Opelika residents who cast votes in Tuesday’s special referendum on cable competition delivered a decisive “yes” to city officials seeking to build a fiber to the home cable and broadband system in the city.

Although the turnout was just 18 percent, 62 percent of residents voting voted for the system’s construction, 38 percent said “no.”

For most of the supporters of the project, it was about delivering a resounding message to Charter Cable that their days of endless rate increases and sub-standard service in eastern Alabama were over.

Opelika mayor Gary Fuller was excited by the outcome of the vote.

“It’s a great day for Opelika. It’s a great day for our future. It’s a terrible day for Charter,” he told a crowd waiting to hear the mayor’s reaction to the results of the special referendum.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Opelika Votes Yes Cable Competition 8-10-10.flv[/flv]

The Opelika Auburn News captured some of the remarks from Opelika Mayor Gary Fuller announcing the results of the referendum.  (4 minutes)

Fuller has been complaining about the lack of cable and broadband competition in Opelika for years, noting residents regularly complain about Charter Cable’s prices and service.

Fuller

Part of the drive to look for alternatives may have come from watching a cable overbuilder, Knology, installing a $20 million fiber network down the road in nearby Auburn.

While Knology does compete with existing cable providers in many cities, it often takes years for the company to deliver service to every residence, if ever.  In fact, Knology is most commonly found in multi-dwelling units like apartment buildings, condos, and new housing developments where construction costs are lower.  Fuller proposes to build a network that will serve everyone.  The city will negotiate with companies like Knology to use the new fiber network to provide service to residents.

“I believe that this is the most amazing thing that any of us as elected officials will ever do during our service in the city of Opelika, because of what it will mean to our future especially with high speed Internet that will be a calling card for high paying jobs in new industries for Opelika,” Fuller said.

Charter Cable fought hard to stop the network, but wasn’t always accurate along the way.

Skip James, Charter Communications government relations director, claimed other municipal networks were financial failures.

“It has been repeatedly demonstrated that when cities or municipal-owned power companies enter the video/data/phone business, it usually ends up costing the taxpayers at least twice as much as the consultant had suggested,” James said. “It also has resulted in many municipalities selling off the networks at significant losses or walking away from further operation of the network.

“After the initial system cost, the city has to stay abreast with the competition and changes in the marketplace by investing more money in costly upgrades. This is a high risk of taxpayer money, since the taxpayers are generally not aware that they have the ultimate responsibility for payment and/or default on the huge bonds to build and upgrade the system.”

Of course, many municipal systems are up, running, and profitable for the communities they serve.  Construction delays and costly lawsuits from incumbent providers can delay such projects and boost costs, but since Opelika’s system will be built with revenue bonds, which are paid back through generated revenue, taxpayers cannot be left responsible for payments or defaults.

James could not understand why the city would want such a network when Charter was already serving the community.

“Our communications system is in front of almost every house and business in the city of Opelika,” James said. “Why would the city want to risk so much taxpayer dollars and go into this much debt when a network already exists that can provide services the customers want at a much lesser cost?”

Opelika residents who wanted an alternative to Charter may have just voted their answer.

City officials will seek bids for construction work in the near future.  Operations will be run by Alabama Light and Power.

There were a total of 2,819 ballots cast. Here’s how they broke down according to ward:

• Ward 1: 211 yes, 54 no
• Ward 2: 236 yes, 86 no
• Ward 3: 368 yes, 333 no
• Ward 4: 443 yes, 228 no
• Ward 5: 492 yes, 368 no
• Absentee ballots: 14 yes, 7 no

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WTVM Columbus GA Opelika Cable Controversy and Vote 8-10-10.flv[/flv]

WTVM in Columbus, Georgia covered the story of Opelika’s journey to build their own fiber network.  (5 minutes)

The implications of the deal between Google and Verizon were colorfully explored on last Thursday's 'Countdown With Keith Olbermann' on MSNBC.

A progressive group has collected more than 300,000 signatures protesting talks between Google and Verizon to establish a “separate peace” on Net Neutrality while throwing the rest of America’s open Internet under the bus.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee joined forces with groups like MoveOn.org, Color of Change, Free Press, and Credo Action to launch an emergency petition to Google to get them to back away and rethink their deal with Verizon.

A package containing the signatures was delivered to Google’s offices in Washington, but another trip may be necessary as the group claims it has collected nearly 50,000 additional signatures since Monday.

The groups are calling for strong Net Neutrality policies to be enacted and enforced to preserve the open Internet.

Support for Net Neutrality comes from a diverse mix of Americans, from Barry Diller, who founded Fox Broadcasting to progressive MSNBC host Keith Olbermann.

