This is what happens now. Comcast, or Verizon (or others, but there aren’t many companies left), is forced to negotiate with cities and towns in order to install, update, maintain, and provide service. It generally results in the media corporation paying moderate, tiny fees from some of their large profits to the city or town, in exchange for becoming an authorized provider. Often this negotiation includes provisions to ensure the servicing of the entire town, even those parts which are more rural that the company wouldn’t otherwise provide service for, as well as a channel or two for the town to use for its own purposes (like a municipal channel for live coverage of city council meetings).
This fee for the usage of the city’s rights of way translates into community investments in cable access (like LTC). It covers the cost of training, hiring, and equipment for these enterprises. Verizon, to be frank, is looking to get a chance to ignore this practice – and trust me, Comcast will soon follow suit.
While often centralizing regulation is a boon to the people government serves, in this case it will only serve to limit the people’s input and access to media. The bill will only help big corporations and not the people (the customer). Not only is our rights to media access threatened by giving in to Big Media, but so is our equal access to internet content; another “right” Big Media wants is the ability to charge web content providers extra for faster delivery of their data to your computer – those that do not pay (or cannot, like LeftinLowell) will have their download times choked, or even blocked. [Note: this is not part of this state bill as far as I know.]
Verizon complains about how long it takes to get approved as a cable provider in each individual town; but as I hear it, that could very well be because Verizon is dragging their feet in doing the work they need to get those approvals. Most likely because Verizon then wants to be able to claim that the existing system too slow.
Jay Booth, a selectman in Tyngsboro gave us his story of their town’s negotiation with Verizon, and how they try to weasel out of their obligations. Think of Verizon doing that, but on a statewide level, where the town has no say in whether or not they get screwed. Having to negotiate with singular towns keeps Verizon honest, and allows for choices. Felicia also commented. She recently attended the National Conference on Media Reform (more on that later). If anyone is a staunch advocate for local choice, access, and media reform, it’s Felicia. She has this to say:
Hey folks, just came back from the Media Reform conference in Memphis where this was one of the issues at play. Verizon has pushed this legislation through the state legislature in TX. It is working its way through CA & PA legistlatures right now.
Re: competition – no one is saying Verizon can’t come into cities and play on the same level playing fleld that Comcast and other cable providers are playing on. They are looking for an advantage here and once they get it, Cable companies will want the same advantage too.
It would be instructive to look in communities where there are two or more companies providing video services. It may be that prices drop initially, but the new entrant will soon pull their prices up and the difference in cost become negligable.
Verizon, as it has in other states, may well get the OK not to provide or be demanded to provide build out into communities that are not economically advantageous. In CA they are definitely redlighting certain communities.
Finally, as a long-time supporter of community media (I use to work at LTC), if these decisions are pushed to the state level, important local control over funding, communication infrastructure, and bandwidth will be lost.
In the case of Lowell, the potential loss is almost $1M in cash each year (with additional funds for capital improvements), about 15 full-time jobs (for P, E, and G), 24mhz of bandwidth for 4 channels (not to mention a stand alone closed-circuit video / data network), and most importantly hours and hours of critical community information such as coverage of important munciple meetings, lifeline info for non-English speakers, outlets for social and human service agencies, and one of the only free speech venues for the average citizen on television today. All of these resources controlled and their used determined locally.
Why would we give up these resources in order for a for-profit company to have the ability to make more of a profit or have an easier time at making that profit? Seems like it works against our own community interests. We should also watch out that in this legislation, citizens are not sold out as deals get cut with current allies like Comcast and municiple governments.
Does anyone in their right mind think that allowing Verizon to circumvent negotiations with cities and towns will get any of us a lower price for their services? And there is nothing stopping Verizon from competing with Comcast, on the same playing field, as Felicia points out, or competing with them for our media dollars. This is nothing but a giveaway which will cascade into a destruction of community media. The current system works for the people, so why do we want to change this?
Call your legislators and tell them to vote against the bill. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a bill designation (probably because the state website is late in updating as usual), but we will keep our eyes on this one.
I have to plead a bit of ignorance here.
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My current provider (which is comcast) serves me via a dedicated line (or cable, duh), which had to be physically strung throughout the town.
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Does verison deliver their service through such a cable, or is it through the existing phone lines, which they already own?
If such is the case, why would they need to negotiate with the towns (or with the state, for that matter) to provide an additional service through a system that is already in place?
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Verizon will provide cable via fiber optic lines, which must be strung (or buried). Once the network is up, they also offer digital phone and high speed internet on the same line.
