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Pay Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain: Listen to AT&T's CEO, not Lobbyists

Wed, February 08, 2012 | Posted by christopher

AT&T lobbyists in Georgia and South Carolina are arguing that local governments should not be allowed to build the networks that communities need, suggesting that the private sector is primed to make the necessary connections. But AT&T's CEO had a different message for investors a few weeks ago, in an earnings call on January 26:

The other is rural access lines; we have been apprehensive on moving, doing anything on rural access lines because the issue here is, do you have a broadband product for rural America?

We’ve all been trying to find a broadband solution that was economically viable to get out to rural America, and we’re not finding one to be quite candid. The best opportunity we have is LTE.

Whoa! LTE is what you more commonly hear called 4G in mobile phone commercials. The best they can do is eventually build a wireless network that allows a user to transfer just 2GB/month. That is fine for hand-held devices but it does nothing to encourage economic development or allow residents to take advantage of remote education opportunities.

But even the CEO admits they are not bullish on LTE as the solution:

[W]e’re looking at rural America and asking, what’s the broadband solution? We don’t have one right now.

Some may be wondering about "U-Verse" -- AT&T's super DSL that competes with cable in the wealthy neighborhoods of bigger cities. U-Verse cannot match the capacity or quality of modern cable networks but is better than older DSL technologies. But U-Verse is not coming to a rural community near you.

For those who missed the fanfare last year, AT&T's U-Verse build is done. AT&T's lobbyists have probably forgotten to tell Georgia and South Carolina Legislators that the over 20 million AT&T customers without access to U-Verse are not going to get it. But CEO Stephenson made sure investors weren't worried about AT&T continuing to invest in its wireline infrastructure:

In wireline, our U-verse build is now largely complete, so we have in place an IP video and broadband platform that reaches 30 million customer locations, which gives us significant headroom now to drive penetration.

Translation: AT&T will now focus on upselling customers in markets with U-Verse. If it doesn't run through your neighborhood already, you aren't getting it.

The rest are stuck on dial-up or DSL that AT&T's CEO has previously called obsolete (correctly). While AT&T's CEO has been honest about its inability to solve real broadband deployment gaps, AT&T's lobbyists have tried to advance a bill with the ludicrously low broadband definition of 200kbps and even more absurdly, the even slower definition of 190kbps.

The business model of AT&T and other big cable and DSL companies simply does not work in much of rural America. The question is why any state would foreclose the possibility of communities being self-reliant when major companies like AT&T candidly admit they have no solution and the best they can do is deliver an obsolete product.

State legislators need to pay more attention to what AT&T's CEO says and less what AT&T's lobbyists say.

Fast, affordable, and reliable access to the Internet is essential for communities to thrive in the digital age. Not every community wants to build a community networks and most undoubtdly won't. But that is decision they should make locally. Pending legislation in Georgia and South Carolina would take this decision out of the hands of these communities by enacting a host of new regulations on public networks that do not apply to the private sector. As in North Carolina, these bills effectively revoke local decision-making authority by creating impossible hurdles for communities that are already disadvantaged in the modern economy.

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Rural Wisconsin Residents Struggle to Connect to the Internet

Mon, February 06, 2012 | Posted by christopher

A group of rural residents living east of Madison, Wisconsin, gathered near Portage of Columbia County to discuss their lack of affordable high speed access to the Internet. These are people for whom slow, overpriced DSL would be an improvement.

Lack of access to the Internet is a drain on rural economies -- their real estate market suffer and they are unable to telecommute, when they would benefit more from it than most who do have the option. They lack access to long-distance education opportunities in a time when the cost of gas makes driving to school prohibitively expensive.

Andy Lewis, who has been working with the Building Community Capacity through Broadband Project with U-W Extension, was on hand to discuss some of the lessons learned through their work, which is largely funded by a broadband stimulus award.

The incumbent providers encouraged residents without access to aggregate their demand and create petitions to demonstrate the available demand. Of course they did. And if CenturyLink decides it can get a sufficient return on its slow and unreliable DSL, they will build it out to some of those unserved areas. This is a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario for rural residents. DSL was starting to be obsolete years ago.

