The Independent Weekly’s view on the news
An update to yesterday’s post.
Here’s the aerial photo of 700 Durhamites spelling out “Google” at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, sponsored by the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau.
View the full-sized photo at the official Web site.
And if you don’t know what this Google business is all about, check out the Indy’s recent cover story on the Google Fiber project. It could be coming to your town!
Supporters of Durham's application for Google's high-speed Internet project spell out the company's name. Photo by Jeremy M. Lange
Supporters of Durham’s application for the national Google Fiber project gathered at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park this afternoon to spell out the company’s name on the baseball outfield.
A photographer in a plane was schedule to fly over the field around noon to take a photo of the assembly. According to Sam Poley of the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau, more than 700 people turned out for the event. There weren’t quite enough people to spell “We want Google,” he said. Just the word “Google.” The “We want” part will be added as text, said Poley, who is part of a committee working on Durham’s bid for the Google Fiber project. He hopes to release a photo shortly.
Durham is among hundreds of towns and cities nationwide who are vying for Google’s attention and hoping to lure the company to install fiber-optic networks that would allow for Internet connections at extremely high speeds.
See the Indy’s recent cover story and Durham’s Web site for the project for more information.
Consumer protection language that was recently added to House Bill 1180, the “Consumer Voice and Investment Act,” was completely stripped from that bill in the House Public Utilities Committee on Tuesday.
The cable and telephone industry are lobbying for this bill as they roll out new triple-play services that bundle telephone, TV and high-speed Internet services. This bill would allow them to raise rates with effectively no regulation.
Language proposed by Rep. Bill Faison would have exempted from this deregulation any area in which fewer than 90 percent of households have reliable wireless service and/or broadband Internet service. (see section 1h of the second version.)
The backers of this bill include anti-tax groups bankrolled by conservatives and the telecom industry:
The Institute for Policy Innovation, The American Consumer Institute (more about them here), and Americans for Prosperity, which organized the “tea parties” on tax day.
The bill is scheduled for vote by the full House today, May 13.
Dogged grassroots activism, organized by the City of Wilson’s blogging public affairs manager Brian Bowman, Greensboro politico Jay Ovittore at StoptheCap.com, and a network of interested geeks on Twitter (#stopthecap), beat back the anti-muni broadband bill into study committees in both the state House and Senate this week.
But other broadband-related issues are still under consideration at the General Assembly, and for now, they’re flying under the radar — despite backing by the same telecom industry-friendly groups.
The first involves a statewide map that promises to show exactly where broadband Internet service is and isn’t available. That map, expected within the next two weeks, is being put together by the industry-backed group Connected Nation and paid for by the industry. Will lawmakers be content to make policy based on information that’s neither verifiable nor transparent?
The second is a bill AT&T is pushing for that would deregulate phone service in the state. After the House session concluded Wednesday evening, the House Ways & Means/Broadband Connectivity committee passed HB 1180, the “Consumer Choice and Investment Act,” which addresses the shifting nature of the phone service market by allowing phone companies to raise rates and by removing “antiquated statutory and regulatory restrictions.” The bill will go next to House Public Utilities.
The version (PDF) that passed Wednesday night contains changes co-sponsor and committee chair Rep. Bill Faison says add consumer protections that address the concerns of those who oppose it.
Analysis of those changes to come. Meanwhile, it’s worth knowing who spoke to that committee in favor of the bill, changes and all:
The Institute for Policy Innovation, an anti-tax group out of Texas which opposes municipal broadband,
The American Consumer Institute, which has taken a position firmly in support of Time Warner Cable’s bandwidth caps proposal.
and Americans for Prosperity, which organized the “tea parties” on tax day and rallied support for the anti-muni broadband bill.
Even defining phone service is getting trickier as companies like AT&T offer both traditional analog phone and digital voice-over-Internet-Protocol service as part of triple-play products designed to compete with similar bundled services from companies like Time Warner Cable.
Until Congress and the FCC weigh in definitively on these issues, we’re likely to see this sort of policy hashed out at the state level, with lobbyists for the cable industry and the telephone companies jockeying to get the sweeter deal.
Updated, see below.
More than 100 people—citizens, lobbyists, elected officials and members of the press—attended Wednesday morning’s meeting of the House Public Utilities Committee. Those rallied by the Americans for Prosperity, sponsors of the tax day “tea parties,” wore red shirts to show their support for the bill. Opponents wore yellow stickers that said, “Save NC Broadband.”
Several hoped to speak about House Bill 1252, which would have required local governments that offer Internet and other telecom services to tack on to customer fees the difference in the amount it would cost a private company to provide the service and prohibit governments from “cross-subsidizing” the launch or operation of a system, a practice common in private industry. (For more background, see “Broadband bill would penalize cities,” Independent Weekly, April 29, 2009)
But the only people who spoke were committee members and the bill’s sponsors, who addressed the mounting controversy by introducing a substitute that would send the bill to committee for further study.
Study committees are often where bills go to die. That’s what happened in 2007, the last time the General Assembly considered a similar measure, which is why Time Warner and the state’s cable industry had opposed efforts earlier this year to compromise by turning the legislation into a study bill, says Rep. Ty Harrell, the bill’s chief sponsor.
