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SBC Promotes Texas Anti-Wireless Bill
rhythmx writes "Details of this bill have been previously covered on Slashdot. SBC has since put up TV ads and a website saying that our telecom laws need to be changed. From their propaganda, "The Texas legislature has the opportunity to modernize telecom regulation and promote innovation to finally reach our goals for new technologies and enhanced consumer benefits." They hardy even mention the bill itself, basically only that it is "Good for Texas -- Good for Texans." This bill has already passed through the House and is now in the Texas state Senate."
And what surprises you about this. A large corporation is lobbying both politically and publicly in favor of a position that supports its own interest and is contrary to the general public's interest. This is surprising? This is news?
Here's a news flash. Whining about SBC on Slashdot will have zero effect on this issue. ZERO There is, as yet, no law stopping you from putting up your own website and running your own television "propaganda" campaign on the matter.
What's more is that SBC is at least partly correct when they state that it is unfair that some providers, such as themselves, are regulated while others, such as any new comer, are not. It is unfair. I'm sure you aren't going to lose any sleep over SBC's losses, and neither am I but, if it were you that was being prejudiced against, you'd be crying the blues and singing another story completely.
You'd hope that any position that a telecom company takes on telecom regulation would be met with an appropriate degree of skepticism. Hey, you can't fault them for trying to spin the issue, but you can't really expect a balanced view of things.
The problem is using phrases like 'fair' and 'well-balanced' to describe a position that is clearly neither of those things. Fox News, anyone?
perl -e 'foreach(values %SIG){$_="IGNORE";}while(){}'
of when SBC got the Illinois house and senate to draft, vote on, and enact a bill of their liking in less than a week. This was record time in our state. The amount of money this company dumps into state politics is so insane that they are entirely able to control the elected officials or fund the campaign of the person who will replace them in the next election.
They've also put up radio commercials featuring the "telecomedian." and I quote:
"Back in my day, a blog was a creature from the deep!"
"Back in my day, PDA meant Public display of affection!".
They portray it as laws holding back technological innovation, when in reality those laws help save us some $$$, and help the small businesses get a foot in the door. I grind my teeth every time I hear those commercials.
As a libertarian I'm generally against state governments spending tax dollars on services that people would otherwise pay for themselves, but municipal Wi-Fi is not a bad thing. The goal is to provide information to people who wouldn't normally be able to access to it. It's not anti-competitive because people still need cable or DSL if they want their own IP address, a more reliable connection, a web server, or just more bandwidth... if they don't need these things then DSL/cable wouldn't be worth it to them anyway. Free Wi-Fi is no more wrong than having free public libraries... or more relevantly, free internet at public libraries. What is the difference between providing your citizens with encyclopedias for reference at libraries, and access to Wikipedia via municipal Wi-Fi? I will admit that I have purchased fewer books because I have had access to public libraries, but bookstores still have their place. Sometimes I would really rather own a book than check it out for a week. This service provides very basic internet access, and anybody who wants more than that will pay for it. SBC should not be any more worried than your local bookstore.
...and if you disagree respond insted of just modding me down, I'd way rather hear your point than go to karma hell =)
Good God, this may be the most depressing thing I've ever read.
This bill is no different then, let's say, forbidding the citizens of a municipality from forming their own fire department...and making only one company the legal provider of "fire protection services".
In short, SBC is asking the state of Texas to provide them with a legally-approved monopoly. And the state is doing it.
When does this stop? When will citizens realize that the very people they're putting in office are signing over every right and interest they have to corporations who has no regard for their health, safety, or welfare? (And I'm hoping that the citizenry is ignorant of what's happening, because if they're not, the notion that people are willing to sign over their democratic rights is too depressing for me to contemplate)
Boycott everything - they're all trying to fuck you one way or another
Rather than strapping our country into a PSTN that was never designed for DSL data rates, we should have a free-for-all on wifi, where anyone with the dollars can set up a subscription network.
Land-line broadband is hopelessly bundled with services that I don't want (cable tv, POTS). wifi is the only hope for unbundled broadband.
It is tempting to let municipalities do wifi - they would do it well, but the phone companies will always be at their throats with the legislative process.
I'd rather see the FCC set aside much more wifi bandwidth, and have my pick of 50 providers. I probably won't get that either, since everyone in government is bought and paid for.
The bill history for HB789 is interesting. Notably, it shows how quickly (and without a recorded vote so those of us who live in Texas can't even accuse our representatives of actually supporting this legislation) the bill passed.
Austin Wireless and Austin Wireless City both have coverage of what it means to Austin. The Save Muni Wireless group was put together in response to challenges like this; they include much better commentary on why HB789 is a bad idea than would be worth repeating here. If you really want to understand the issue, check some of these sites.