The better solution is finding nearby cooperatives and munis that will extend next-generation networks that can provide fast, affordable, and reliable access to the Internet. Getting a DSL to a town will do very little to attract residents and nothing to attract businesses. It is a 20th century technology in a rapidly evolving 21st century world.

The Beaver Dam Daily Citizen covered the meeting, which eventually turned away from how to beg for broadband to how they can build it themselves:

But several attendees asked why the government can't play a role in making high-speed service available everywhere, in the same way that the government helped bring about rural electrification and telephone service.

This is a very good question. They may decide not to follow that path, but given the importance of access to the Internet, they should look at options for building a network that puts community needs first. North of Madison, Reedsburg has built an impressive FTTH network and we have been tracking progress of the Fiber-to-the-Farm effort in Minnesota's Sibley County.

Unfortunately, AT&T's incredible influence in the state capital has made it more difficult for communities to build the networks they need -- even in places like Columbia County where AT&T is not and will not connect rural residents. Such is the price of living under governments that make policy based on the interests of powerful special interests.

There was a time when the ideology of self-reliance was considered American and even conservative. But now the idea of self-reliance is largely abandoned as communities first seek to beg distant corporations (with a history of royally ripping them off) to connect them and only consider solving their own problems with local investments as a last-ditch effort, which could be too controversial.

Update: This meeting was hosted by the Public Service Commission as part of a larger effort to create a state broadband plan. Such processes are typically dominated by interests of incumbent providers -- a model that was emphatically rejected by the FDR Administration when developing its plan for electrification. Electrification was wildly successful; expanding broadband by begging incumbents has been a dismal failure.

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We Told You So: Subscribers Abandon DSL

Mon, January 30, 2012 | Posted by christopher

We have long been arguing that the telephone and cable companies are not sufficiently investing in the connections needed by communities.

Quarter after quarter, companies offering DSL see decreases in their lines as subscribers jump to cable or fiber-optic alternatives (where available, which is not many places). Recall that AT&T's CEO himself believes DSL to be obsolete.

As this trend continues, most communities will find that a single cable company has a monopoly on high speed broadband access and those willing to settle for slower, less reliable alternatives will have a choice between DSL and wireless options. Susan Crawford has written about this, terming it the Looming Cable Monopoly.

The main reason is that cable is cheaper to upgrade to higher capacity connections than the telephone lines. Unfortunately, due to the reality of natural monopoly, the big cable companies will almost certainly continue to dominate in their communities. It is just too hard and risky for other businesses to challenge their market power.

This is why smart communities are evaluating all their options and determining if a long term public investment in fiber-optic infrastructure would generate enough benefits to justify the high upfront cost.

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Media Coverage Roundup: Georgia AT&T Bill to Kill Community Broadband

Sun, January 29, 2012 | Posted by christopher

In the wake of a bill in Georgia to revoke local authority and substitute it with state say-so over whether a community can build a broadband network, multiple outlets have covered the situation.

As usual, Stop the Cap! was quick on the ball, offering original in-depth commentary. Phil digs into the campaign cash history to find the real motivations behind this bill:

Rogers’ legislation is exceptionally friendly to the state’s incumbent phone and cable companies, and they have returned the favor with a sudden interest in financing Rogers’ 2012 re-election bid. In the last quarter alone, Georgia’s largest cable and phone companies have sent some big thank-you checks to the senator’s campaign:

  • Cable Television Association of Georgia ($500)
  • Verizon ($500)
  • Charter Communications ($500)
  • Comcast ($1,000)
  • AT&T ($1,500)

A review of the senator’s earlier campaign contributions showed no interest among large telecommunications companies operating in Georgia. That all changed, however, when the senator announced he was getting into the community broadband over-regulation business.

Phil also refutes the supposed failures cited by those pushing the bill. Not only do such stories misrepresent what really happened, some actually cite EPB's incredible 1Gbps service as demonstrating that munis are out of touch. What else would you expect from the Heartland Institute, which made its name fighting against the radical claim that cigarettes are linked to cancer?

Government Technology's Brian Heaton also covered the story in "Georgia Community Broaband in Legislative Crosshairs."

