San Francisco, Seattle Tire of Comcast, Mull Building Citywide Fiber Networks

from the breaking-the-duopoly-logjam dept

It probably goes without saying that while improving in spots, American broadband isn't much to write home about. Americans pay more money for slower service and worse customer support than a long list of developed countries. Some of that's thanks to geography, but more of it's due to a lack of competition. That lack of competition is, by proxy, thanks to our refusal to address the stranglehold these giant companies have over our federal and state regulators and lawmakers. Instead of fixing this problem, current regulators seem more interested in weakening deployment definitions to help industry pretend the problem doesn't exist.

In a growing number of towns and cities, residents have increasingly pushed to either build their own broadband networks, or strike public/private partnerships to help improve service quality and availability. Instead of trying to make these efforts irrelevant by offering better service at lower rates, incumbent ISPs have focused on paying often clueless lawmakers to help pass protectionist bills restricting what locals can and can't do with their own local infrastructure and taxpayer dollars. More than twenty states have now passed laws to this effect quite literally written by ISP lobbyists.

Both San Francisco and Seattle have considered building their own broadband networks in a quest to end this duopoly logjam. In Seattle, Mayoral Candidate Cary Moon is promising to build a citywide fiber network if elected, something lobbying spending indicates is making regional ISPs Comcast and CenturyLink nervous. And in San Francisco, the city is now promising to build the biggest municipal broadband network yet, with a new report (pdf) indicating the cost to connect every home and business in the city would be somewhere around $1.9 billion.

Unlike some projects where the city owns both the network and the service provided on top, San Francisco's model would be open access -- meaning any ISP -- small or large -- would be invited in to compete:

"Our approach is to create as much market competition as possible at both the dark fiber and lit services layers. In this approach, the City’s concessionaires would not enter the internet business, but rather would enable robust private sector competition."

Back in 2009, an FCC study found that such open access models result in more competition and lower rates (pdf). But, overly-influenced by large ISPs terrified of competition, the FCC promptly put the study in a drawer and forgot about it. Isolated municipal broadband deployments still sometimes embrace the idea, however. Like in Ammon, Idaho, where the municipal network there lets consumers switch between multiple ISPs in a matter of seconds if they're dissatisfied with their carrier. Open access was the model Google Fiber originally promised it would pursue with its own gigabit fiber build before promptly backpedaling.

Over at Wired, Harvard Law Professor Susan Crawford argues that the open access model provides a good balance to ISP worries that the government itself would somehow be a competitor incentivized to disadvantage private sector companies:

The city would not be in the business of competing with existing providers in this model, but would, instead, be providing basic infrastructure that any company could use—the connectivity equivalent of a city street grid. The cost to the public of borrowing the money to build this basic network—estimated at about $1.5 billion by CTC—would be significantly lowered by leasing revenue from advance arrangements with operators. The city would subsidize low-income residents wishing to subscribe for fiber services from those private operators. CTC sets forth a detailed timeline for getting all of this done.

What’s great about this suggestion is that it removes any political argument that the city is somehow undermining the private market for internet access services. At the same time, a dark fiber public-private partnership would dramatically lower the cost for the private market to do what it does best: directly serve customers in a competitive environment that, on its own, produces low costs and innovation.

Over the years big ISPs and their policy armies have worked tirelessly to demonize municipal broadband as inevitable taxpayer disasters. But again, municipal broadband isn't a panacea; like any business plan it depends on the proposal and implementation. But neither is municipal broadband an automatic boondoggle, and those that adhere to this over-simplistic absolutist thinking often like to ignore a few things.

Like the fact that many of these networks struggle or fail because they're immediately met with either lawsuits or massive disinformation efforts bankrolled by ISPs, designed to kill many of these efforts before they've even gotten their footing. Also ignored is the fact that taxpayers have already spent billions upon billions on incumbent ISPs that consistently engage in outright fraud and waste, leaving citizens on the financial hook for fiber upgrades promised but never deployed. Most ignored however is the fact that these towns and cities wouldn't be considering such drastic measures if they were happy with existing broadband services.

Again, none of this is to say municipal broadband is a silver bullet, either. But it should be clear to anybody that has spent more than ten seconds dealing with Comcast or their local telco that the industry is broken, and it's going to take some creativity to fix it. And whether to build and run a local broadband network should be left up to local residents, not ISP lobbyists and policy wonks, living half a world away, whose entire goal is simply to keep the dysfunctional but hugely profitable status quo intact.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, fiber, muni broadband, open access, san francisco, seattle

Michigan Lawmaker Flees Twitter After Reports Highlight She Helped AT&T Push Anti-Competition Broadband Law

from the the-best-laws-money-can-buy dept

Last week we noted how Freshman Michigan Representative Michele Hoitenga has been pushing a broadband competition-killing bill she clearly neither wrote nor understands. The industry-backed bill, HB 5099 (pdf), would ban Michigan towns and cities from using taxpayer funds to build or operate community broadband networks, and would hamstring these communities' abilities to strike public/private partnerships. The bill is just the latest example of broadband industry protectionist laws ISPs ghost write, then shovel unobstructed through the corrupt state legislative process.

ISPs want to have their cake and to eat it too; they don't want to upgrade or deploy broadband into rural or lower income areas, but they don't want others to either. Why? Because these communities might highlight how there's creative, collaborative alternatives to the duopoly status quo we all despise. And they certainly don't want added outside pressure disrupting the good thing (read: duopoly regulatory capture resulting in no competition and higher rates) they've enjoyed for the better part of a generation.