[flv width=”596″ height=”356″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/MSNBC Olbermann Silver Net Neutrality 8-5-10.flv[/flv]

Free Press’ Josh Silver appeared on Thursday’s edition of MSNBC’s Countdown With Keith Olbermann to explore the implications of a non-Net Neutral Internet.  (7 minutes)

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CNN Why Diller pushes for net neutrality 7-27-10.flv[/flv]

CNN talked with Fox Broadcasting founder and media mogul Barry Diller about his strong support for Net Neutrality. (4 minutes)

Despite some denials last week that Verizon and Google were not married and cohabitating their political agendas, the two giants announced a shared vision of the Internet’s future — one that does not “purposely throttle or block content,” but reserves for themselves a new, super speed Internet for the two companies and their closest corporate friends that will make blocked websites the least of America’s broadband problems.

For Internet enthusiasts, the deal is nothing less than a complete sellout of one of the founding visions of the Internet – content judged on its merits, not on the deep pockets backing it.  It’s a complete betrayal of Net Neutrality and broadband reform by Google, which has some of the deepest pockets around and has apparently forgotten the story of its own founding — a story that would likely be impossible on an Internet envisioned by Big V & G. Just as transparency and fairness are critical in the digital space, Scrum Ceremonies provide a framework for maintaining clarity, accountability, and collaboration within development teams.

The Five Biggest Lies About Google and Verizon’s Net Neutrality Proposal

Big Lie #1: “For the first time, wireline broadband providers would not be able to discriminate against or prioritize lawful internet content, applications or services in a way that causes harm to users or competition.”

That is a distinction no longer worth the difference should the two providers succeed in developing a special fast lane for their content partners.  If you don’t have the admission price or a favored pass to belong to the golden magic superhighway, not being purposely blocked or throttled on a clogged free lane offers little comfort when your start-up cannot compete with the bully boys that can outspend you into submission.

Both companies seek to invest millions in what is essentially a toll highway, incentivized by the potential returns offered by deep pocketed content producers willing to pay the toll.  With Wall Street following that money, those left behind on the slow lanes will find providers increasingly uninterested in throwing good money into necessary upgrades to keep the “free lane” humming.  The Internet that results will resemble the difference between a Chicago public housing project and the Ritz-Carlton.

Big Lie #2: “Reasonable” Network Management

The partnership’s declaration of support for its definition of  “reasonable” traffic management has more loopholes than Lorraine Swiss cheese.  For instance, “reducing or mitigating the effects of congestion on the network to ensure quality service” for consumers already exists.  It’s called “upgrading your network.”  Now, it could also mean classic Internet Overcharging schemes like usage limits, speed throttles applied to all “free lane” content, or billing schemes that “mitigate” congestion by charging extortionist pricing for broadband usage.  Using vague notions of “accepted standards” could be defined by any group deemed by Google and Verizon to be “recognized.”  Both have enough money to influence the very definition of “accepted standards.”

You don’t need a policy that reads like a credit card agreement to manage traffic on a well-managed, consistently upgraded broadband network.  Nothing prevents either company from providing such a network, but with no oversight and pro-consumer reform, nothing compels them to provide it either.

Big Lie #3: This preserves the open Internet.*

(*- excluding wireless broadband access to the Internet.)  As an increasing number of consumers seek to migrate some of their Internet usage to wireless networks, it’s more than a little unsettling Google and Verizon would exempt these networks from most of the “consumer protections” they have on offer.

Big Lie #4: The FCC gets its coveted authority to oversee the Internet.

Not really.  In fact, this agreement shares more in common with corporate interests that want less regulation and oversight, not more.  The suggested framework graciously grants the FCC the right to sit and listen to complaints, but strips away… permanently… any authority to pass judgment on the cases they hear and write regulations to stop abuses.

Clauses like “parties would be encouraged to use non-governmental dispute resolution processes” must give the arbitration industry new hope.  Already out of favor in many quarters, this proposal is tailor-made to bring a new Renaissance for “out of court arbitration” that heavily favors the companies that bind consumers and other aggrieved parties to using it.  The arbitration industry is no stranger to contributing to the right people to make them the only reasonable choice for dispute resolution.

Verizon and Google want nothing less than the right to define how their Internet will work — from the applications you can effectively use, the speed throttle you are forced to endure on the free lane, to the enormous bill you’ll receive for using those non-favored websites.

Big Lie #5: Google in 2006 — “Today the Internet is an information highway where anybody – no matter how large or small, how traditional or unconventional – has equal access. But the phone and cable monopolies, who control almost all Internet access, want the power to choose who gets access to high-speed lanes and whose content gets seen first and fastest. They want to build a two-tiered system and block the on-ramps for those who can’t pay.”