In addition, Mitchell [me] said that SB 313’s requirement of the public entity paying the same taxes or the same cost of capital as the private sector is another red herring. He said that while the provision looks reasonable on the surface, it would critically hamstring any effort to establish government-owned high-speed broadband services.

“That’s like telling me I have to pay the same taxes that another American would,” Mitchell said. “Are we talking about my middle-class neighbor, or Mitt Romney? Whose taxes am I going to pay a similar rate to? These are all issues that are left open-ended intentionally so that it’s uncertain for a community and they are more likely to end up in court, which is possibly the most devastating situation.”

Fierce Telecom riffed on the GovTech story here.

Karl Bode at DSL Reports asks if "Georgia wants to be a broadband backwater."

As noted, ISPs particularly love bills that require endless public hearings and votes, where deep-pocketed carriers can can out spend supporters by millions of dollars on (often incredibly sleazy) PR campaigns aimed at shouting these services down. That same money could be used to upgrade last mile connectivity, but isn't thanks to the uncompetitive markets these companies are trying to keep uncompetitive. The result? Continued slow speeds, high prices and poor service, all protected by the very government ISPs claim they don't want involved in the market.

And finally, Slashdot got the point of the bill wrong (ignoring many of the provisions of the bill) but did start a conversation about Georgia "Prohibiting Subsidies for Municipal Broadband. One of the commenters lives just outside one of the towns that Majority Leader Rogers cited as a bad example. This commenter disagrees with that assesment. Strongly.

Until the city implemented a broadband plan with cable TV, we had ONE choice for cable TV and virtually NO high speed internet especially in the county (Bellsouth/AT&T DSL is a massive joke to anyone who lived in the county and so was high speed internet connections). Suddenly, when the city decided "We want to attract more business to the area and also supply all of our schools with high speed internet services..." then WHOA! the local cable company went into overdrive. They started expanding their high speed internet services much faster and pushed them out into the county. They offered better bundle rates AND dropped their cost for cable TV alone. The move by the city _incentivized_ the local cable MONOPOLY to get off their ass and start offering the services to both city and county that they had been promising for a while and to bring their price down to a more competitive level.

And finally, the Augusta Chronicle covered the proposed bill and the increased campaign contributions from telco and cable companies to those pushing the bill:

The telecom companies have beefed up their lobbying forces this legislative session. Many lawmakers have received campaign contributions from them, including Rogers, who rejects any suggestion that they might have motivated him.

Unfortunately, the Augusta Chronicle again repeats the false claim that the public will be under the same rules as the private sector. The bill explicitly creates new rules that will only apply to public sector providers. It is right in front of them and they print blatantly false claims.

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AT&T Bid for Broadband Monopoly in South Carolina Resurfaces

Wed, January 18, 2012 | Posted by christopher

AT&T, one of the few dominant Internet access providers in South Carolina, is again pushing a bill in the state legislature that will gut the self-determiniation of local communities in the digital age. The market power of AT&T and Time Warner Cable has already driven most private sector competition from the market -- now they want to use their lobbying clout to ensure that the communities themselves cannot build the networks they need to attract economic development and maintain a high quality of life.

Last year, we were deeply concerned about House Bill 3508 but it was orphaned in committee after AT&T lost its credibilty by encouraging the state adopt a broadband definition lower than even the much-maligned 200kbps previously used by the FCC.

The bill is back this year and would have been taken up by the Senate Judiciary Committee today but that meeting now appears to be cancelled. Nonetheless, AT&T will undoubtedly find a way to bring it back this year and we shouldn't count on AT&T's stupidity to save us again from its massive lobbying clout.

Phil Dampier has issued a call to action at Stop the Cap!, calling AT&T's bill the Profit Protection Act. He has a list of the Senate Judiciary Committee members so people in South Carolina can contact them.

It is crucial that Senators and Representatives hear from constituents on these matters. Issues of telecommunications policy rarely generate phone calls, so even a few calls can make a different and will serve notice to elected officials that they are being monitored on this issue.

There is no need for additional barriers in South Carolina for rural communities to build the networks they need. As we show on our community broadband preemption map, South Carolina has already enacted additional regulatory barriers that public sector entities must surpass in order to build this essential infrastructure in their community.