For that clarification
I’m not looking to attack the original diarist, I’m just asking for clarification, since the proposal seems to be a very good one, at least on the surface.
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My cable provider (Charter) presently provides me with cable, broadband, and telephone service through their coaxial cable. If Verizon can provide the same services through separate fiber optic cable, won’t they have to proce things in order to convince me to switch away? How is that “another” monopoly?
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Right now I have two choices for landline telephone (Verizon, Charter), two for broadband (Verizon DSL, Charter) and one for cable. For some strange reason, the cable TV accounts for the lion’s share of the monthly bill– more than 2/3. A little price pressure on the TV bill would be a very good thing, and something the City Council has proven to be singularly inept at– or uninterested in– creating. I wouldn’t mind doing my own shopping. Why is that a bad thing?
in practical terms, in the long run, prices will go up to match Comcast’s, except the town will have nothing to show for it. The rights of ways belong to the town/city, generally, but in terms of real competition, none of these companies really intend to lower prices.
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Verizon will likely claim that putting in the fiber cost so much, that their prices have to remain pretty high. While that could be true, that’d be just as true if they had to negotiate with the town or not.
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I honestly don’t see this bill as helping yours or my bottom line, but I do see it as a giveaway to Verizon to undercut existing TV providers by forgoing giving anything to the municipality they have to use the rights of way of, and what’s more, encouraging Comcast to then follow suit, leaving the cities and towns with nothing to show.
Comcast will collude with Verizon on pricing. I haven’t seen much evidence of that in those areas where they actually compete, such as broadband or telephone service. Indeed, prices on those services have declined sharply over the last few years.
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If Verizon claims that the cost of capital investment requires high prices, which results in prices that are not competitive with Comcast, then nobody will purchase TV service from Verizon, resulting in a very poor return on investment to them.
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I guess I’m not included in the general consensus that local access cable is so important and deserving of preservation by way of Charter’s monopoly on television service.
I really don’t think overtly collude. At the very least, it will probably be better than a monopoly and every town they operate in will be +1 town-wide fiber-optic network. That adds to the supply side so prices have to come down somewhat. Verizon will keep prices high for a while but Comcast will have to put something out that matches them technologically (in which case verizon will probably cut prices) or undercut them by a ton on price, either way consumers win.
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I do think that the state should preserve capital contributions and % gross contributions to the public access programming in roughly the same numbers that they average out to statewide right now.. but seriously, Verizon’s going to have to agree to those anyways, why can’t we just work this out?
This was writen up in the Cape Cod Times last July (sorry, no unpaid link). The Federal bill wants to create a state-wide entitiy for government, school and pubic access cable.
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Considering the CRACKERJACK job the Legislature did with access to the last ConCon, they shouldn’t be allowed anywhere NEAR this!
Charter Communications….
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They are in the process of squeezing Worcester…and want to eliminate our PAC (Public Access Channels). At last I heard…they have been given an extension on the current contract because our City Manager won’t budge on the public
channels…so I guess we need to get on board with this too.
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Thanks Lynn for the Legislative heads up.
where the Governor stands on this one?
is that once Verizon, Comcast, Charter or any other corporate provider gets a statewide contract, you will have no alternatives. Your town will no longer have the right to cable access. You and your community will no longer be seen as customers. You will be a nuisance getting in the way of corporate profits, which will increase dramatically as customer service is gutted and rates are increased. Worse, once those cables and fiber optic lines are humming (or not as the case may be), it will be virtually impossible to go back to the way it was. There will be no accountability. Of course, you might want to buy some stock if this happens.
The way it was– is– isn’t so good, is it?
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The vaunted ability of towns to secure good service has yet to be demonstrated.
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Is the proposal that there be only one provider in the entire state? Who would pay for the taking of Comcast’s network? Seems to me that there would be the owner of the coaxial network competing with the owner of the fiber optic network. That would be a total of two potential choices, no? One more than exists presently?
…it would merely centralize the public and government access into a single statewide body which will appropriate bandwidth and services, and possibly programming.
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Yeah, THAT’LL work…
So public access gets centralized and apportioned, ut there are still two vendors from whom I can buy TV services?
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The public access in Worcester at least, is amateurish in the extreme; indeed it is unwatchable even when it is audible.
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If that public access takes it on the chin in order to actually have multiple vendors, it would be a fair trade and then some.
As I told you then, unless a Kennedy gets into trouble, we HAVE no local TV news. We DEPEND on our government and public access for board hearings, ecological and political programming, and school sports. Without our local town access, we have nothing. Espcially since there is no broadcast here – try picking up even channel 4 with an antenna (it has to do with fog and the ocean – we didn’t used to be able to get Channel 2 even on cable during the summer until they built a booster tower)!