While companies like AT&T could deter towns and cities from looking for creative alternatives by offering better, cheaper service, it's much less expensive to throw money at lawmakers who, with the help of groups like ALEC, craft and pass laws protecting their regional mono/duopolies. All while pretending that their only real motivation is to protect the taxpayer, of course.

And while this process has played out in dozens of states repeatedly over the last fifteen years (more than twenty states have let ISPs write similar state laws), Hoitenga's lack of experience provided a closer look at the often-grotesque process. As we noted last week, Hoitenga doesn't appear to even remotely understand how the broadband industry works, from her belief that Michigan residents had 37 different ISPs to choose from, to her argument that letting giant ISPs dictate what locals can do in their own communities somehow...helps the little guy.

As the press began to politely highlight how Hoitenga should probably actually understand the industry she's legislating and the bill she's supporting, the lawmaker refused to comment -- and instead chose to flee Twitter:

For added protection, she blocked my account specifically from following her whatsoever:

That should certainly fix the problem, right? While it's unclear which giant ISP wrote the bill Hoitenga couldn't bother to understand, AT&T has been particularly active on this front over the last decade and is the most likely culprit. And based on a quick look at campaign financing and lobbying disclosures, Hoitenga's fealty to the status quo appears to have come relatively cheap for the multi-billion dollar media, television and telecom conglomerate:

Campaign finance records reviewed by IBT show that two of her largest campaign contributors are AT&T Michigan and the Telecommunications Association of Michigan (TAM): AT&T gave her campaign $1,500 while TAM provided her with $3,500 — large amounts for a first term state representative. The Michigan Cable Telecommunications Association — a separate entity from TAM — gave Hoitenga’s campaign $1,000.

According to state lobbying records reviewed by IBT, Hoitenga met and dined with TAM lobbyists during the first half of the year. Michigan’s lobbying disclosures are filed every six months, so it is currently unknown if TAM lobbyists has met with Hoitenga since June. The $142.82 spent to take Hoitenga out for a meal appears to be the only food and beverage expense TAM has disclosed in conjunction with its lobbying since 2001 , as far back as online lobbying records go.

Again, why bother to offer better and cheaper broadband service when you can quite literally buy protectionist state law for a few thousand dollars and some duck a l'orange?

Update: While Hoitenga has since restored public access to her Twitter account, I remain blocked. She has subsequently tried to claim on Facebook that the accounts she blocked were issuing threats against her and her family. For the record I asked Hoitenga one, entirely civil question.

Filed Under: competition, michele hoitenga, michigan, muni broadband, press
Companies: twitter

Michigan Lawmaker Doesn't Understand Her Own Bill Hamstringing Broadband Competition

from the best-leadership-money-can-buy dept

For the better part of a decade we've noted how if America really wanted to improve its horrible broadband problem it would stop letting industry giants like Comcast write shitty protectionist state telecom law. Over the last fifteen years, more than twenty states have passed laws preventing towns and cities from building their own broadband networks even when no incumbent broadband provider will. In many instances these bills also hamstring public/private partnerships, which are often the only way to creatively bring better broadband to under-served or unserved areas of the country.

Michigan is the latest to highlight this problem. Freshman Representative Michele Hoitenga this month introduced HB 5099, a bill that would make it difficult if not impossible for local towns and cities to build their own broadband networks. The bill would ban towns and cities from using taxpayer funds to improve local telecom infrastructure. According to the Institute for Local Reliance, an organization that fights these protectionist measures and helps municipalities improve broadband coverage, the bill would also deter towns and cities from striking public/private partnerships with the likes of Google Fiber:

"The exception allows local communities to engage in public-private partnerships, but the bill’s ambiguous language is likely to discourage local communities from pursuing such partnerships...Rather than put themselves at risk of running afoul of the law, prudent community leaders would probably choose to avoid pursuing any publicly owned infrastructure initiatives.

ISPs defend these bills by insisting they're just really concerned about wasting tax dollars (despite historically wasting far more taxpayer money than potentially any other industry in America). Lobbyists and hired telecom policy hacks have spent fifteen years demonizing all municipal broadband projects as boondoggles. In reality, their goal is to protect regional duopolies from anything even closely resembling real broadband competition by ghost writing awful state law. They want their cake and to eat it too: they refuse to offer quality service or upgrade their networks, but they want government to prevent anybody else from doing so either.

In reality, municipal broadband networks are like any other business plan. Some are good, some are bad, and all are highly dependent on the particulars of a region. But it should be up to local voters and the towns and cities themselves to make that determination -- not AT&T and Comcast lobbyists and hired policy flacks sitting half a world away.

As people have grown more frustrated with shitty broadband, bipartisan opposition to these kinds of bills has only grown. After all, disdain for Comcast and its abysmal customer service is one of only a few things that can truly bridge partisan divides. Most people seem to realize we need to get creative to compensate for ISPs that feel fully deploying broadband networks (especially to rural markets and the poor) isn't worth the time and money. As a result, Hoitenga this week began facing some notable blowback on Twitter (you really should read this entire exchange while it still exists) for her proposal.

