Stop the Cap! has obtained the audio from Wednesday’s Public Utilities Committee meeting that quickly pushed through H129, Time Warner’s custom-written, anti-competition and community broadband destruction bill.

Listening to the 44 minute hearing will be disturbing to anyone who supports open government and the concept of voting for or against a complete bill, not one Rep. Marilyn Avila (R-Time Warner Cable) openly admits is going to be changed.  For her, that represents no reason to delay the bill — her good friends at Time Warner need this legislation passed today, not tomorrow or next week.

As you listen, we’ve included a voter’s guide with time-indexed comments to help draw your attention to some critical points, and some much-needed fact checking.  It will also help you identify the members of the legislature that need to stay, and those that need to go.

Our apologies for the distorted audio at times.  When a member leans into the microphone, as some clearly do, it creates significant audio distortion.  It gets worse in the last 10 minutes, so watch your volume.

North Carolina’s House Public Utilities Committee Meeting on H129 – Wednesday, March 2, 2011. (44 minutes)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

Your Audio Guide to The Committee Meeting

2:50	Apparently Rep. Avila gets her research straight from the cable industry that wants to destroy community broadband.  Avila is factually wrong about citizens being on the hook for “high debt” for North Carolina’s fiber networks, all of which are financed by bonds that leave bondholders at risk, not taxpayers.  The only interests Avila wants to protect are her good friends at the cable company.
3:30	Rep. Avila is dreaming if she really believes the providers that have refused to provide service thus far are going to suddenly do so if her bill passes.  These communities were ignored before and they will be ignored after.  The only difference is that her legislation will guarantee no local community can do anything to fix it.  Avila admits openly her bill will stop competition between providers.
6:00	Rep. Julia Howard is more than willing to hold meetings with those already in the business, but there is no room for actual North Carolina consumers to make their needs known.
8:50	Rep. Avila pays lip service to the ongoing problem of lack of broadband availability in large areas of the state by saying it’s unfair, but ignores the reality that if communities don’t deliver the service, nobody else will.  The red herring of a “public vote” always carries with it loads of fine print.  For example, while the industry can spend unlimited amounts on lobbying and advertising campaigns to demagogue networks, local communities are almost always banned from spending one dime to share their views with the public, or respond to the propaganda the industry sends out.  In fact, Avila’s bill bans networks from advertising their services or advocating for them.  It’s like holding a public debate, but gagging one side so they cannot speak.
12:50	John Goodman, North Carolina Chamber of Commerce presents the pre-written talking points provided by the cable industry.  As you listen, ask yourself whether Mr. Goodman is aware of the details of community broadband, or simply the information handed to him on some sheets of paper from the cable lobby.  Then ponder how many times a community provider has forced a private player out of business with so-called unfair pricing and subsidies.
17:30	Catharine Rice is one of just a handful of speakers that talk about the real-world problems of actual North Carolina citizens.  She’s concerned about them, not the bottom line of Time Warner and AT&T.  Some examples:  Parents of schoolchildren have to drive their kids to a school parking lot so their children can access the school’s Wi-Fi network to complete their homework; A neighborhood of more than a dozen homes can’t get decent broadband because Time Warner demanded $50,000 to wire up cable service.  Meanwhile, just a mile away, a wealthy golf community got their service without a 9 iron to their wallets.
8:30	Jack Stanley from Time Warner Cable delivers the day’s ironic moment when he congratulates his cable colleagues and friend from the Chamber for the “eloquence” of their prepared remarks. And why not, when you consider who wrote them.  His brief remarks consist mostly of empty promises to find a “fair resolution.”  This, from the people who wrote the very unfair bill.
19:30	The North Carolina League of Municipalities delivers an important fact: Community broadband networks are not created on a whim.  They are launched where communities face inadequate or non-existent broadband service.  Most of the cities launching their own services tried the public-private partnership route by approaching companies about broadband problems.  They were shown the door out.  This is why networks like Fibrant and GreenLight exist today.  Community broadband disturbs Big Telecom because it represents competition Wall Street and shareholders never expected they would have.  Anything that challenges the enormous profits cable and phone companies earn must be eliminated.
