Rep. Marilyn Avila (R-Time Warner Cable), the North Carolina representative fronting for the state’s largest cable company, sure can sing for her supper.

The representative who shilled for North Carolina’s notorious anti-community broadband legislation was the very special invited guest speaker for the cable industry lobbying association annual meeting, held last August in Asheville, according to newly-available lobbying disclosure forms obtained by Stop the Cap!

The North Carolina Cable Telecommunications Association reported they not only picked up Marilyn’s food and bar bill ($290 for the Aug. 6-8 event), they also covered her husband Alex, too.  Alex either ate and drank less than Marilyn, or chose cheaper items from the menu, because his food tab came to just $185.50.  The cable lobby also picked up the Avila’s $471 hotel bill, and handed Alex another $99 in walking-around money to go and entertain himself during the weekend event.  The total bill for the weekend, effectively covered by the state’s cable subscribers: $1,045.50.

That’s a small price to pay to reward a close friend who delivered on most of the cable industry’s wish-list for 2011.  Besides, the recent cable rate increases visited on North Carolina cable subscribers will more than cover the expense.

Meanwhile, in a separate disclosure, Stop the Cap! has learned Time Warner Cable covered food and beverage costs for members of the North Carolina General Assembly and their staff who attended the Mardi Gras World celebration in New Orleans, sponsored by corporate front group the American Legislative Exchange Council.  ALEC lobbies state legislatures for new laws they claim are grassroots-backed, but are in reality the legislative wish-lists of giant corporate interests, including North Carolina’s largest cable company — Time Warner.

The food and bar tab totaled just over $130 for the festivities.

Time Warner Cable achieved victory in 2011 passing anti-community broadband legislation through the North Carolina General Assembly, in part thanks to new support from the Republican takeover of the state legislature last year.

Which is more important:

1. Spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to finance sports facilities, stadiums, and “incentive packages” to attract and keep major sports franchises calling your city home;
2. Building quality digital infrastructure that will deliver 21st century broadband service at affordable prices for every local citizen that wants the service.

Here in western New York, the city of Buffalo — the third poorest city in the nation with 28 percent of its residents living in poverty and suffering chronically high unemployment — is about to the recipient of a one billion dollar bailout courtesy of the state government (a/k/a taxpayers).  That, even as some in the city are howling that the promised tens-to-hundreds of millions in promised renovation funding for the Ralph Wilson (Buffalo Bills) Stadium is apparently not included.

While hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars are readily available to finance sports stadiums, getting privately financed bonds for public broadband is somehow the real crime in states like North and South Carolina.  North Carolina already has legislation in place that virtually assures broadband service is under the control of the state’s largest phone and cable companies, or it simply is not provided at all. Evidently in a battle over worthwhile public spending, financing a reported $260 million for Charlotte, N.C.’s Time Warner Cable Arena remains a higher priority than making sure the people of North Carolina have decent broadband service.

South Carolina this week is considering extending a similar courtesy to companies like AT&T and Time Warner Cable.  They need better broadband even more than their neighbors to the north.

Happily, broadband advocate Craig Settles has found a way for broadband lovers to have their cake and eat it too.

Why not construct public, non-profit broadband networks by selling ownership shares to the general public?

All of you who believe in broadband’s impact on economic development (or are a little jealous of stories like this about Chattanooga’s 1 gigabit network), should look to the Green Bay Packers of the NFL for the key to financing your broadband network.

Yeah, they kind of choked in last Sunday’s playoff game against the N.Y. Giants. But the team is a surefire winner when it comes to raising money. The franchise raised $70 million to rehab its football stadium (Lambeau Field) by selling 280,000 stock shares to individuals at $250 a pop. They pulled off this amazing feat in just five weeks!

With apologies to New Orleans Saints fans — “Who Dat” is bringing big bucks into town for a project that will pump up the local economy? The citizens of Green Bay. Literally. The Green Bay Packers are a nonprofit corporation owned by local residents and businesses. Packers pride enabled Green Bay to outdo tech companies that can’t get an initial public offering off the ground, let alone raise $70 million.

If Green Bay can do all this for a football field, can’t your hometown or county convince constituents to raise just a few million for a broadband network?

$250?  That’s the combined price of today’s cable and cell phone service over just a single month.  Should a private non-profit group act as coordinator for the project, they can walk right past existing restrictions on municipal broadband enacted at the behest of big cable and phone companies.  Self-financed fiber to the home service could pay dividends… to customers instead of Wall Street.

Settles lays out the parameters and the challenges, namely fighting that old meme that only giant telecom duopolies know how to run a broadband business.  But as we’ve seen from small scrappy private providers like Sonic.net in California and publicly-owned EPB Fiber, providing superior service at a reasonable price will bring customers to your door.  Even more so if they also happen to own the door.

Time Warner Cable is back again for the third year offering $20,000 in “dollar-a-holler” money to write “research reports” that meet the cable operator’s wish-list of current topics of interest.  While the cable company raises rates on customers, some of the proceeds pay for the Time Warner Cable Research Program on Digital Communications, which they say “awards stipends designed to foster research dedicated to increasing understanding of the benefits and challenges facing digital technologies in the home, office, classroom and community.”

After tearing through some of the earlier “award-winning” reports and topics over the past three years, we find it more an exercise in wasted cheerleading money, particularly when some of the authors happen to work for PR astroturf operations and other industry-connected/funded “think-tanks” that take money for dubious research and public statements that amplify the paymaster’s agenda.