But Harrell says he does not intend to let the measure die but hopes it will have “a thorough chewing-on.”
“Let me just say, this is a highly complex issue, and it’s not as simple as many would like to think,” Harrell said to the committee. “I think both sides of the coin are in agreement that this thing needs to be studied, it needs to be discussed.”
Rep. Bill Faison, who chairs the House Ways and Means / Broadband Connectivity committee, argued that his committee would be a better venue for making that study than House Finance or the Revenue Laws Study Committee. Faison’s committee originated out of an interim study committee on broadband Internet access, authorized by House Speaker Joe Hackney, that could continue its work even when the legislature is not in session. “That committee already has the knowledge base, knows the scope of the problem and has been making great progress,” Faison said.
Politically, changing the bill’s course likely means it will not be voted on by the General Assembly during the 2009-2010 session, as only those bills that either pass one body of the legislature by May 14 or concern finance and revenue are considered to have “made crossover.” Continue reading »
The battle over municipal broadband Internet services continues tomorrow, May 6, when the N.C. House Public Utilities Committee will be the second to consider House Bill 1252, which would severely limit the ability of local governments to provide broadband Internet and other telecommunications services.
The committee meets at 10 a.m. in Legislative Building room 1228. A vote is expected.
The North Carolina Cable and Telecommunications Association has been running push-polls across the state to generate support for the bill, which it says will “level the playing field” by forcing municipal service providers to add fees and meet other requirements when they compete with private industry.
And Americans for Prosperity, the same group that sponsored “tea parties” on tax day, is also running robocalls in favor of the legislation and trying to rally support online.
Opponents are mobilizing, too. They say the bill would effectively stop local governments from providing Internet service even when private companies choose not to offer the speed and availability citizens and local businesses need.
A blog called Stop the Cap!, which voices opposition to Time Warner Cable’s recent proposal to cap its customers bandwidth, had run a series of posts focusing on the North Carolina legislation, which is heavily backed by Time Warner Cable. Google recently joined Alcatel-Lucent, Intel and a number of other private industry groups in a joint letter to House Speaker Joe Hackney opposing the bill. The City of Raleigh and Town of Chapel Hill have also passed resolutions opposing it.
The bill passed the House Science and Technology Committee last month without a vote, and without a favorable recommendation, following testimony from many opponents.
Update 4/16: A vote on the bill was postponed to next Wednesday, April 22.
N.C. Rep. Ty Harrell, who represents western Wake County in the General Assembly, last week introduced a House companion to a Senate bill that would effectively stop local governments from building their own broadband Internet and other telecommunications services if they compete with private industry.
Harrell is an otherwise progressive legislator. He’s a co-sponsor of the comprehensive sex education bill, the Healthy Youth Act and the anti-bullying bill, the School Violence Prevention Act. He has twice received our endorsement. But by sponsoring HB 1252, Harrell has angered a wide grassroots base. Since introducing the bill, he says he’s heard from many progressives who oppose it.
“I did not know there would be this type of response, to be honest with you,” Harrell said in an interview.
He’s likely to hear more of that response this Wednesday, April 15, when the same coalition that fought the anti-muni broadband bill in 2007 plans to attend the House Science and Technology Committee meeting at 11 a.m. in Legislative Office Building room 425.
Harrell is chairman of that committee (though under House rules he won’t chair discussion of a bill he sponsors.) He says Time Warner Cable is based in his district and approached him about sponsoring the bill, which would require local governments to tack on to the fees they charge consumers the difference in the amount it would cost a private company to provide the service. Also under the bill, a city could not use government funds to “cross-subsidize” the launch or operation of a system, a practice common in private industry.
“You’ve got the municipalities who are more of less being subsidized by private industry in the sense that they don’t pay property tax, they don’t pay income tax, they receive rebates on their sales tax for these services and they have access to tax-free financing,” Harrell said, summarizing the industry’s argument. “I wanted to make sure that I look out for the businesses that are in my district. It was not an intent to rub out or punish municipalities that try to provide this service.”
But the bill’s opponents say that’s precisely the industry’s goal. They say these prohibitions artificially increase the cost of the municipal service and impose obligations that private industry does not have to meet. The cities of Wilson and Salisbury have already beaten a path to Harrell’s door, seeking to explain that building their own telecommunications infrastructure allows them to offer faster speeds and greater capacity than private industry is willing to build for their citizens.
The League of Municipalities, which lobbies for the interests of towns and cities across the state, is circulating a resolution to their members laying out the arguments against the bill (PDF).
Among the League’s concerns is the fact that North Carolina would be ineligible for $4.7 billion in federal stimulus grants set aside for local and state governments to provide broadband Internet service to unserved and underserved areas.
The timing of the bill is made worse by Time Warner Cable’s recent announcement that it would institute bandwidth caps for its customers in Greensboro and other cities nationwide. Customers who use more than their capped allotment (40 GB being the highest tier) will have to pay $1 per extra GB. Those customers are not happy and they’re fighting back with help from national groups like Free Press.