21:30	Mr. Trathen opens his remarks with a distortion, claiming cities are jumping into community broadband because they just want to compete with existing providers.  In fact, the record tells a very different story in North Carolina.  Cities and communities to this day are trying to get providers from Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, AT&T, and even Clearwire to deliver service to their citizens and they are being turned down, or delivered DSL service at speeds that will not even qualify as true broadband under the definition established in the National Broadband Plan.  That’s a simple fact.  How many community networks are competing against Verizon FiOS or other cutting edge broadband networks?  The reality is, anemic or non-existent broadband service has been the topic of complaints in local communities across the state for years and years.  Also, Trathen’s desire to “have a conversation” about serving unserved parts of North Carolina reminds me of the saying — talk is cheap.  Time Warner has been a part of North Carolina for years and years, and the cable company routinely bypasses any customers who do not live in a dense, populated area to this day. Trathen’s comments that there is nothing in the law today prohibiting public-private partnerships is very true, but as residents have seen, those are far and few between.  Trathen is also flat wrong when he claims nothing in the bill prevents a city from moving into an unserved area to provide service.  In fact, Avila’s bill prohibits cities from extending service outside of their boundaries.
24:00	Rep. Paul Luebke wonders why this bill is necessary, because local governments proposing these networks are already answerable to their citizens and to an oversight committee.  Leubke correctly points out the legislation is all about letting existing telecom companies decide for the people of North Carolina when/if they will get broadband service, at what speeds, and using what technology.  With no new competition on the horizon, H129 effectively delivers all of the state’s broadband interests into the hands of a cable and phone company cartel.  Leubke also expressed concerns that he (and others) are being asked to vote on a bill that has not been finalized yet.  Should negotiations between existing providers trying to extinguish community networks and the cities that run them fail to find a solution, the bill’s original language will guarantee financial disaster to existing community broadband services.
29:00	Rep. Alexander notes that the legislation establishes onerous conditions on community broadband networks that the private sector is completely exempt from.  Alexander notes these networks came about because communities were faced with last century broadband — the virtual equivalent of two cans with string between them.  This legislation assures those underserved communities will continue to be underserved.
32:00	Rep. Womble has serious concerns about how this bill is being rammed through the committee.  Just minutes before the hearing, Womble was handed a summary of the bill for the first time.  Womble is especially upset he is being asked by the bill sponsors to “trust us” when they say they will work out exemptions for existing providers.
37:00	Rep. Hager goes fishing and catches a number of red herrings about cities expanding their networks outside of their service areas and cross-subsidizing them with pilfered funds from city resources, “unfairly harming” their cable and phone company competitors. He presents no evidence to substantiate this claim.
38:30	Rep. Hastings falls into the trap of conflating middle-mile fiber backbone projects with delivering broadband to individual homes and businesses as he brings up the Golden Leaf Project, a very worthwhile fiber backbone, but one that will never extend to last mile homes and businesses.  Like so many middle-mile projects, this one will deliver service to institutions like schools, libraries and local government.  While all very noble, no funds are provided to directly wire service to individual homes that need broadband the most.  Private providers would have howled had this been the case. Instead, vague promises like “private providers are interested in leasing capacity” on the network leave consumers with the hope of better days, but they should not hold their breath.  Cable operators will not deploy service in rural areas, period, and phone company DSL’s largest impediment remains distance between the central office and individual subscribers.  While Golden Leaf may prove beneficial in incrementally moving residential broadband forward, it is not going to provide service to individuals.  In fact, H129 will ensure none of these communities can tap into Golden Leaf and directly deliver service to those that continue to be broadband-disadvantaged.
40:00	Rep. Warren doesn’t like voting on a bill just to find out what it will eventually contain later on.  “It gives me chills,” he told the committee.  He also dismisses claims the bill is about a “level playing field.”  He then directs several pointed questions to Ms. Avila about the financial implications her bill will have on state finances, its bond rating, and other considerations.  She dodges all of them with non-answer answers.
43:00	In less than 30 seconds, the bill is rushed to a committee vote by a motion from Rep. Brubaker, at which point Rep. Steen cuts off discussion (despite the fact more committee members were raising their hands to speak).  A voice vote clearly delivers a majority to the NO side, but not in the eyes of the committee chair, who claims the AYES have it, the bill is reported favorably out of the committee, and the meeting is adjourned before anyone has a chance to demand a recorded vote.

The shocking conclusion of this legislative travesty is the chairman adjourning before a recorded vote can be taken.  Without it, constituents can’t identify how their member voted and hold them accountable at the next election.