It’s not much of a stretch to figure out exactly what kind of submissions the cable company is looking for after reviewing the topic list.  It’s a safe bet nothing we’d have to say to Time Warner would get them to cut us a check for $20K.  In case there is any doubt, we’ve provided a helpful “between-the-lines” analysis of what they are really looking for, should you wish to put pen to paper:

(1) The end-user experience for broadband services
In an increasingly competitive marketplace, more attention is being paid to the consumer experience. For service providers, it is essential to make it simpler and easier for customers to enjoy the benefits of broadband any time, any place, on any device. Key questions include identifying service characteristics consumers consider in evaluating broadband performance, the role of accessibility in design and engineering, how best to encourage innovation in services and business models, the role of pricing and packaging of services, and how best to meet the needs of diverse communities.

(Between the lines: how can we justify Internet Overcharging customers with usage caps and usage billing and make it sound all-consumery and good-newsy?)

(3) Internet governance
Internet governance is still largely framed by the way the Internet existed when it first became a mass-market phenomenon in the late 1990s. But more users rely on advanced digital communications for a diverse set of uses today. Networks and devices are more varied and more powerful than expected, and the Internet now supports a vast range of business models and drives economic growth . In this environment, the role of government and other intermediaries in framing and addressing policy goals continues to change. Key questions include examining the need for new methods of collaboration in multi-stakeholder processes, examining the role of standard-setting, how to measure and assess the performance of the broadband Internet, developing metrics that are meaningful to a wide range of stakeholders (from industry and policymakers to consumers), how to develop new forms of governance that convene stakeholders to solve problems cooperatively, and how to develop guidelines that protect settled expectations as well as enable continuing entry and innovation.

(Between the lines: This whole “open platform” free-for-all network the Internet was originally envisioned to be is so yesterday.  How can we convert it into a corporate-controlled playground by convincing legislators our ‘investments’ in it should justify our ability to “coordinate” it ((a/k/a run, manage, and control)) as we see fit.)

(5) Video Convergence and Internet Video
Online video is growing rapidly, comprising an increasing proportion of Internet traffic even as workable business models continue to evolve. Internet video thus increasingly competes with more traditional video services, while at the same time placing extraordinary burdens on the broadband networks owned and operated by those competitors. This emerging development raises a host of issues for video competition and regulation as well as for broadband policy. Key questions include how to identify and respond to the challenges posed by Internet delivery of video, and identifying the marketplace, legal, and policy barriers that stand in the way of innovation in video service delivery.

(Between the lines: Since we can’t blame peer to peer traffic for the Internet ‘exaflood’ any longer, we’ve designated online video the new Frankenstein that threatens to run our broadband network into the ground.  How can we stop Internet video from cannibalizing our cable-TV service by limiting access (or charging a bountiful harvest of cash to those who dare to watch too much.) Bonus: Include tips on how we can obfuscate our tissue-paper-thin agenda to slap the caps on from being called out as an abuse of our market power.

While Bright House followed Time Warner Cable’s footsteps this week, introducing long-awaited access to HBO/Max GO for customers who subscribe to one or both premium movie channels, neither cable company is prepared to let you watch the online video service on every available device.

After Time Warner Cable introduced HBO GO, we found the service was not authorized to work on the Roku platform, and Time Warner Cable remains off the list of available providers.  When Bright House Networks introduced the service this week, we quickly learned they do not support the Roku platform either.

We obtained nearly identical statements from HBO blaming the respective cable operators for this missed opportunity:

Bright House Networks [Time Warner Cable] is currently not supporting HBO GO on Roku. We encourage you to reach out to Bright House Networks [Time Warner Cable] and request that they add support for HBO GO on Roku.

Thank you,
The HBO GO Team

Would-be customers of Time Warner Cable’s broadband service in Vienna, a small town in Oneida County, N.Y. are confused about why the cable company will not provide them with broadband service, even though cable company lines pass right over their respective driveways.

Pete Rauscher sees neighbors within a mile away happily using Time Warner’s Internet service, even though he cannot buy it for himself.

“I’d like to get the service…so do [my neighbors],” Rauscher told WSYR-TV in Syracuse. “It isn’t right that somebody within a mile of us has the same cable service, but we don’t.”

Rauscher and his neighbors are victims of a de-facto cable industry standard that says wiring fewer than 35 homes within a mile is not financially viable.  Rauscher might understand this, if a Time Warner-owned cable line didn’t pass straight over his driveway.

The cable company says it would cost at least $17,000 to provide Rauscher with broadband service, an installation fee way out of his budget.

Parts of Oneida County are still without any broadband service, except for those lucky (and wealthy enough) to receive and pay for a wireless 3/4G broadband connection from Verizon Wireless.  That company charges $80 a month for up to 10GB of usage, much more expensive than what Time Warner would charge.  DSL is not provided in that section of Vienna.

Time Warner says it regularly re-evaluates expansion into currently unserved sections of its service area.  Two sections of nearby Camden now receive cable service from the company, partly thanks to new housing developments in the rural region.  But for now, the cable company remains resolute in not serving customers who do not meet its population density test.

[flv width=”480″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WSYR Syracuse Fight for High Speed Internet 1-12-12.mp4[/flv]

WSYR-TV tells the story of rural Oneida County residents who cannot get Time Warner Cable broadband service, even though the cable company lines cross their driveways.  (2 minutes)