Hoitenga quickly made it clear she doesn't actually understand the proposal she's supporting. For example, while her bill would take rights away from local voters by hamstringing how they can fund their own local infrastructure, she insisted she was somehow protecting voting rights:

Hoitenga then proceeded to display her profound misunderstanding of the broadband market by insisting municipal broadband networks aren't really necessary, because Michigan voters somehow have access to 37 different competing broadband providers:

How did the lawmaker come to this conclusion? Bing (yes, Bing!) apparently told her so. While most people usually have the choice of only one or two broadband providers that barely compete with each other, the lawmaker posted a screenshot in the bizarre belief she was contradicting this reality:

Of course, if you actually visit the page that she saw in her Bing search, it tells, well, a very very different story. It's useful, first, to scroll to the bottom to look at the actual map of Holland, which shows how many providers are where.

Note that most of Holland has only 2 or 3 providers. Not 37. Again, this is from the very link she claims supports her "37 providers" claim. And, of course, if you look at the details of where that "37" number came from, you'll quickly understand why it's bogus. First, it includes wireless and business-only broadband providers. That's totally unrelated to the residential market. Second, it counts different kinds of broadband from the same company (e.g. "DSL" and "fiber") as a separate provider, despite clearly being the same. Finally, and most importantly (and obviously from the map above) it ignores that the vast majority of these providers cover very, very little of the city of the city -- to the point that they're barely offering service in the city at all. Below are the residential offerings, and if you focus on that "availability" column, you'll note that most of them cover well less than 5% and a bunch are around 1%.

At most you could argue people would likely have a choice of 3 providers in their location. And one of them -- TDS DSL -- is apparently limited to 4mbps which, you know, is not broadband according to the very definition provided by the FCC. And, how can we not mention the "customer ratings" column? The whole point here, and the very reason why so many people are clamoring for competition from municipal broadband, is because they hate their expensive, crappy, limited choices.

The biggest problem here however is that these bills are usually quite literally written by incumbent ISPs, then shoveled through the legislative process via organizations like ALEC. Said ghost-written legislation then stumbles through approval with lawmakers barely understanding what they're pushing, which is something we've seen time and time again. If ISPs are so opposed to municipal broadband, there's an easy way to stop these efforts: offer a better, cheaper product and improve their historically-awful customer service.

But in the United States, it's far easier to ghost write legislation, hand it off to a cash-compromised lawmaker that has no idea what it means, then sit back and enjoy the financial benefits of regulatory capture while America falls farther behind the broadband curve. This really is, as they say, why we can't have nice things.

Filed Under: competition, michele hoitenga, michigan, muni broadband

Maine The Latest State To Try And Let Giant Broadband Providers Write Shitty, Protectionist State Law

from the you're-not-helping dept

One of (several) reasons why American broadband is so uncompetitive is the fact that we continue to let giant broadband mono/duopolies quite literally write awful state telecom law. As we've long noted, more than twenty different states have passed laws making it difficult to impossible for towns and cities to improve their local broadband networks -- even in instances when the entrenched duopoly refuses to. Many of these laws even ban towns and cities from entering into public/private partnerships with the likes of Google Fiber. It's pure protectionism.

Maine is the 49th ranked state in broadband speed and coverage -- in large part due to rural markets. Despite countless years of subsidies, broadband providers consistently refuse to seriously upgrade these areas at any scale due to costs. And yet they refuse to let the towns do it themselves, either. State Representative Nate Wadsworth has introduced HP1040, aka "An Act To Encourage Broadband Development through Private Investment." Except like so many of these bills, the proposed law's name is a stark 180 from what the legislative measure actually does.

You see Wadsworth is a state chair for ALEC, the group most ISPs use to help them ghost write these protectionist bills. And Wadsworth's proposal, like countless others, imposes a laundry list of restrictions on any town or city that might dare try to do something about the fairly awful service state residents receive from the likes of Frontier Communications and Comcast. From limits to how money can be raised to requirements for repeated public referendums (at which point deep-pocketed ISPs outspend local advocates), communities suddenly face all manner of restrictions on what they can or can't do in their own backyards.

Page Clason, Member of the Islesboro Broadband Committee, described HP 1040 this way:

"I would say this proposed bill is puzzling because while suggested to promote investment of broadband in Maine it would do the opposite. Nothing in the bill provides stimulus, most everything in the bill provides increased hurdles and costs for communities needing the broadband investments. The only stimulus I can garner from such an approach would be that the largest providers would be further comforted that no other service providers would show up to do the builds that the dominating providers have not been supplying for the last few decades."

More often than not, backers of these bills claim they're only looking to protect taxpayers from fiscal mismanagement. But community broadband networks aren't by nature inherently dysfunctional (though they're often sold that way by municipal broadband opponents). They're like any other business plan: some are good, and some aren't. But the reality is that towns and cities wouldn't be getting into the broadband business if they were happy with local service. The "solution" to this organic backlash isn't letting giant duopolists write shitty law; the solution is more competition.

And laws banning municipal broadband -- and especially public/private partnerships -- accomplish the exact opposite of that. And while large ISPs (and their ocean of paid think tankers, economists, and other doller-per-holler professionals) have tried to make this a partisan issue -- the vast majority of municipal networks are built in Conservative areas with broad, bipartisan support. That's because there's one thing we can all agree on: nobody likes the local cable and broadband monopoly. And, as the local Maine newspapers make clear, consumers aren't half as dumb as many politicians think they are:

"I can guarantee you if this bill moves forward, they will hear from an awful lot of very angry people," (said one Maine resident). “Maine people are self-reliant, but island people are very self-reliant. When the boat stops at the end of the day, we take care of each other, and if somebody comes in from the outside and says we can’t take care of ourselves, that message won’t go over well."