[Update 3:05pm Monday — Stop the Cap! misidentified Rep. Warren as Rep. Rowan at the 40:00 mark.  We have corrected the audio log above and regret the error.]

Time Warner Cable’s custom-written bill banning community-owned broadband networks in North Carolina this afternoon received a favorable vote in the Public Utilities Committee — the first to consider the bill.

Rep. Marilyn Avila (R-Time Warner Cable) decided that openly distorting the record of success community broadband has had would be a good way to proceed.  In comments before a jam-packed room this afternoon, Avila claimed fiber optic broadband systems have a long history of “failures,” which is ironic considering her promise to exempt these so-called failures from her bill’s anti-competitive regulatory regime.

Honestly, it was the first time we can recall a sitting legislator openly trashing her own state’s advanced broadband network successes.  (You can’t fault her for going all out for her friends at Time Warner Cable, but you can hold her accountable at the next election.)

Avila would never and could never admit the truth after wading this far in: these state of the art fiber networks are successful enough to have waiting lists from time to time just to get service installed.  Even those who don’t subscribe are benefiting. Just look at GreenLight, operated by the community of Wilson.  While GreenLight subscribers benefit from broadband far superior to what the cable company offers, those staying with Time Warner have seen an end to relentless annual rate increases.  Apparently Ms. Avila wants you to pay higher cable bills now and forever.

Republicans and Democrats from rural districts harshly criticized the proposed legislation for bringing no answers to the perennial problem of inadequate broadband in rural North Carolina communities, as well as the fact this bill contains customized exemptions to protect Time Warner and other Big Telecom companies from regulatory requirements dumped on community networks like a ton of bricks.

That’s favorable treatment for the cable company Ms. Avila seeks to protect at all costs.

Despite the important arguments raised by those objecting to the bill, the Committee Chair gaveled the debate to a sudden close, held a perfunctory voice vote and adjourned the session without a recorded vote.  That leaves citizens of the state with no idea how individual members voted.  Apparently they do not want to hear from unhappy constituents.

The Time Warner Cable Legislative Railroad next stops at the Finance Committee.

Although Rep. Julia Howard (R-Davie, Iredell), senior chair of that committee and Avila promise changes in the bill to protect existing community broadband operations, we are more than a little skeptical.

Last week, Avila called a meeting of city officials and several Big Telecom companies, including Time Warner and CenturyLink, partly to discuss exemption issues.  To give readers an idea of just how far Avila is in Time Warner’s corner, minutes into the meeting, she turned it over to the lobbyist from Time Warner Cable for the duration.

That’s a public-private partnership any voter in North Carolina should take a dim view about.  If Ms. Avila finds her work in the legislature too difficult to handle, perhaps she can find another line of work.  The only good thing about turning over your legislative responsibilities to the cable company is it cuts out the middleman.

The fact is, Time Warner has no interest in protecting -your- interests in North Carolina, much less those of the cutting edge fiber networks now up and running in the state.  They want them gone… or better yet, available for their acquisition at fire sale prices.  Yes, they even made sure of that in their bill, which guarantees a city can sell a fiber network hounded out of business to a Big Telecom company without a vote.

Exempting existing networks has turned out to be a highly subjective notion for Ms. Avila anyway.  She originally claimed to exempt them in her bill when it was introduced, but then subjected them to crushing regulation the cable companies do not face.  Any community contemplating starting a new network for their citizens can forget it either way.  Time Warner will not hear of it.

Although a growing number of Republicans and Democrats see Avila’s bill as a classic example of corporate overreach, without your voice demanding this bill be dropped, there still may be enough members of the state legislature willing to do the cable industry’s bidding.  If you make it clear that may cost them your support in the next election, they can be persuaded to do the right thing and vote NO.

But time is running out.  Your job is to begin melting down the phone lines of the Finance Committee members starting this afternoon.  Call and e-mail them and make it absolutely clear you expect them to vote NO on H129 and that you are closely watching this issue.  Ask each legislator for a commitment on how they plan to vote.