South Carolina's communities have very poor access to the Internet compared to regional and international peers. AT&T is not expanding its super-DSL product called U-Verse and no major private companies are building fiber-optic networks. Making it harder for communities to build the necessary infrastructure simply means that South Carolina will be unable to attract the jobs or workforce of the future.

If you have questions or want to assist in the effort to preserve local decisionmaking authority in South Carolina or anywhere else, let us know.

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AT&T Fights Broadband Stimulus by Proxy

Mon, January 09, 2012 | Posted by christopher

Phillip Dampier at Stop the Cap! has once again followed the money trail to reveal AT&T pulling puppet strings to attack broadband stimulus funds. More significantly, AT&T is trying to de-legitimize the provision of access to the Internet by any aside from the few big DSL and cable companies that have essentially cornered the market.

AT&T funds groups like Navigant that create misleading research and reports that they then use to confuse the media to spread messages that benefit AT&T.

Navigant spent much of 2011 trying to convince regulators and the public that T-Mobile actually doesn’t compete with AT&T, so there should be no problem letting the two companies merge. Readers win no prizes guessing who paid for that stunner of a conclusion. Thankfully, the Department of Justice quickly dismissed that notion as a whole lot of hooey.

Navigant’s second ludicrous conclusion is that there is no rural broadband availability problem. Navigant has a love affair with slow speed, spotty DSL (sold by AT&T) and heavily-capped 3G wireless (also sold by AT&T) as the Frankincense and Myrrh of rural Internet life. With those, you don’t need any broadband expansion (particularly from a third party interloper).

Thanks to Phil for taking the time to reveal these strategies.

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New Year, Same Lame Cable and DSL Monopolies

Tue, January 03, 2012 | Posted by christopher

It's a new year, but most of us are still stuck with the same old DSL and cable monopolies. Though many communities have built their own networks to create competition and numerous other benefits, nearly half of the 50 states have enacted legislation to make it harder for communities to build their own networks.

Fortunately, this practice has increasingly come under scrutiny. Unfortunately, we expect to see massive cable and telephone corporations use their unrivaled lobbying power to pass more laws in 2012 like the North Carolina law pushed by Time Warner Cable to essentially stop new community broadband networks.

The FCC's National Broadband Plan calls for all local governments to be free of state barriers (created by big cable and phone companies trying to limit competition). Recommendation 8.19: Congress should make clear that Tribal, state, regional and local governments can build broadband networks.

But modern day railroad barons like Time Warner Cable, AT&T, etc., have a stranglehold on a Congress that depends on their campaign contributions and a national capital built on the lobbying largesse of dominant industries that want to throttle any threats to their businesses. (Hat tip to the Rootstrikers that are trying to fix that mess.)

We occasionally put together a list of notable achievements of these few companies that dominate access to the Internet across the United States. The last one is available here.

FCC Logo

As you read this, remember that the FCC's National Broadband Plan largely places the future of Internet access in the hands of these corporations. On the few occasions the FCC tries to defend the public from their schemes to rip-off broadband subscribers, Republicans (joined by a number of Democrats) threaten to overrule what is supposed to be an independent agency to defend the corporations that just happen to be donors to their campaigns.

Back when most assumed AT&T would be able to push its horribly anti-competitive takeover with T-Mobile through an impotent federal government, a few stories exposed the tip of the iceberg of AT&T's astroturf efforts, as with this report from the Center for Public Integrity:

“It is important that we, as Christians, never stop working on behalf of the underserved and forgotten,” the Rev. R. Henry Martin, director of the clinic, wrote to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski in June. “It might seem like an out-of-place endorsement, but I am writing today in order to convey our support for the AT&T/T-Mobile merger.”

...

Not included in Martin’s letter to the FCC was the fact that his organization had received a $50,000 donation from AT&T just five months earlier. Indeed the Shreveport-Bossier Mission is one of at least two-dozen charities that were recipients of AT&T’s largesse and have written in support of the T-Mobile buyout, which will cut the number of national wireless companies from four to three.