The public is, however, inattentive -- and so state by state, large ISPs like Frontier, CenturyLink, AT&T and Comcast continue to push such bills through state legislatures. When they can't get a bill passed once, they'll try repeated times. When that doesn't work, they'll try to push these restrictions through via entirely unrelated legislation, like traffic bills. These same companies will then whine excessively about "overreach" when government does things they don't like, but remain dead quiet when they use that precise same government to protect the dysfunctional status quo.

Update: Lo and behold, the fierce public opposition has resulted in the bill being killed. Pressure appears to have been so intense, even the bill's sponsor, Nate Wadsworth, voted it down.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, maine, muni broadband, municipal broadband, nate wadsworth, protectionism

Comcast Belatedly 'Introduces' Faster Broadband To City It Sued To Keep From Doing The Same Thing Years Ago. It Didn't Go Well

from the reap-what-you-sow dept

Back in 2008, Comcast sued the city of Chattanooga shortly after the city-owned utility (Electric Power Board, or EPB) announced plans to deliver the kind of cheap, ultra-fast broadband Comcast long refused to. After being saddled with legal expenses, EPB ultimately won that lawsuit, and in 2010 began offering ultra-fast fiber broadband. But it wasn't long before the community-owned broadband network ran into another obstacle: a Tennessee state protectionist law -- quite literally written by AT&T and Comcast -- that hamstrung the operation and prohibited it from expanding.

Fast forward nearly a decade, and EPB now offers symmetrical gigabit connections for around $70 a month -- at least to the parts of Chattanooga ISP lobbyists have allowed it to. A 2016 survey by Consumer Reports ranked EPB, outside of Google Fiber, as the only ISP with a truly positive consumer satisfaction rating among the 30 national ISPs ranked by the magazine. Chattanooga's Mayor, meanwhile, has cited EPB as a major contributor to the city's reinvention.

Facing this weird new phenomenon known as competition, Comcast this year finally broke down and brought its own gigabit offering (technically 1 Gbps down, 35 Mbps up) to the city. But Comcast being Comcast, it simply couldn't help but saddle the offering with a number of restrictions. Specifically, Comcast's offering the gigabit option to Chattanooga residents for $70 a month -- but only if they're willing to sign a three year contract. If users refuse -- the price of the service not only is jacked to $140 per month -- but you'll face usage caps and overage fees -- which are only avoidable if you sign the absurdly long contract.

Hoping to get Chattanooga residents excited about the new option when it finally arrived a few weeks ago, Comcast posted an announcement to Facebook "introducing" the city to gigabit broadband service. It didn't go well. The company began taking an absolutely ferocious beating from area locals tired of Comcast's high prices and legendarily-bad customer service:

Take note of the automated Comcast "support" representative that appears to believe they're "helping" without any understanding of the context of the concerns. The beating proceeds like this for an amazingly long time, consistently citing slow speeds, high prices and poor service:

You may notice a consistent theme or two brought up by Chattanooga locals. The beating was so severe it made the Chattanooga Times Free Press, via which Comcast tried to claim that the response to the company's quickly-backfiring ad campaign was a "misunderstanding":

Comcast says the ongoing backlash is the result of a misunderstanding. The cable giant says that it didn't mean to imply it was rolling out the city's first gigabit service. Rather, it was introducing Xfinity's first gigabit service for residential customers.

"Comcast's recent advertisement on Facebook was intended to remind customers in Chattanooga that our 1-gigabit internet service is now available in their area," said Alex Horwitz, vice president for public relations at Comcast. "The service is offered via cable modem technology, which makes Chattanooga one of the first markets in the nation to enjoy this new service."

There's no misunderstanding. Chattanooga locals understand all too well that Comcast has thrown millions at lawmakers on both the local and state level to try and stifle competition, then expected locals to be awed when the company belatedly introduced its own, inferior and restriction-laden product -- nearly a decade later. There's a reason that Tennessee remains one of the least connected states in the union (pdf), and it has absolutely everything to do with Comcast being an anti-competitive bully with a near-total stranglehold over the state legislature and politicians like Marsha Blackburn.

Tennessee isn't alone in spending the majority of its time bending over backwards to please the country's biggest broadband incumbents to its own, obvious detriment. And more restrictive state laws are being passed all the time. And instead of fixing this corruption on the state or federal level, we're now looking at axing consumer privacy protections and killing net neutrality. Because, you know, that's certain to deliver the kind of broadband Utopia Chattanooga and countless other U.S. markets have been begging for over the last decade.

Filed Under: broadband, chattanooga, competition, customer service, gigabit, muni broadband
Companies: comcast, epb

70% Support Letting Cities Build Their Own Broadband Networks, So Why Are We Still Passing State Laws Banning It?

from the state-government-for-sale dept

For years we've noted how more than twenty states have passed laws -- often quite literally written by ISP lobbyists -- that prevent towns and cities from building their own broadband networks (either alone, or with a private partner). Even in instances where, as is often the case, the incumbent broadband provider refuses to upgrade them. ISP lobbyists (and the lawmakers that love them) usually try to defend these protectionist laws by first demonizing municipal broadband as some kind of vile socialist cabal, then pretending new state laws are necessary to protect local communities from themselves.