Finance Committee Members

Senior Chairman	Rep. Howard
Chairman	Rep. Folwell
Chairman	Rep. Setzer
Chairman	Rep. Starnes
Vice Chairman	Rep. Lewis
Vice Chairman	Rep. McComas
Vice Chairman	Rep. Wainwright
Members	Rep. K. Alexander, Rep. Brandon, Rep. Brawley, Rep. Carney, Rep. Collins, Rep. Cotham, Rep. Faison, Rep. Gibson, Rep. Hackney, Rep. Hall, Rep. Hill, Rep. Jordan, Rep. Luebke, Rep. McCormick, Rep. McGee, Rep. Moffitt, Rep. T. Moore, Rep. Rhyne, Rep. Ross, Rep. Samuelson, Rep. Stam, Rep. Stone, Rep. H. Warren, Rep. Weiss, Rep. Womble

 

Avila’s bill, H129, is up for a vote early this afternoon.  If you live in North Carolina, this is your last chance to contact the members of the committee voting on the bill and encourage them to vote NO.  Tell them you are tired of these anti-competitive bills coming up year after year.  Let them know you support community broadband, that the bill does not exempt existing networks from its lethal regulatory requirements, and that there is no need for these kinds of bills, as local governments already answer to voters.

Rep. Marilyn Avila (R-Time Warner Cable) is getting significant blowback from some of her own constituents for introducing a bill that benefits a cable company, and almost nobody else.

Avila’s district extends into the northern part of Raleigh, the capital city of North Carolina.  Now, the city is making it clear it wants no part of Avila’s bill, H129, which will guarantee residents will continue to pay escalating cable bills year after year.

Raleigh’s City Council adopted a resolution opposing Avila’s legislation, written on behalf of Time Warner Cable.

H129 will destroy North Carolina’s community-owned broadband networks and prevent new ones from launching.

Council Member Bonner Gaylord, who authored the resolution, says passage of these kinds of anti-competitive bills would stop local governments from providing needed communications services, especially advanced high-speed broadband, and deny local governments the availability of federal grants under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to assist in providing affordable access to high-capacity broadband service in unserved and underserved areas.

North Carolina’s broadband rankings do not speak highly of the state’s existing broadband penetration, speeds, or pricing.  Large parts of western North Carolina lack broadband altogether, and what is available is often very slow speed DSL, often providing just 1.5Mbps service.  The mountainous western areas of the state are not well-reached by cable companies, and because of geographic and distance impediments, even telephone company DSL service is sporadically available.

Take Rockingham County, where the local government is pre-occupied with trying to find providers — any providers — to extend broadband service across the north central part of North Carolina.  Adjacent to Caswell County (which Stop the Cap! featured last year), it’s just one more example of how providers have ignored large sections of the state too rural, too poor, or too difficult for them to reach.

On Monday, Mark Wells, executive director for the Rockingham County Business and Technology Center, delivered a report to the county on his progress trying to get someone to provide service between the communities of Wentworth and Madison, which currently have no access to broadband.  Wells reports he is doing all he can to get CenturyLink, the area’s phone company, to step up and provide service, and the county is trying to see if Clearwire could extend service into the northern sections of the state.

Unfortunately, Clearwire has proved to be no broadband replacement, heavily throttling their customers to speeds that occasionally seem more like dial-up than actual broadband.

Rockingham County opposes H129 for the same reasons the city of Raleigh does.  The Board of Commissioners recognizes the broadband reality of northern North Carolina.  Unless local governments have a free hand to address the digital divide themselves, there will be no long-term solution for broadband availability in rural North Carolina.  That’s the message they are sending to their representatives in Raleigh.

Addressing the state’s broadband shortage requires public and private assistance.  Public governments can construct networks that require a longer window to pay off than private “return on investment” requirements allow, and private companies can access community networks to sell their services to the public they currently do not serve (or serve well).

But because companies like Time Warner do not want the competition, particularly from networks more advanced and capable than their own, they would prefer to see them shut down and banned — which is exactly what Avila’s bill would accomplish.

Last year, Sen. David Hoyle openly admitted Time Warner Cable wrote his bill.  There is little doubt the same is true for Avila’s bill this year.

The city has an entirely different set of recommendations for Avila to consider:

1. The State of North Carolina adopt policies to encourage the development of high-speed broadband, including advanced, next-generation fiber-to-the-premises networks, in order to fully serve the citizens and advance education and economic development throughout the state;
2. The General Assembly provide incentives for both public and private development of high-capacity connections in order to handle rapidly growing data needs;
3. The General Assembly promote competition by curtailing predatory pricing practices that are used to push new providers and public broadband services out of the market; and,
4. The General Assembly reject any legislation similar to the Level Playing Field bills that would have a chilling effect on local economies and would impede or remove local government’s ability to provide broadband services to enhance economic development and improve quality of life for their citizens.