When AT&T's wasn't able to buy enough influence with legitimate groups willing to sell out the interests of their members (who would pay more for their communications in a less competitive environment), it would simply create its own groups to push its interests:

AT&T Logo

Tallahassee Mayor John Marks brought an Atlanta nonprofit to the city as a partner in a $1.6-million federal-grant project, saying it would put high-speed Internet into the hands of poor people.

What he didn't say, and now says he didn't know, was that the Alliance for Digital Equality (ADE), in its first three years of existence, was nearly 100-percent funded by AT&T and spent most of its money — four of every five dollars — to pay board members, consultants, lawyers and media companies to push the global communication giant's positions on Internet and wireless regulation. Nor did Marks disclose, initially, that ADE had paid him $86,000 over several years as a member of its board of advisers.

We continue to see these massive companies abuse their market power to increase their prices, knowing that their lobbying arms will continue pushing legislation to stop communities from building their own networks.
Time Warner Cable hiked its rates in North Carolina immediately after passing its legislation to stop communities from building networks. Mediacom raised its prices while it attempts to sabotage efforts in rural Minnesota to build networks in unserved areas. And invented new fees to rip off its subscribers while trying to disrupt a rural fiber-to-the-farm initiative that slightly overlapped some territory in which they have long refused to invest.

Even as profits on cable broadband services approach Exxon proportions, Time Warner Cable has pushed for usage-based pricing to further overcharge subscribers, but mostly to strangle enormously popular competitors like Netflix. CenturyLink is not far behind, with usage caps prioritizing its own video content over competitors.

Verizon Wireless tried to sneak a new fee past subscribers by announcing it just before Christmas but backed down after outraged consumers reacted. One has to wonder whether it would have backed down in a world where AT&T took over T-Mobile, resulting in 3 out of 4 wireless customers being with Verizon Wireless and AT&T. Four competitors isn't the robust competition envisioned by Adam Smith, but it still beats the duopoly dynamic that results from even less competition.

Verizon Logo

Speaking of less competition, the recent deal between Verizon and cable companies is troubling. We already knew that FiOS was all but dead, but this deal truly puts a fork in it:

I'll assume that neither cable operators or Verizon are going to let us see the deal fine print to confirm the Times guess, but the logic fits Verizon's strategy. Verizon already cherry picked the most valuable FTTH upgrade markets, and has shown total disinterest in further upgrades. This deal allows them to save money on FTTH upgrade costs, instead soaking up remaining customers with LTE -- which we noted was the plan some time ago. This deal is very bad news to the rural telcos without the cash for large-scale upgrades (CenturyLink, Frontier, Fairpoint, two of which Verizon sold aging DSL networks to), and for satellite broadband providers.

The future of next-generation networks is now only community networks, cooperatives, and some small private networks.

We've long argued that phone and cable companies have systematically overstated their coverage in mapping efforts as part of their effort to blunt any sensible public policy that would result in all Americans having a choice between fast, affordable, and reliable connections to the Internet. The New England disaster called FairPoint is back in the news for overstating the number of subscribers that have access to DSL. The company has not met the requirements it agreed to when purchasing Verizon's lines a few years ago.

Comcast Logo

And in the continuing saga of Comcast's growing domination over the information people can access, Bloomberg TV is fighting Comcast's practice of discriminating against channels in which it has no ownership stake. Comcast has long strongly encouraged those who want to put television channels on its lineup to give Comcast a piece of the action, not unlike a mobster encouraging a small business to pay protection money. It wants to continue expanding its role as a gatekeeper to the Internet, particularly in the many areas where people have no real choice from other high speed providers.

And perhaps the best example of why we should not trust these massive corporations to run essential infrastructure is the revelation that AT&T defunded 9-11 call centers in Tennessee to gain a market advantage over competitors, a practice they were previously caught doing, leading to settlements out of court.

These corporations are not evil, they are following a sensible mandate to maximize their shareholder value. It is our government that is not sensible -- entrusting them with the future of Internet access without even bothering to enact the most basic regulations. Communities must continue to wise up and ensure they have the access they need to modern communications -- access that reponds to their needs, not those of distant shareholders.