In reality, municipal broadband is an organic, grassroots reaction to broadband market failure. And buying laws that restrict local communities' rights to decide local infrastructure matters for themselves is little more than regulatory capture. Like net neutrality and privacy rights, municipal broadband actually has broad, bipartisan support -- and most municipal broadband networks are built in Conservative markets with local voter support. But by framing the issue in a partisan way (government run amok!), ISP lobbyists have been able to sow dissent and stall progress that could challenge their status quo.

A new survey of 4,000 consumers by the Pew Research Project once again drives that point home, highlighting that 70% of Americans support letting towns and cities build their own broadband networks -- if they're not getting decent service by the regional incumbent:

"A substantial majority of the public (70%) believes local governments should be able to build their own broadband networks if existing services in the area are either too expensive or not good enough, according to the survey, conducted March 13-27. Just 27% of U.S. adults say these so-called municipal broadband networks should not be allowed. (A number of state laws currently prevent cities from building their own high-speed networks, and several U.S. senators recently introduced a bill that would ban these restrictions.)"

That said, partisan lines are far more stark when it comes to support for subsidizing broadband to low-income areas:

"At the same time, fewer than half of Americans (44%) think the government should provide subsidies to help lower-income Americans pay for high-speed internet at home. A larger share (54%) says high-speed home internet service is affordable enough that nearly every household should be able to buy service on its own."

Partisan battle lines are also quite notable when it comes to asking consumers if they think broadband is essential versus just kind of important (in part because if you admit broadband is "essential," then you need to do something about it -- and that might cost taxpayer dollars):

"Republicans and Democrats tend to agree that broadband is important, but Democrats are more likely to say it is essential: 58% of Democrats and Democratic leaners describe broadband in this way, compared with 38% of Republicans and Republican leaners. A similar split is evident by race and ethnicity, with blacks (55%) and Hispanics (61%) more likely than whites (45%) to say that high-speed access at home is essential."

That dissent is certainly understandable, given how easy it has been for companies like Verizon to nab billions in tax breaks and subsidies for jobs half-completed. There's also a laundry list of states like West Virginia, where regional incumbents received millions in well-intentioned subsidies -- only to turn around and waste that money on projects that helped virtually nobody. While some skepticism is warranted, there are countless instances where broadband subsidies did precisely what they were designed to do -- without much (if any) fanfare.

But again, it's interesting how municipal broadband tends to smash through these well-worn partisan grooves many of us dig into the earth. In large part because if there's one thing that we can all agree on -- it's that companies like Comcast and AT&T kind of suck, and dealing with their utterly abysmal customer support is a unifying, albeit miserable, experience. So then, too, is sticking it to these giant, lumbering, apathetic, and uncompetitive sector giants, and building a local, more accountable network operator where the money -- and employment -- actually remains in the local community.

The problem usually winds up being how to pay for it. Consumers may support the idea of municipal broadband and want to protect their right to vote for or against it, but many don't want to pay for it. That's why we're seeing more public/private partnerships between cities and companies like Google or Tucows/Ting. The problem, again: state laws bought by large ISPs often ban or hamstring public/private partnerships as well to help keep local competition at bay.

Despite the broad support for municipal broadband, states continue to sell state telecom law to the highest bidder. AT&T convinced Missouri to pass a law earlier this year expanding restrictions on municipal broadband -- after the telco failed to bury a restricting provision into a state traffic bill. Virginia tried to similarly expand its ban on municipal broadband, but lawmakers there were forced to retreat after they took a notable beating from the press and public.

As we've long noted, one surefire way to prevent towns and cities from getting into the broadband business is to provide cheaper, better service. But it has long been significantly easier to just buy a state lawmaker and protectionist law to protect the dysfunctional status quo. And like so many issues facing America, until we at least marginally address money's influence on politics -- and/or drive a higher turnout during state elections, little if any of this is going to change.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, muni broadband, municipal broadband

Google Fiber's About-Face Provides Useful Lessons For A Broken Broadband Industry

from the don't-build-your-house-on-a-swamp dept

Last fall, Alphabet/Google announced that the company would be notably scaling back its Google Fiber ambitions. The company axed its CEO, laid off a small number of employees, and froze a number of anticipated fiber builds (in Portland and a few other locations). Numerous reports indicated that there were growing concerns among many executives about the high costs and slow pace of deploying fiber, so the company was considering an overall pivot to next-generation gigabit wireless while it continued building out most already-announced markets.

While it's hard to call this pivot a failure until we see a real wireless product, ISPs like AT&T were of course quick to suggest Google Fiber was little more than folly (ignoring that AT&T's anti-competitive behavior played a starring role in Google Fiber's struggles in many cities). This has contributed to an overall air of "we told you so" smugness emanating from numerous quadrants of the telecom status quo.

That take, however, is short-sighted. One, the launch of Google Fiber put an unrelenting spotlight on the lack of broadband competition in countless markets, driving many large ISPs (like AT&T) to deploy gigabit broadband service that had previously been unheard of. Google Fiber also managed to shine a bright spotlight on the way many large ISPs use our broken legislative and regulatory systems to keep things broken, whether that's by using utility pole beaurocracy to slow competitors' installs, or writing awful state protectionist law hamstringing what your local town and city can do about it.