Google has come a long way, baby — in the wrong direction.  Demanding Google “not be evil,” something hundreds of thousands of Americans have already said today, is becoming so commonplace as to be cliché.  Still, being for Net Neutrality one day and throwing that concept overboard the next is the ultimate flip-flop.  When money talks louder than doing right by the millions of users who made both companies what they are today represents the ultimate betrayal.  Let’s make sure they realize it.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Bloomberg West Sees Tiered Web Pricing From Google-Verizon Plan 8-9-10.flv[/flv]

Bloomberg News reports consumers will be stuck with higher broadband bills, especially if they dare to watch online video, on a broadband platform envisioned to saddle Americans with toll highways for Internet content.  (4 minutes)

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CNBC Google Joint Internet Policy 8-9-10.flv[/flv]

CNBC echoed concerns about the Verizon-Google deal and its implications for the future of Internet applications.  (4 minutes)

Read the Verizon-Google Proposed Framework below the jump…

… Continue Reading

We present a week of cable companies acting badly….  They charge you top dollar and leave their cables hanging all over the place.  Learn how homeowners turn in frustration to the media to correct sometimes dangerous installations that are accidents waiting to happen.  Cable Week on Stop the Cap!

Norman Sullivan in Greenville, S.C.,  has lived with low hanging Charter Cable wires for nearly a year.  Despite making at least 10 calls to the cable company with no response, the cable line just keeps drooping lower and lower in his backyard, and Sullivan isn’t even a Charter Cable customer.

Sullivan’s neighbor, Joyce Kirskey, has the same problem and she -is- a Charter Cable customer, but her repeated calls to the cable company didn’t bring a response either.

“If I’m gonna be paying them every month, they’re looking for their money, I want some good service,” Kirksey told WSPA-TV’s Problem Solver.

Even worse than the low-hanging lines is the terrible reception she’s getting in her home.

“My TV has been going in and out, just blinking on and off all the time,” Kirksey said.

When WSPA notified Charter it was about to be featured on the 6 ‘o clock local news, the cable company finally got moving.

By that afternoon, a Charter crew was wandering the neighborhood fixing a variety of cable issues.  Charter apologized to all concerned, claiming it was an isolated incident and would continue working on the problem until it was resolved.

But Sullivan told Channel 7’s Problem Solver they wished Charter had taken care of the problem sooner.

“They are supposed to come out here and do their job, it’s what they’re getting paid for,” Sullivan said.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WSPA Greenville Dangling Cable Line Worries Residents In Greenville 7-12-10.flv[/flv]

WSPA-TV in Greenville, S.C., has a Problem Solver segment to help viewers with stubborn problems they can’t resolve themselves.  Watch how the station managed to get Charter Cable out to fix a problem it ignored for nearly a year, despite more than 10 calls to the cable company requesting assistance.  (1 minute)

A Pennsylvania police chief is in hot water with his wife after AT&T combed through his calling records at her request and confirmed what she has suspected — he was calling an ex-lover on his cell phone and allegedly lying about it.

Garold Ray Miller, police chief of Industry, filed suit against AT&T for disclosing his call records to his wife, whose name was not on the cell phone account.

The lawsuit makes public the formerly private affair, and it’s now fodder for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

According to the complaint, Mr. Miller’s wife confronted him in the spring of 2008 in regard to his communicating with a woman about a criminal investigation.

“Miller denied having communicated with the woman in question, as he had known the woman growing up and had also dated her in high school, and he did not wish to alarm his wife,” the lawsuit said.

However, it continued, Mr. Miller’s wife insisted he was lying and later told him that she had gotten access to his phone records from AT&T to prove it.

“His wife also revealed that the [AT&T] representative conducted a number search on his records, in order for her to confirm her suspicions that he was communicating with this woman.”

The complaint goes on to say the relationship between Mr. Miller and his wife became severely burdened. Further, when they went out for drinks one night, “Miller’s wife became violently ill, confessing that she had been troubled by her suspicions.”

Because of the invasion of privacy by AT&T, Mr. Miller contends, he suffered psychological pain and suffering, as well as humiliation, shame, embarrassment, self-revulsion and damage to his self-esteem.

AT&T won’t comment on the case except to say it values its customers and takes its obligation to protect customer data very seriously.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WTAE Pittsburgh Industry Police Chief Suing ATT For Releasing Phone Records To Wife 7-28-10.flv[/flv]

WTAE Pittsburgh covered the lawsuit between a Pennsylvania police chief and AT&T over the disclosure of his cell phone calling records.  (2 minutes)