How many gigabytes of bandwidth do you consume each month? No idea? Well, if you’re a Time Warner Cable customer, you may need to start keeping track.
Business Week reports that the company has launched a “tiered pricing” structure in four U.S. markets, including Greensboro, N.C. The idea is to charge customers for Internet access according to how much data they consume, in the same way cell phone plans charge according to the number of minutes you use.
The impact will likely be to reduce consumers’ use of online audio and video, because YouTube videos will start to feel like pay-per-view movies.
Customers will be charged $1 for each gigabyte (GB) over their plan’s cap. Time Warner Cable offers four cap levels of 5, 10, 20, and 40 GB [per month]. A download of a high-definition movie typically eats up about 8 GB.
The report quotes an analyst who says the average family could end up spending $200 per month on broadband usage fees just watching video.
It’s unfortunate that the industry would launch a business plan that will significantly increase consumer costs and likely reduce use of and demand for their service, while sending their lobbyists to whine to state lawmakers that they need taxpayer funds to subsidize their business because not enough people sign up for their service.
The industry line is that rural communities don’t have Internet access because there’s not enough demand; well, this will reduce demand. Continue reading »
The “Anti-Competition Act” is back.
Two years ago, state legislators rejected a bill that would have effectively made it impossible for cities, towns and counties to build their own high-speed Internet, cable TV or phone services. Now a new version of the bill has emerged.
Last week, N.C. Sen. David Hoyle (D-Gaston) introduced SB1004 to “level the playing field” of telecommunications by saddling local governments with extra costs and strict financial requirements if they seek to compete with private companies.
Industry advocates say it’s unfair that governments can borrow money more cheaply, through bonds, than private companies can. So the bill would require local governments to tack on to the fees they charge consumers the difference in the amount it would cost a private company to borrow start-up funds.
Also, a city could not use government funds to “cross-subsidize” the launch or operation of a system—a practice common in private industry.
The bill appears to aim directly at the City of Salisbury, which is building its own $30-million municipally owned fiber-optic Internet, TV and phone system.
The City of Wilson launched a similar system last summer. As Salisbury’s system will do, Wilson’s Greenlight competes with the cable and DSL offerings of private companies in the area. But the city-owned, fiber-based service offers significantly higher speeds at comparable prices (see “Mighty, mighty broadband,” June 18, 2008).
“This is an attempt to protect monopolies at the expense of local communities,” says Wilson spokesperson Brian Bowman. “The 2007 bill that would have crippled Wilson was a bad bill and so is this one.”
In 2007, phone and cable companies pushed hard for “The Local Government Fair Competition Act,” but an alliance of cities, public interest groups and private companies –- including Google –- successfully opposed it.
Among the opponents was Catharine Rice of Action Audits, which advises and advocates for local governments on communications issues. She says the bill is geared to prevent competition. “The industry wants to burden communities who want to build their own networks to underserved areas by loading them up with costs so that the rates are so high, nobody will buy the service.”
Stakes are higher this time around, Rice says, because the bill could prevent North Carolina communities from being eligible for broadband stimulus money.
“The [National Telecommunications and Information Administration] has set aside $4.7 billion to bring broadband to underserved and un-served communities, making states and localities directly eligible,” Rice says. But the agency has said it will only fund financially sustainable projects, and saddling governments with extra costs renders their services unsustainable, Rice says. If the state legislator passes this bill, “the rest of the country would get to apply for federal broadband grant money, but not North Carolina.”
Anyone reading Triangulator is probably not suffering the agony of a dial-up connection. But millions of people across North Carolina are lucky to get any connection to the Internet at all. In rural parts of the state especially, high-speed Internet often isn’t available.
This week, the national consumer advocacy group Free Press posted a set of video interviews titled “Five Days on the Digital Dirt Road” that put faces on the people who live on the wrong side of the digital divide and explains the economic and personal consequences of not having access. This Saturday, Free Press will host a town hall meeting in Durham on the issue. The group invites citizens and advocacy groups to join a nationwide effort for more accessible and affordable Internet access.
Farmer Jay Foushee of Person County, north of Durham, tells of repeatedly calling his local phone company to ask for DSL, only to hear conflicting answers. “I keep getting, ‘Well, it’s coming, it’s coming.’ And this has been going on for about three years now.”
Foushee’s story is familiar to thousands of people in Chatham County, including Andy Upshaw and his neighbors, whom the Indy recently profiled. Chatham officials estimate 45 percent of residents and businesses don’t have high-speed Internet service either because they lack access or can’t afford it.
Karl Bode at DSL Reports (a great source for critical journalism on the technology industry), points out that by going on the road to meet people like Jay Foushee, Free Press is giving the lie to a common refrain in national media coverage of the rural broadband issue –- a refrain repeated by the industry –- that rural Americans don’t have broadband because they don’t want it or haven’t bothered to ask for it.
“Having been covering the industry for going on a decade, we can, without reservation, tell you that’s the dumbest thing we’ve ever heard,” Bode writes.
“In response, consumer group Free Press is doing something that most of the pundits, lobbyists and politicians have never done — actually going into rural America to explore coverage gaps.”
Talking directly to the people affected: Always a good idea for journalists, politicians and policy makers.
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