Over at Backchannel, long-standing duopoly critic and Harvard Law Professor Susan Crawford notes that there are a lot of useful lessons from Google Fiber, most notably that the system Google Fiber is operating in is effectively rotten to the core:

"The fundamental lesson of Google Fiber is that, in the end, its business model was just like that of another cable actor. It was playing within the existing sandbox, using the right technology but the wrong business model.

That sandbox has been left to the vagaries of the marketplace, in which existing monopolies have built moats around their businesses in the form of rights to programming, rights of way, bundled products, relationships with credulous legislators, and a million other barriers to entry that make competing — even for Google — just too expensive for shareholders looking for immediate, media company-like returns, quarter after quarter."

The solution, Crawford insists, is a shift toward local, municipal, open access networks via which ISPs come in and compete:

"The only business model for fiber that will work to produce the competition, low prices, and world-class data transport we need — certainly in urban areas — is to get local governments involved in overseeing basic, street grid-like “dark” (passive, unlit with electronics) fiber available at a set, wholesale price to a zillion retail providers of access and services. There’s plenty of patient capital sloshing around the US that would be attracted to the steady, reliable returns this kind of investment will return. That investment could be made in the form of private lending or government bonds; the important element is that the resulting basic network be a wholesale facility that any retail actor can use at a reasonable, fair cost.

The result: Instead of different wires competing side by side with one another, there would be one great basic facility available neutrally to every form of business. Your ISP could use that fiber in competition with 10 others; your traffic lights could use it to govern congestion; your energy grid could use it to measure and regulate consumption and use of renewables. (Here comes the much-touted Internet of Things, which, without fiber everywhere, is being built on sand.) At the same time, the government would stay out of providing and inventing retail services itself."

Data, including data from the FCC (promptly ignored by the agency) does support the argument that such open access networks result in better broadband, better customer service, and lower prices thanks to real competition. In fact, Google Fiber initially insisted it would support the open access model -- before promptly backing away from it. And some areas, like Huntsville, Alabama, are following through on building an open network, then inviting multiple ISPs (including Google Fiber) to come in and compete.

More competition means organic punishment for high prices, bad service, and net neutrality violations -- which in turn means fewer attempts to fix this issue using often ham-fisted attempts at regulating a moving train.

The problem: incumbent ISPs effectively run massive chunks of our government, to the point where they quite-literally write telecom law (usually via ALEC or some other third-party, legislation ghostwriting apparatus). That includes the twenty-some odd state laws preventing towns and cities from making telecom infrastructure decisions for themselves, lest they might upset somebody at AT&T, Verizon, Charter or Comcast.

Like so many sectors, you can't really fix what ails the broadband industry until you fix the underlying legislative rot that lets companies use campaign contributions and disinformation to dictate garbage technology policy in the first place. So sure, open access networks should absolutely be pursued where possible, but voting out politicians whose entire function appears to be to protect broken mono/duopoly markets (looking at you, Marsha Blackburn) would need to be the very first step in what's an achievable but Sisyphean climb toward better broadband.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, google fiber, muni broadband, susan crawford
Companies: google

Missouri The Latest State To Let Telecom Monopolies Write Awful, Protectionist State Law

from the protectionist-drivel dept

21 states have passed laws hamstringing the rights of local communities when it comes to improving broadband infrastructure. Usually dressed up as breathless concern about the taxpayer -- these bills have one purpose: protect the telecom mono/duopoly status quo -- and the campaign contributions it represents -- from the will of the people. Countless towns and cities have built their own next-generation networks, usually because nobody else would. But these bills, usually ghost written by ISPs for politicians with ALEC's help, either ban locals from making this decision for themselves, or saddle these operations with enough restrictions to make them untenable.

Missouri's just the latest state to either pass a new protectionist bill, or update old laws so they're more restrictive. Like many of these bills SB 186 does its best to impose all manner of restrictions on towns and cities looking to bring better broadband to under-served state communities. SB 186 is actually the third time in as many years that incumbent ISPs have tried to pass expanded community broadband restrictions. Last year, a similar Missouri bill got "unwanted" attention when AT&T got a lawmaker to try and bury it in an unrelated traffic proposal.

Like the last few iterations, SB 186 words itself in such a way to avoid the impression of an outright community broadband "ban," even if that's effectively what it is. Usually this is done by stating a community can't build and operate a broadband network if an existing provider already services the area, intentionally ignoring the fact that said "existing provider" is usually a fat and lazy telco trying to sell users 2002-era 3 Mbps DSL speeds at next-generation prices. SB 186 also saddles these operations with all manner of restrictions on how these networks can be funded, marketed, and expanded.

Often, the bills require a protracted additional public comment period, during which deep-pocketed lobbyists use push polls and other disinformation to convince locals that community broadband is one step up from devil worship, even if it's really just an organic reaction to telecom market failure. The history of these disinformation efforts goes back decades, with ISPs resorting to push polls with questions implying that taxpayer funds would be used for pornography, and government would ration your TV usage.

Should the networks actually get built, they'll then often face incumbent ISP lawsuits. When said lawsuits inevitably saddle these local efforts with delays and added costs, ISPs are quick to point to the problems they caused as proof positive that community broadband doesn't work. But community broadband is like any business plan: if the plan itself is sound, the network succeeds (as is the case in places like Chattanooga, Tennessee).

