Is it open season on the public?

Fellow blogger bluegill and I have continued a thread off-blog that addresses many of the key aspects of the current assault on telecommunications freedom. In retrospect, we should have posted that here, so, with apologies, read on.

I e-mailed this letter to our local lawmakers, using this link:

I write urging you to oppose, procedurally and otherwise, the passage of House Bill No. 1148, which would preempt municipalities from bringing broadband Internet services to their entire populations, even when
regulated telecommunications companies deny or delay the rollout of this essential democratizing service.

I am eager to know your views on this bill and your evaluation of its likelihood of passage.

I received this reply:

Thank you for your recent email expressing your opposition to House Bill 1148 (local government telecommunications).

Please be assured that I do not support of this bill. I have worked with several municipalities in my district where they would, in fact, control the facilities that would provide these services.

Again, thank you for sharing your concerns with me.

Sincerely,
Senator Richard D. Young, Jr.
Minority Floor Leader

Bluegill wrote:


Thanks for sharing. I've not gotten a response from Jim Lewis or Paul Robertson.

How about that 1518? SBC and Verizon could cripple all of southern Indiana just because they feel like it. If the state legislature thinks that broadband has been used as a bargaining chip, how about statewide service rates for basic telephony?

I've been communicating with Mike Wirth and Ron Rizzuto at the University of Denver. They are the authors of a report on municipally owned communications networks often quoted by telcos and cable giants.

Their results, of course, show that municipal ventures consistently operate in the red. My first email to Wirth stated that I thought the telcos were misstating the report's findings by not mentioning many qualifications the researchers themselves included in the original report. He and Ron responded that it was I who misunderstood the qualifications and stated that their more recent studies confirmed that none of the municipal networks they looked at were self sustaining. They did offer to answer questions, though.

I asked:

1. If any of their research dealt with wireless networks and if the much lower cost of entry made a difference
2. If their studies involved control groups, i.e., nearby, similar cities that decided not to invest in broadband. If so, how did the non-connected cities fare in comparison?
3. Did they look at overall benefit to the community and, if so, how did they calculate the worth of improved educational opportunities, saved or created jobs, etc ?

They offered to send me a full copy of their report and I happily accepted. It's clear that somebody's lying and the full report should help me determine who that is. It certainly doesn't mean the report itself is entirely accurate or representative of other municipalities.

Why did they initially choose such a small number of cities? How did they choose which cities to examine? I think the initial four city report was completed in 1998 when some of the technology involved was much more expensive. How have start up costs changed since then?

I responded to bluegill:


Quantifying the social benefits is always tough. If a city "loses" money but creates jobs, enables breadwinners to telecommute, brings educational and recreational resources within reach of the entire community, how do you quantify that?

Right-wingers object to public expenditures even when the benefits are measurable. When they hear talk like this, they denigrate it as "squishy" and feel-good liberalism. A truly objective researcher would at least attempt to assign value to the social benefits. They certainly assign values to the social costs when the economic analysis doesn't suit their purposes.

And who's measuring the public subsidy aspects of allowing utilities to have unlimited easements or piggybacks on public and private lands. One could easily assign a lease value to that to prove that there is a government-enforced subsidy to bring utilities to the city. If I wanted to string a wire across your property or dig a ditch in your driveway, how much would you charge me? It has been accepted that that is for the public good and therefore you must suffer the costs without compensation.

All we want is intellectual honesty.

bluegill replied:

Yep.

I used Scottsburg and Glasgow, KY, as examples when writing Wirth and Rizzuto. Scottsburg is saving about $6000 a month in T1 line lease fees for their public schools. That doesn't show as income for the network but it still saves $72k from the public pot per year. That alone would
pay for their initial $385K infrastructure investment in about 5 1/2 years. Glasgow has the lowest rates in their area for broadband and cable. Residential broadband, for example, is currently priced at $24.95 per month. One study estimated that subscribers to the municipal network there have saved $3 million out-of-pocket since the network's inception.

The quantified amount with which the government subsidizes the utilities with land use would be colossal. If property is selling in new residential neighborhoods for $30K per lot and 5% is easement, the utilities owe that property owner $1500. That's almost four years of basic phone service.

As I pointed out early, if these utilities don't want to act in the public interest, the public should stop subsidizing them. If 1518 gets passed and telco service costs become totally unregulated, I'm going to assume that I can charge SBC whatever I want for the use of my land - and kick them off if they don't pay.

I later received this missive from Sen. Connie Sipes's office via her aide, Charlotte Lemieux:

This is a House bill and we in the Senate have not debated this yet. Believe me, I will study it thoroughly when it does come to the Senate.

Connie W. Sipes
State Senator
District 46

P.S. please feel free to educate me on this issue.

I replied and share my letter in redacted form:

Thank you, Senator, and Charlotte.

And thank you for the invitation. My business service area and the readership of my Web log include Sen. Lewis’s district, too....A group of us are tracking this bill, which would effectively pre-empt municipalities from creating universal broadband services and allow the telcos to cherry-pick and delay the offer of service to middle-income and rural residents in your constituent service area...This bill would have made [Scottsburg and Scott County's Internet program] impossible. With Charlestown currently planning a broadband rollout municipal utility and New Albany discussing it within the administration, this is of vital local importance.

One or more of our group will follow up with links and additional educational information about this bill (HB 1148) that was written by the chief lobbyist for one of the telcos. No surprise, but the actual MS Word document explaining the bill bears his digital signature. I’m sure you will be able to oppose this bill if it makes it through the House, but there is no time like the present to learn about it. Watch for a fairly comprehensive article in The Evening News The Evening News by Greg Gapsis...

Anyone want to educate Sen. Sipes? She seems willing to listen. I've received no replies from the House members I contacted using this link.