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Broadband Blindness Documentary

Tue, December 27, 2011 | Posted by christopher

A new documentary from California explores the failure of the private sector and competition more generally to sufficiently invest in fast, affordable, and reliable access to the Internet.  It comes in three parts and runs about 25 minutes in total.  

This provides a good summary of the present broadband landscape and how AT&T, Comcast, and other major providers are not the answer to our increasing need for better connections to the Internet.

 

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AT&T Abandons Wireless Consolidation Attempt

Tue, December 20, 2011 | Posted by christopher

It is hard to avoid becoming cynical when watching the federal government interact with big corporations like AT&T. So when AT&T announced it would merge with T-Mobile, giving AT&T and Verizon a combined 3 out of 4 cellular subscribers, I thought two things:

1) What a terrible idea. Higher prices, fewer jobs, less choices, etc.

2) The Federal Government will likely not prevent it - instead opting for some minor concessions that no one will bother to enforce.

Sometimes, it is very good to be wrong.

Cecilia Kang of the Washington Post, decodes the language from Wall Street to explain the biggest winner from the federal government blocking the merger: consumers.

“Without the combination, we think the wireless industry will be further weakened by continued hypercompetitive activity, particularly regarding subscriber acquisition costs,” said Nomura Securities analyst Mike McCormack.

That means customers can still get lower rates as the industry competes for their dollars. T-Mobile, for example, will continue to be a low-cost competitor, according to consumer advocacy group Consumers Union. A survey showed that data plans from T-Mobile were $15 to $50 less per month than those offered by AT&T.

An excellent reminder that what is best for Wall Street is not what is best for the 99%. Big companies like AT&T find competing for customers a hassle that lowers their profits -- they consider a market with four sellers to be hypercompetitive. In wireline, they have acquiesced to the "competition" of two competitors -- cable and DSL.

This is one reason communities build their own networks -- the private sector is not truly competitive when it comes to ISPs and most communities have no prospect real of improvement absent a public investment.

But we should rejoice in this victory -- because we earned it. Without the hard work of many grassroots groups, it is hard to imagine the Department of Justice or FCC standing up to such a powerful corporation.

Some quotes from some of the many organizations responsible for protecting the 99% of us who don't benefit from higher prices and fewer choices.

Andrea Quijada of the Media Literacy Project:

“The end of AT&T’s campaign to eliminate mobile competition and jobs is a gift to working class New Mexican families this holiday season. However, we know that this decision was not the result of AT&T putting people before profit. This result was won by media justice advocates and our allies in New Mexico and nationwide. Though we are certain this is not the last we’ve heard from AT&T/T-Mobile, we want to take a moment to acknowledge this victory for consumers.

The National Hispanic Media Coalition spoke out against the merger and celebrated its demise:

"AT&T has finally accepted that its bid for T-Mobile has run its course. NHMC is very pleased that the FCC and the DOJ have so justly put the little guys ahead of giant corporations in their review of this merger. Latinos pay more for cell phone service than any other ethnic or racial group, paying the most on AT&T and the least on T-Mobile. In addition, because T-Mobile's workforce is nearly 50% people of color, and an estimated 20,000 T-Mobile employees would have lost their jobs as a result of this merger, Latinos and other people of color would have been disproportionately harmed. For these reasons, NHMC has worked hard over the past seven months to educate people about the harms of merger. We are ecstatic to have defeated it," comments Jessica González, NHMC's Vice President of Legal and Policy Affairs.

The Center for Media Justice issued these comments:

amalia deloney, Media Policy Field Director of Center for Media Justice stated, “Since AT&T first announced its intent to takeover T-Mobile, the Center for Media Justice has continuously raised concerns about what role a duopoly would mean for historically marginalized communities— particularly communities of color and America’s poor who disproportionately rely on access to mobile broadband to find employment, access healthcare, advance their education and organize for social and economic justice.”

This holiday season, millions of folks across the country will not be blind-sided by high phone bills, and T-Mobile employees – many of whom are people of color and all of whom are nonunion- will get to keep their jobs. Today marks an important victory for rural and poor communities, people of color, and the hard workers of America who simply can’t afford to pad the pockets of the corporate CEOs.

