissioners, each with their own district to represent.