The resolution also noted that several North Carolina municipalities; including Wilson, Salisbury, Morganton, Laurinburg and Davidson, already have successfully launched local high-speed broadband networks in response to private provider’s unwillingness or inability to provide high-speed service “to serve the public and promote economic development in their respective areas.”

Rep. Marilyn Avila’s (R-Time Warner Cable) anti-community broadband bill will be up for a vote this Wednesday in the Public Utilities Committee (Room 643, 12 noon) in the state legislature.

The bill was custom-written by Time Warner Cable to eliminate competition and keep your broadband prices high and speeds slow.  The proposed bill, H129 is bad news for every North Carolinian:

1. It will drive existing community networks out of business with onerous conditions;
2. It will damage the state’s credit rating and reputation when community networks fail under the legislative burdens that Time Warner Cable made certain it was exempt from;
3. It will harm local jobs.  Advanced fiber optic cables and equipment are also manufactured in North Carolina;
4. It destroys investment in the high tech infrastructure required to survive in the growing digital economy;
5. It guarantees that rural residents will never have access to the same kinds of broadband choices urban consumers and businesses have.

Nine high tech businesses and associations serving North Carolina have signed a letter telling the Legislature this bill will stifle high technology business in North Carolina.

But Marilyn Avila does not care.  She is only working for the interests of a single cable company that donates to her political campaigns.

Tell your legislator to vote NO on H129, and let them know you are appalled that this anti-consumer, anti-competition legislation keeps coming up year after year because of the lobbying influence of Time Warner Cable.  Make it completely clear you are watching their vote on this bill like a hawk, and it means everything to you at the next election.

Tell your representative to stand up for competition, stand up for advanced fiber optic networks, and to stand down on special interest legislation like H129, which only benefits the cable company that has overcharged you for years.

Your Call List

(click on each name for contact details)

Chairman	Rep. Steen
Vice Chairman	Rep. Brubaker
Vice Chairman	Rep. Cook
Vice Chairman	Rep. Hager
Members	Rep. K. Alexander, Rep. Blackwell, Rep. Brawley, Rep. Brisson, Rep. Collins, Rep. Dockham, Rep. Earle, Rep. Gill, Rep. Harrison, Rep. Hastings, Rep. Hilton, Rep. Hollo, Rep. Howard, Rep. Jeffus, Rep. Johnson, Rep. LaRoque, Rep. Lucas, Rep. Luebke, Rep. McComas, Rep. McLawhorn, Rep. T. Moore, Rep. Owens, Rep. Pierce, Rep. Pridgen, Rep. Samuelson, Rep. Setzer, Rep. Tolson, Rep. E. Warren, Rep. H. Warren, Rep. West, Rep. Womble, Rep. Wray

 

Stop the Cap! reader Jeff from Palo Alto, Calif., dropped us a line over the weekend asking about a story published last week by the Salisbury Post regarding a bill that would banish community-owned broadband providers in the state of North Carolina.  The legislation, custom-written by Big Telecom companies, could eventually spell doom for truly competitive service from community-owned providers like Fibrant, based in Salisbury.

“I got the impression that it said Salisbury was agreeing not to oppose the proposed legislation, in exchange for being exempted from it,” Jeff writes. “That seemed like a long-term victory for Time Warner. Am I missing something?”

The reporter who accepted propaganda at face value from the cable industry certainly did.

The article, “Lawmakers Eye Blocks on Fiber Optic Systems,” was replete with demonstrably false statements from both Time Warner Cable and a high-powered cable industry lobbyist less-menacingly-labeled “a lawyer for the N.C. Cable Telecommunications Association.”  (Perry Mason he isn’t.)

In fact, communities across the state continue to oppose this special interest favoritism, bought and paid for by the telecommunications industry.  But getting people acquainted with the facts is a problem when reporters don’t bother to fact-check some of the rhetoric from the cable industry, which at times leaves some with the ludicrous impression they are “the little guy.”