And finally, the Media Acess Project:

Today’s announcement proves that law trumps politics. This anti-competitive transaction clearly exceeded permissible standards. AT&T and T-Mobile thought they could push it through by using lobbyists and political pressure, but the FCC and Department of Justice held firm.

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The Internet is More Important than Broadband

Tue, December 13, 2011 | Posted by christopher

I encourage readers to visit Doc Searls post "Broadband vs. Internet" for a discussion about things that matter regarding the future of Internet access for most Americans.

The Internet is no more capable than the infrastructures that carry it. Here in the U.S. most of the infrastructures that carry the Internet to our homes are owned by telephone and cable companies. Those companies are not only in a position to limit use of the Internet for purposes other than those they favor, but to reduce the Net itself to something less, called “broadband.” In fact, they’ve been working hard on both.

There is a difference between the Internet and "broadband." Broadband is a connection that is always on and tends to be somewhat faster than the dial-up speeds of 56kbps. Broadband could connect you to anything... could be the Internet or to an AOL like service where some company decides what you can see, who you can talk to, and the rules for doing anything.

The Internet is something different. It is anarchic, in the textbook definitional sense of being leaderless. It is a commons. As Doc says,

The Internet’s protocols are NEA:

  • Nobody owns them.*
  • Everybody can use them, and
  • Anybody can improve them.

Because no one owns it, few promote it or defend. Sure, major companies promote their connections to it (and when you connect to it, you are part of it) but they are promoting the broadband connection. And the biggest ones (Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner Cable, etc) will do anything to increase the profits they make by being one of the few means of connecting to the Internet -- including charging much more and limiting what people can do over their connection, etc.

This is one reason the connections from major corporations are so heavily tilted toward download speeds -- they want consumers to consume content. Just about every community network built in the last 3-4 years offers symmetrical connections by contrast.

Last I heard, the fastest cable offering in the upstream direction was 12Mbps. Cox, our cable provider in Santa Barbara, gives us about 25Mbps down, but only 4Mbps up. Last time I talked to them (in June 2009), their plan was to deliver up to 100Mbps down eventually, but still only about 5Mbps up. That’s competitive as long as all you want is “content delivery.” But what about when you want to live “in the cloud,” and all your data is elsewhere? In the long run you’ll need a lot more upstream as well as downstream capacity for that. Internet service optimized for media delivery (where TV especially wants to go) won’t cut it. But then, most people aren’t looking at that. They’re looking at TV on their iPads over broadband, and thinking that’s way cool enough.

So here we are, smack up against what John Perry Barlow warned us about in Death From Above, way back in early 1995. There he wrote, “The cable companies and Baby Bells have a model for developing the next phase of telecom infrastructure which, were it applied to the design of physical superhighways, would have us building them with about five thousand lanes in one direction and one lane in the other.”

This is where Bob Frankson comes in, reminding us that the big cable and phone companies are good at billing, not connecting. Their methods and procedures are optimized to maximize their revenues, not to maximize the benefits of the Internet or anything else. Back to Doc:

The division is between what communications wonks crudely characterize as “net-heads” and “bell-heads.” Think of conflict as one betwee any and only. Net-heads want the Net to support anything. Bell-heads want communications systems optimized only for the businesses they prefer — namely, their own — and to avoid even talking about the Internet. (Bell-heads have never been comfortable with the Net, because it was not made to bill. TV and telephony are easy to bill, and so is “content” in general. Thanks to Apple’s and Google’s pioneering work —mostly in league with the operators — so now are apps.)

Community Broadband generally sides with the net-heads. The focus tends to be on what is best for the community as a whole, rather than what is good for a single company or industry. After all, if a community had a choice between one business providing 5,000 jobs and 500 businesses each providing 10 jobs, they would be crazy to opt for the single employer.

Verizon had been the only major company investing in next-generation networks with its FiOS deployment. It is done expanding -- unless you live in one of the wealth neighborhoods or suburbs that got it, you won't. AT&T has even ceased its pathetic U-Verse upgrades, even as they spend millions to prevent communities from building their own, much better networks. Communities that want to be relevant in 10 years take notice -- and take a good hard look at building a locally owned network that responds to the needs of the community.

Doc Searls photos used under creative commons license, courtesy of Flickr's Irisheyes

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