Even the High Tech Broadband Coalition (a group of telecom, hardware, and software companies) was against HB789.
Several local news stories:
For those in Texas who want this law changed, it's probably a good time to call or write your state Senator today before this bill sails through committee and a floor non-vote.
Here in Britain we also have a situation where prominent industry figures are increasingly represented on state regulatory boards.
If you can't rely on your politicians to refuse industry funding, and the fox is guarding the henhouse as a result of this, perhaps its time for someone to start protest sites and organise bodies to protest for the consumer instead of allowing legislation for the benefit of the industry
Protest at SBC and Verizon's offices, shops, outlets, as well as at state legislatures and ballot boxes. It might work....
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
I have ZERO tolerance for this crap (but am not suprised by it). I also have ZERO sympathy for any phone company. They act like THEY paid for the copper and fiber. Maybe in the last couple of years they paid for some, but our tax dollars (possibly going back to your grandparents generation) paid for MOST of the cabling in this country. At least cable companies paid for their own dang lines. Though their bloodsucking sometimes too. In the end, Texans should act like Texans and shoot these thieves.
People say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Why? Is there any shortage of bad ones?
The reason why ILECs are regulated is because the telephone was the primary method of realtime person-to-person communication which wasn't face to face for damn near 100 years, and government decided that it was vital enough to require that telephone service be provided to as many people as possible in as high of a state of reliability as possible. My wireline phone service has "downtime" far less than just about any other service I get.
However, it's a fair question to ask why they're regulated more than their new breed of competition. This new competition (wireless, VoIP, etc) has been far less reliable to this point in my experience. Vonage, while I love it, has certainly had repeated outages in the year that I've had it. It's been more reliable than Windows, but less reliable than my Verizon POTS.
Ditto with my Optimum Online.
If communications are essential for things like emergency service, and are a cause worthy of "universal service" type of access, then we need to regulate them to an extent to get the same level of reliability. If it's not that important, then there's no reason SBC should have to play by these rules, but not their competition.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
"Full grassroots and PAC management functionality"
"Legislator targeting".
Run the online demo. Especially the "asset tracking system", which generates maps It looks like Hollywood's vision of something a corrupt organization would use. But it's real.
Altoona PA subsidized a local non-profit to provide dialup internet service. Same excuse as normal: promote high technology.
The result:
1. The non-profit did the same mediocre job that every government subsidized project does.
2. Most of the independent ISPs (including the one I worked for) pulled out of Altoona since we couldn't compete (not enough people buy on quality; most buy on price).
3. As broadband was deployed, all the non-ILECs stayed out of Altoona.
4. The available options for Internet service in Altoona suck rocks.
Government subsidized anything sucks the life out of a market and just about guarantees stagnation. They're right to block it in Texas!
The better issue to be made is open access to the public infrastructure. The ILECs and cable companies use your right-of-way that you, the taxpayer, own. They should be compelled to open that part of their infrastructure to competitors at or near cost.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
It would really suck if we had this infrastructure and weren't able to allow people to access it - the plan was to have full Internet access from most of the city.
The network is already up, with a nice page that explains what it is when you connect and open up IE.
Why did zonk squeeze this into the "hardware" department, and not politics or YRO?
I have slashdots "politics" section blocked for a reason. I don't care about your whiney "me hatey boosh" flamefests.
I want to read about neat hardware, and hear some discussion about things technical.
Categorizing this news as "hardware" is pretty much akin to circumventing spam filters.
In the future, don't try to trick me into reading about your political views.
I am not intrigued, and would not like to subscribe to your newsletter.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
If you lookup the house journal the day of the vote, you will find a sweet bit of irony....
"The invocation was offered by Dr. Charles D. Walton, senior pastor, First
Baptist Church, Conroe, as follows:
Heavenly Father, we assemble today in an effort to accomplish what is best
for the citizens of Texas. There are good people here with good hearts, good
minds, and good intentions even though, we confess, Lord, there are times we
find it difficult to admit this to one another."
It is not FREE... it has to be paid by someone. I for one do not want my taxes going to pay for some teenage boy's ability to surf for pr0n. Plus, whenever the gov't gets involved, regulation, restriction, and censorship are not far behind. Finally, name one major profitable telco/provider that does NOT run more efficiently than any entity within the government.