Historically, most of the twenty-one protectionist state laws have been passed quietly with minimal controversy, in large part thanks to an either misinformed or apathetic public. But as companies like Google and Ting have more recently attempted to disrupt the telecom market, reporters have highlighted not only the lack of broadband competition -- but the protectionist laws responsible for keeping things that way. Last month, Google, Netflix and Ting fired off a letter to Missouri lawmakers (pdf) highlighting the absurdity of such laws:

"SB 186 would amount to a virtual ban on local choice, harming both the public and private sectors, stifling economic growth, preventing the creation or retention of jobs around the State, particularly in rural areas, hampering work-force development, and diminishing the quality of life in Missouri.

In particular, SB 186 will hurt the private sector by derailing or unnecessarily complicating and delaying public-private partnerships, by interfering with the ability of private companies to make timely sales of equipment and services to public broadband providers, by denying private companies timely access to advanced networks over which they can offer business and residential customers an endless array of modern products and services, and by impairing economic and educational opportunities that contribute to a skilled workforce from which businesses across the state will benefit."

The companies also point out that, hey, maybe local infrastructure decisions should be left up to locals, not AT&T, Comcast, CenturyLink and other ISP lawyers and lobbyists with a vested interest in turf protection:

"These are fundamentally local decisions that should be made by the communities themselves, through the processes that their duly elected and accountable local officials ordinarily use for making comparable decisions. They should also be able to use their own resources as they deem appropriate to foster economic development, educational opportunity, public safety, and much more, without having to comply with the restrictive bottlenecks that SB 186 would impose."

ISPs seriously worried about towns and cities getting into the broadband business could have pre-empted these efforts by offering better service at better prices. But given the pay-to-play nature of most state legislatures, it's much easier to just throw money at politicians, who'll happily throw the public interest -- and their state's economic welfare -- in the toilet to fund their next election campaign.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, missouri, muni broadband, municipal broadband

Huntsville, Alabama Is Suddenly Awash In Broadband Competition, Showing Why Comcast Is So Afraid Of Municipal Broadband

from the build-it-and-they-will-definitely-come dept

For years, we'ved noted how incumbent ISPs have waged a not-so-subtle war on towns and cities looking to escape from the high prices and abysmal service of the country's broadband duopoly (which is actually quietly becoming more of a cable monopoly without many noticing). Many of these cities have taken to either building fiber networks themselves -- or striking public/private partnerships with companies like Google Fiber or Ting/Tucows -- because the private sector has failed to deliver the service and connectivity they want at prices they can afford.

This kind of grassroots revolution is precisely why large ISPs like Charter, Comcast and AT&T have spent the last decade lobbying for (and in most instances directly writing) protectionist bills across twenty different states banning local citizens from making these kinds of decisions for themselves. If you want to see precisely why these regional monopolists are so afraid, you need look no further than Huntsville, Alabama.

City-owned Huntsville Utilities has been building a fiber broadband network that should service the lion's share of the city's homes and businesses over the next few years. What's more, the network will be open access -- meaning that ISPs can come in and compete with each other over the regional infrastructure. Google Fiber has already signed up to be one of at least three ISPs taking advantage of the build, and should begin offering service there by the middle of this year.

FCC data has long noted that the open access model provides consumers with better service at lower prices, thanks to the miracle of competition. Obviously that's a nightmare for large ISPs used to doing the bare minimum while charging captive subscribers the absolute maximum. As such, the federal government consistently has treated open access networks like a plague, given that regulators and lawmakers are consistently terrified of upsetting some of the biggest campaign contributors in the country. For what it's worth, Google Fiber also walked back its original promise to run its network under the open access model.

But you only need to look to what's happening in Huntsville to understand why ISPs have spent so much time and money demonizing municipal broadband. With competition looming, incumbent ISPs have miraculously wasted no time in finally delivering the speeds locals have been clamoring for. Comcast this week announced that it will soon bring its cable-based gigabit broadband service to Huntsville, the company breathlessly insisting this deployment reflects Comcast's unwavering dedication to being, well, awesome:

"This launch reflects Comcast’s ongoing commitment to offering the fastest speeds to the most homes and businesses in Huntsville,” said Comcast Regional senior VP Doug Guthrie, also in a statement. “Soon, customers will leverage a new gigabit internet service that will deliver a truly unparalleled online experience."

Yes, only coincidentally inspired by the kind of community broadband networks Comcast has spent billions trying to kill in places like Chattanooga and elsewhere. Another regional incumbent, Mediacom, this week also miraculously began offering gigabit broadband service it claims simply reflects its unwavering dedication to the consumer:

"Since 1996, Mediacom has invested over $8 billion of private capital in its national network to ensure that hard-working families throughout the smaller markets we serve receive the same advanced communications services as America’s largest cities,” said Mediacom’s Senior Manager of Area Operations, Lee Beck. “As a result of these investments, we are extremely proud to add the cities and towns we serve in the Huntsville area to Mediacom’s rapidly expanding list of true gigabit communities."

And while that's great and all, again there's no mention of why they're suddenly interested in actually giving Huntsville-area residents what they want. It's important to note that competition isn't just improving speeds and prices. Both Comcast and Mediacom have consistently (ab)used the lack of last-mile competition to impose arbitrary and unnecessary usage caps and overage fees, which you can be sure will be nowhere to be found once they're forced to keep pace with uncapped ISPs like WOW! and Google Fiber riding over the Huntsville-area network.