Rep. Marilyn Avila — The Representative for Time Warner Cable

The Post seems to suggest local officials are negotiating passage to the lifeboats before Rep. Marilyn Avila’s legislative gift to Time Warner Cable becomes the legal iceberg that sinks community broadband in the state.

In reality, city officials are pointing out they harbor no resentment towards any telecommunications company operating in the state.  In fact, they welcome them to participate by securing space on their advanced networks at competitive rates in public-private partnerships.

Unfortunately, they are up against Avila’s “bull in a china shop” bill that would cut the legs out from community-owned networks before such partnerships can become reality.  In fact, Avila’s abdication of her responsibilities to her constituents for the benefit of Time Warner Cable is even worse because it could ultimately harm the state’s credit rating and image if such networks can be run out of business at the behest of a competitor.

For a “small government conservative” to write a bill laden with regulations, rules, and taxes anathema to the “free market” is a testament to just how willing she is to abandon her principles when Big Cable comes calling.

Avila has suggested that existing community-owned networks are exempt in the current language of the bill.  That statement is patently untrue because the micro-management regulations found within it would apply to all community broadband networks, but exempt privately-owned ones.  That’s fair, right?

For mayors in communities with these networks, securing a strong exemption is part of a full-court press against this bill.  If it were to become law, keeping a pre-existing network in business becomes an important priority.

Mayor Susan Kluttz told the Post she is hopeful state lawmakers will rewrite the bill to exempt Salisbury and other cities with networks that are up and running.

But the mayor is smart enough to also realize at least some of the people at the table do not have the city’s best interests at heart when it comes to Fibrant.

Sources tell Stop the Cap! there are several members of the General Assembly, Republicans and Democrats, who are more than a little unhappy with Avila’s attempts to ram the bill through.  Not only does the water-carrying look bad inside (and outside) of the state, it will also destroy the potential of expanding broadband service to many poorly reached parts of North Carolina.

“This bill guarantees Time Warner will hold the keys to the broadband kingdom in North Carolina for years to come,” a well-placed source told us.  “Even public-private partnerships to develop broadband in rural areas of the state are directly threatened by her bill.”

Citizens across North Carolina are calling and writing legislators in opposition, but Avila doesn’t show signs of moving away from her pro-cable bill so far.

“Empty promises are being made to some legislators that suggest if they support this bill, Time Warner will magically wire unserved areas for service,” sources tell us.  “The company that had no intention of wiring these areas over the past two decades will continue to ignore them whether this bill passes or not.”

Indeed, Time Warner Cable and other companies use a standard business calculation when determining whether or not to wire outlying communities.  If too few customers live within a square mile radius, they don’t receive cable service.  Nothing has ever changed that unless it is mandated in a formal local franchise agreement.  At AT&T’s behest a few years ago, such local franchise agreements were banished from the state.  Rural residents in places like Caswell County pay the price as large sections of the county go without broadband service.

The implications are dire:

Jobs -are- threatened by Avila’s legislation.  They belong to the those who manufacture spools of fiber and the equipment that utilizes it, the contractors who install, maintain, and service the network, and the customer support staff that deal with customers on a daily basis.

One of the strengths providers like GreenLight and Fibrant bring to their respective communities is their networks are open to all-comers.  Time Warner Cable, AT&T, and other phone companies can obtain access on both to serve their own customers — business and residential.  The impetus for building these networks was to benefit everyone.

The only adversarial players here are cable and phone companies that want to own, manage, and control everything themselves.  The companies that spent years telling communities they saw no need to enhance service now want to legislate away the chance for others to try.

“We have several Republicans who read Time Warner’s claims about this bill, then looked over the inadequate broadband landscape in their districts back home, and are coming to the conclusion this is one bad bill,” one pro-broadband lobbyist told us.  “But this is still going to be a very hard fight unless ordinary consumers make their voices heard loud and clear.”

Fact Checking

The most disturbing thing about the Post story is the complete lack of fact checking the industry’s arguments, most of which are simply flat out false.  A few examples:

Melissa Buscher, Time Warner Cable’s vice president of communications for the Carolinas claimed the city of Wilson raised pole attachment fees by 300 percent after launching GreenLight, Wilson’s community-owned network.  Buscher suggests that is an example of cross-subsidizing networks.  In her mind, mean and nasty Wilson officials jacked up the fees  just to put the cable company at a competitive disadvantage.

But the facts tell a different story.