Why does everyone always equate wireless access with laptop only? Say your city proivdes free wifi access for its citizens. Slap a $50 PCI WiFi card in a $300 Dell and your your up and running. There are various charities that give away computers for those who can't afford them (I've been involved in 3 at different times). Possibly the municipality can even buy PCI WiFi cards in bulk and distribute them to whoever comes in to sign up for their free wifi access and demonstrates a finacial need, or gives or sells at cost to local charities that give away computers.
Free MacMini
4. Free lawn service.
http://www.jefflindsay.com/NLCN.shtml
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I suppose it's encouraging that SBC thinks there's enough of a correlation between pulic support and a bill passing that they're campaigning with ads and a website...?
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
How is it communism if the majority of people choose to have the government provide certain services? That's a democracy if ever there was one. What you're suggesting is that ideologically the free market (i.e. corporations) must rule above the will of the people, and even in contradiction to the will of the people, which if it were strictly the case that would be far more closely aligned to other totalitarian/mercantilist/communist systems. The executive board of a small handful of companies should not be imposing decisions on communities about how any service should be provided. Now you might ask, should people be "allowed" to vote in a socialist policy? Of course they should, if they were not then it would not be a democracy anymore (don't confuse socialism with totalitarianism with communism etc.) ... modern democracies like the USA are full of socialist-like policies (e.g. minimum wage), and most people actually regard them as a good thing for society at large.
Wait....you guys don't still carry your guns to work?
...the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
Big special interests attack the weakest and most corrupt states first.
There's some otherwise very smart people living and working in Austin on technology right now. For example, one of the two IBM Linux Technology Centers in the US is there. The other is in my hometown of Portland, Oregon---one of the most wireless-friendly cities in the nation.
I hope Texans pass this bill, and rigorously enforce it. It'd be good for the Oregon economy.
As a resident of Texas, I actually wasn't aware fo this until I opened up Slashdot today. First, shame on me.
Fool me once... shame on... shame on you.
Fool me.. you can't get fooled again.
Fine, they want to stop free access?! Fine, we can play this game.
If I owned a coffee shop and previously offered free WiFi access, then if this bill got passed I would charge....1 penny. And to boot, I would roll it up in the price of the coffee.
Life is not for the lazy.
Is it fair for the cities to decide that it should be free and drive them out of business?
This is the same criticism that:
City-sponsored wifi isn't going to put anyone out of business. It's simply going to push the commercial providers to the next level of service offerings. That's the same as what happens in all the private vs. public examples I've given above. The government provides the baseline infrastructure that supports all kinds of interest in a given technology or service. Then the private sector extends that infrastructure with value-add features and quality that inspires consumers to pay for the private offerings. In the case of wifi, cities will probably put in 802.11g for now. Providers like Verizon can tout 802.11n for 100Mbps+ Wi-Fi with a monthly service fee.
The corporations are resisting this because they are missing a product lifecycle they can run consumers through (802.11g) that they can improve upon in subsequent years for people to upgrade to. Or, they'd like to offer multiple tiers of products at a range of prices to sell to rich and poor consumers. If the govt. carries the bottom end, corporations are somewhat limited to the upper tier offerings.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
People don't realize this is part of a concerted effort to help bring Texas back to its golden age. Yes - the 19th century. With your help we can get rid of progress and innovation and create a simpler, God fearing Texas.
Leave the gun, take the cannoli -- Clemenza, The Godfather
From the text of the document to be passed:
Sec. 53.401. APPLICATION OF SUBCHAPTER. This subchapter
applies only to a rural incumbent local exchange company.
Sec. 53.402. NEW SERVICES. (a) A rural incumbent local
exchange company shall price each new service at or above the
service's long run incremental cost. The commission shall allow
the company to establish a service's long run incremental cost by
adopting, at that company's option, the cost studies of a larger
company for that service that have been accepted by the commission.
(b) An affected person, the office on behalf of residential
or small commercial customers, or the commission may file a
complaint at the commission challenging whether the pricing by a
rural incumbent local exchange company of a new service is in
compliance with Subsection (a).
How is restricting rural companies from offering competitive based pricing going to help boost competition? Why are urban companies not prohibited from doing the same?
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
""The Texas legislature has the opportunity to modernize telecom regulation and promote innovation to finally reach our goals for new technologies and enhanced consumer benefits.""
WTF? That's a pretty damn funny line if you ask me. Promoting innovation by stopping the spread of wireless? Yeahhh...I guess once they get this passed, they'll promote their next "innovation" by moving to a phone "system" of two soup cans and a string. They will of course charge twice what customers are paying now for the backwards phone infrastructure already in place.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
911 Voip web site Lots of ads here in the Dallas area on the radio and tv about this subject. Now I see the SBC is behind all of this.
Executive ability is deciding quickly and getting someone else to do the work. --John G. Pollard