ISPs and the consultants, think tankers, lobbyists, and politicians who love them have spent fifteen years demonizing municipal broadband as some kind of vile socialist evil straight from the maw of hell; usually focusing on claims that these networks are inevitable fiscal disasters that need to be thwarted before the big, bad government begins monitoring your porn consumption. The focus from these folks is that they're just worried about local taxpayers. Less of a concern, apparently, is the fact that we're quite literally letting giant companies write shitty state telecom law.

But claiming that municipal broadband is spend-crazy government run amok is a violent misread of what's actually happening in these towns and cities. Municipal broadband business plans are like any other business plan; some are good, some aren't. Ideally that should be up to the locals to decide, not billionaire CEOs and grumpy armchair partisans sitting half a world away in judgement. Municipal broadband isn't the devil, it's a genuine, grassroots, local reaction to market failure; one that can be avoided by ISPs doing one thing: actually delivering the kinds of services, prices and features locals have spent fifteen years clamoring for.

Filed Under: alabama, competition, huntsville, muni broadband, municipal broadband
Companies: comcast, google, huntsville utilities, mediacom

Google, Ting, Netflix Dare To Suggest That Maybe Giant, Anti-Competitive ISPs Shouldn't Be Writing State Telecom Laws

from the pay-to-play-legislation dept

For years now, we've noted how state legislatures are so corrupt, they quite literally let giant ISPs like AT&T and Comcast write state telecom law. These laws, as you might expect, do everything in their power to keep the pricey, abysmal customer service broadband status quo in place by hamstringing any and every attempt to bring competition to bear on these complacent duopolists. That's particularly true of the anti-community broadband bills passed in more than 20 states that prevent towns and cities from upgrading their own local telecom infrastructure -- even in instances where incumbent providers refuse to.

This kind of protectionism is precisely what's going on right now in Virginia, where incumbent broadband providers have convinced (read: thrown a lot of money at) state Delegate Kathy Byron to propose HB 2108, aka the "Virginia Broadband Deployment Act." The act does nothing to improve broadband deployment; in fact it does the exact opposite, preventing ad-hoc community broadband solutions in light of market failure. It also saddles towns and cities with all manner of restrictions, forcing them to get approval by committees stocked with incumbent ISP lobbyists if they want to even strike public/private broadband partnerships.

Byron has been under notable fire the last few weeks by folks who believe, crazily, that perhaps you shouldn't let giant ISPs with decades of documented anti-competitive behavior write state telecom policy. While Byron has tried to claim that hamstringing towns and cities will somehow improve broadband expansion and pricing, other locals have been busy calling a spade a spade:

Opponents argue that the bill would discourage competition that would drive down broadband costs for poor Virginians and that it would hamper existing municipal broadband networks from providing a necessary service.

The Roanoke City Council unanimously condemned HB 2108 on Tuesday, claiming it would endanger a $9.6 million investment by the city and other local governments in the Roanoke Valley Broadband Authority.

“I’ll call it what it is – an effort by the legacy carriers to protect their turf,” Councilman Ray Ferris said, according to the Roanoke Times. “It’s crony capitalism at its finest.”

Opposition to Byron's bill includes incumbent competitors Google, Ting, Netflix and others, who collectively penned a group letter to the Chairman of the Virginia House Commerce and Labor Committee (pdf), noting that the measure actually makes broadband connectivity in the state worse:

"If enacted, HB 2108 would not only hurt Virginia’s localities and their residents, but it would also harm the private sector in multiple ways. Among other things, it would derail or unnecessarily complicate and delay public-private partnerships. It would interfere with the ability of private companies to make timely sales of equipment and services to public broadband providers. It would deny private companies timely access to advanced networks over which they could offer business and residential customers an endless array of modern products and services. It would also impair economic and educational opportunities that contribute to a skilled workforce from which businesses across the state will benefit.

The letter also proceeds to crazily suggest that maybe, just maybe, decisions on local infrastructure should be left up to the voters, not the CEOs of Comcast, CenturyLink, or AT&T:

Communities in Virginia are eager to work with willing established carriers, enter into public-private partnerships with new entrants, develop their own networks, if necessary, or create other innovative means of acquiring affordable access to advanced communications capabilities. These are fundamentally local decisions that should be made by the communities themselves, through the processes that their duly elected and accountable local officials ordinarily use for making comparable decisions. They should also be able to use their own resources as they deem appropriate to foster economic development, educational opportunity, public safety, and much more, without having to comply with the bottlenecks that HB 2108 would impose.

As we've noted repeatedly, ISPs have been extremely successful the last fifteen years in passing these kinds of laws by framing this as a partisan debate, intentionally sowing division. But getting better broadband and improved competition has broad, bipartisan support. As does letting local communities decide for themselves what to do about the local infrastructure impact of obvious private sector failure. And these bills don't solve any problems; in fact they make fixing the problem of spotty broadband coverage significantly harder.

Most consumers realize this, which is why, like so many tech policy issues incorrectly framed as partisan (net neutrality), these ad-hoc local solutions often see broad, bipartisan support among actual consumers.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, corruption, kathy byron, muni broadband, virginia
Companies: at&t, centurylink, comcast, google, netflix, ting