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I’m SORRY you have misused such a resource – and why aren’t YOU producing to change that? But you are hurting ALL OF US in the ‘bookends’ – Cape and Berkshires – by letting BOSTON decide how much TV we need.
As a progressive, I don’t disagree that some things are best left for “local control” – just that not everything does. In this case, local control over negotiations has produced some spectacular results – LTC in Lowell (though we are undergoing personnel issues because of bad management – that’s temporary though, and under our control) is awesome. They run Council meetings, School Comm/subcomm/local event shows, and unique programming like producing TV out of our Lt Gov debate last May.
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Verizon is whining, “Wah! It’s too HARD!” but they are the 100-lb gorilla in every case in negotiating with cities and towns. It also appears to me they are exaggerating the problem in order to pretend they need this bill.
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They make plenty of money either way. It’s the local people who get screwed by not being able to decide how much they want for their right-of-ways.
Not run council meetings, run the video on the muni channel for CC meetings…
also ATT will be a player in this fight and the new governor worked for ATT. That should prove interesting.
Verizon is not looking to do this because they are in love with competition. Instead, they are interested in circumventing the rights of towns to demand a little in return for allowing a company to become part of what is essentially a monopoly – to be one of the only or few providers of cable TV.
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Let’s understand something. If the state and the cities and towns did not award monopolistic-like licenses to potential cable providers, there would be no “monopoly.” The state and the cities and towns are, or have, created the monopoly. They did so in concert with the companies, but, if they had not done so, there would be no monopoly. If the state and cities and towns allowed any potential cable provider to come in and supply cable service, where is the monopoly?
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Of course Verizon is not looking to do this because they are in love with competition. What they are in love with is what every large business that has worked with politicians to screw the consumers have done since time immemorial: money. And the politicians go along with the companies’ entreaties because it keeps them in power. You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch your’s. And your proposal is to further tax cable customers merely for the privilege of receiving inferior cable service? Please, give me a break.
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Let’s understand something else. Regarding …they are interested in circumventing the rights of towns to demand a little in return… Let’s cut to the chase. What you are really saying is that cable customers should be taxed–and that’s what it is, a cable tax–for the privilege of being screwed by the cable companies who “pony up to the (politicians’) bar” for the privilege of operating in their town (and, by extension, provide those politicians with free advertising), regardless of whether the actual cable customers want to pay for it. I’m sorry, but that is ridiculous. If a town wants to buy time on a cable service to broadcast its selectmen meetings, town meetings, football games, or whatever, they are certainly free to do so, and, if they do so, they will be taxing everyone in town for the broadcasts. I am not particularly interested in being taxed so that personages such as Roy (“the toy boy”) Switzler, member (or former member) of the Wellesley selectmen, would be able to bloviate over cable, but that’s another issue. I would object to being taxed for the privilege of obtaining the crummy cable service that is available in the US merely for that purpose, but perhaps the cable companies could put that kind of programming on pay-per-view. You want to view it, you pay for it. Or go to the meetings.
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An aside. We have a house over in Germany, just outside of Munich. We can get broadband service over there (not fiber optic, but broadband) for about 1/3 the price per Mbps (megabits per second), and up to some 15Mbps, that Verizon is charging us here. It is well known that American customers are being screwed by the American telecoms. From observation, Verizon’s fiber optic internet service is quite nice, but it is overkill. When we download over Verizon from sources here, there and everywhere, the main bottleneck is the source (how quickly they can provide the bits), not the pipe (how quickly they can transport the bits). Until that problem is addressed, anything over 5 Mbps is overkill, and we get more bandwidth than that in Munich at, as I said, 1/3 the price. Americans are getting screwed.
It’s about getting a break to get a competative edge over Comcast by gaming the system in place.
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No city has refused to negotiate with Verizon as far as I know, or offer any MORE onerous terms than Comcast gets. Verizon doesn’t want to compete, they want to undermine the competition. I don’t think we should let them.
undermine competition? Will we all be forced to switch to Verizon as Comcast is frozen out?
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If I can choose between Verizon and Charter, that would be exactly one more choice than I have now. How will that undermine competition?
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What it undermines is the town’s ability to chisel some of my money for itself. The town isn’t the customer, I am.
fanchise fees aren’t really a tax, they are compensation to muncipalities for the “rights” to come into a community, tear up streets, block roads, etc in the course of doing business. Without these agreements cable providers would need to get permission each time they want to conduct work. This is more of a blanket long term agreement that between the cable company and the muncipality that allows for ease of doing business.