Wilson’s pole attachment fee, unchanged since 1975 while other communities around the nation raised them year after year, was adjusted well before GreenLight opened its doors for business.

“Before 2007, Wilson’s pole fee had stayed the same since 1975,” city spokesman Brian Bowman said. “The attachment fee increase was not related to GreenLight. The old fee schedule was outdated.”

How much money are we talking about here?  The old rate was $5 per pole annually.  Today it’s $15 per pole per year.  That means Time Warner will have to pay $246,000 a year instead of $82,000 in Wilson — petty cash to a multi-billion dollar cable company.

Time Warner itself provided data nearly five years ago in a Tennessee study on pole attachment fees that proves Wilson is hardly being arbitrary and capricious.  The cable company was paying up to $13.64 per pole four years ago in North Carolina.  The Tennessee Cable Telecommunications Association has been complaining as late as last year over average pole attachment rates of $14.86 per pole in that state, adjacent to North Carolina.

The irony of a cable company that has nearly tripled its basic cable rates over the same period of time complaining about rate increases is lost on them.

Buscher also claims their new competition in Wilson and Salisbury is run by the same city governments that regulate them:

“Cities have unfair advantages,” Buscher told the Post, noting when cities get into the broadband business, they become not only a regulator for incumbent providers, but also a competitor. “If municipalities want to get into a business already offered by the private sector, we welcome the competition, but we want to level the playing field.”

The only thing Time Warner wants to level is the competition from community networks that deliver better broadband service than they offer.

In reality, thanks to industry lobbying in the 1990s, the cable industry is almost completely deregulated.  No local, state, or federal government regulates broadband — where it is offered, at what speeds and at what prices.

There is no conflict of interest on the regulatory front.

Time Warner Cable and the North Carolina Cable Telecommunications Association: Waltzing Partners in a Dance of Deception

The North Carolina Cable Telecommunications Association, which helps deliver a one-two punch for Big Cable’s agenda, delivered the next false claim:

“Fibrant and GreenLight have lower operating costs.”

In reality, Time Warner Cable’s enormous size and scope provides them with benefits and cost saving opportunities across their national footprint that neither community provider can match:

• Volume discounts for programming, equipment, and other infrastructure;
• The power of incumbency, which makes them the default choice for most customers who must be compelled to switch providers;
• Access to grants and agreements like “payments in lieu of taxes” to protect cable jobs. Time Warner hardly pays “rack rates” for taxes across its entire footprint;
• Time Warner’s construction costs were mostly incurred in the 1990s when cable systems were last rebuilt.  Suddenlink Cable CEO Jerry Kent said it best: “I think one of the things people don’t realize [relates to] the question of capital intensity and having to keep spending to keep up with capacity,” Kent said. “Those days are basically over, and you are seeing significant free cash flow generated from the cable operators as our capital expenditures continue to come down.”  That isn’t true for community networks just opening for business or still in the initial construction phase.

Frontier Communications, a private industry player, discovered all of the benefits in programming costs go to large players like Time Warner, Comcast, Verizon and AT&T when claiming they were forced to raise rates $30 a month because they could not get the same volume discounts big cable and phone companies receive.

Marcus Trathen, the lobbyist running the NCCTA, hopes his fear, uncertainty and doubt campaign will be proven correct with the passage of Avila’s bill.  As law, it assures all of the competitive advantages go to the billion dollar incumbents, and any failures will be among the community providers that compete with them:

“Cities are particularly ill-suited to competition in a technology-based industry,” Trathen said in an e-mail to the Post. “Technology changes in an instant.”

Just not for Time Warner customers in Wilson and Salisbury.  The genesis of these, and other, community-based networks come from provider intransigence to deliver the kind of broadband service consumers and businesses increasingly seek, at an affordable price.

Fibrant delivers 15/15Mbps service today in its standard broadband package.  Time Warner Cable delivers 10/1Mbps service.  When Fibrant and Greenlight were first proposed, Time Warner delivered even lower speeds.

The industry cannot have it both ways.  On the one hand, they claim community broadband is an economic failure delivering redundant service and mis-managed by government officials who do not understand the business of broadband.  On the other hand, these companies and their respective mouthpieces are literally spending tens of millions of dollars lobbying for legislation to keep these “failures” from ever getting off the ground.

As we’ve always said on Stop the Cap!, following the money always leads you to the truth.