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In terms of monopoly, installing a hardwired system (either coax cable or fiber) is an incredibily expensive capital investment. Nothing prevents rival cable companies to come into a place and set up shop. RCN has been a second provider in a number of locations, however the expense has meant they have been near bankruptcy.
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I would agree that many parts of the world have much better communication services at cheaper costs than the US. I’d be interested to know how telecommunications are regulated in Germany.
I’m guessing the best way to get better prices and service out of cable providers is to have more competition.
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Wouldn’t it be better if towns invited any interested company to provide cable TV and cable Internet, an an attempt to get some true competition?
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Have some towns tried this?
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Now, there is the important issue of ripping up the streets — ideally, you only want the streets ripped up once.
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There is also the issue of providing service to the more rural providers. Do we let companies not serve those people if it’s not cost efficient? Do we let companies charge them more because it cost them more to serve them? Or do we require them to provide to everyone in a town if they are going to sell to anyone in the town?
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These are some pretty basic questions about capitalism here, but that appears to be what we are dealing with.
You or I can’t get a bank loan to start a cable/phone/high speed internet company for your town or state–way to expensive. And if you had the gazzillion dollars to finiance it, you’d never get the ecomncies of scale that these huge companies have with volume discounts from the networks and centralized costs like huge call centers. Nope, there are only a handfull of players in this game.
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PS) Yes, some towns ahve tried this, with modest success. But those that have usually had a track record with running their own electric company. Braintree is an example. They can take advantage of floating bonds to fund the project, they already have a customer service operation and trucks and crews that can do both jobs, thereby lowering costs.
In all of their new contracts, they are dropping the maintenance and support of local access.
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Now they get the towns and cities to form “Local Access Corporations” (LAC) that provide this service.
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Comcast offers to collect a “small fee” per subscriber as a convenience to this LAC. This fee can be up to 5% of your cable bill. And although there is some sort of elderly discount.. the amount of discout after doing all the paperwork is extreme minimal.
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How long will it be before they start to charge a “management” fee for collecting this LAC fee?
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To help the LAC get up to date on equipment, they do offer loans to help buy new digital studio equipment. But, why would we not just get a loan through our local bank and keep the business in our own town rather than give more interest to Comcast?
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Comcast also keeps the 3 channels open for local use (already pretty standardized across the state), this is probably tied to some state law.. Im not sure of that.
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What’s worse is that Comcast is forcing towns into a 10 year contract.
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The television industry is changing at an exponential level. Whole sections of Europe are already on IPTV (where television programming itself is transferred to the local box via internet.. bypassing the need for a cable television company).
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We are already starting to see this with the major broadcasters making episodes available on their websites for viewing on computers and handhelds. It wont be long before there are settop boxes designed to connect directly to the program producers and bypassing the current networks/cable distributors.
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Hopefully, the LAC’s will be soon able to do the same thing: produce a show and make it available via the web that anyone can view on their TVs without a preference for Comcast/Verizon/Dish/etc.
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Being trapped in a contract tied to old technology is not a smart idea for any of us.
This bill is simply a bad idea.
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During the transition process, the Economic Development working group identified two major barriers to job creation in the Commonwealth: lack of appropriate skills in the workforce, and infrastructure deficiencies. High on the list of the latter topic was universal “connectivity” (mostly broadband internet access, but cellphone coverage, too).
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Verizon has never shown any particular interest in providing services to rural communities, and I don’t think we should be rewarding them by letting them write a law that exacerbates that tendency.
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A member of the Select Board in Mount Washington told me the story of how they tried to get a DSL line installed in town. Verizon quoted a price, so they appropriated the money and told Verizon to go ahead. Verizon then said, “never mind” and declined to install the line.
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While this is an extreme example, stories similar to this are commonplace. And, it doesn’t affect just rural areas. Some businesses won’t consider locating or expanding in places like Pittsfield or Springfield (places where telecom services are quite good) because their employees can’t work at home nights or on weekends.
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Until we can figure out a way to provide universal coverage for cellphone service, broadband internet, and cable TV, I don’t think we should be doing anything to make life easy for the providers of these services. They need to be good corporate citizens and become part of the solution, not simply profit-maximizing machines. In the long run, it’s in their interest, too, to have a thriving and vibrant economy in all parts of their service area.
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As to this particular bill, btw, one thing not mentioned here is that it provides no protection for existing INets nor any provision for creating future ones.
Verizon just sold its phone lines in Maine, VT, and New Hampshir to Fairpoint Communications. http://saveaccess.or…