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Time Warner Cable Won't Compete, Seeks Legislation
narramissic writes "The good people of Wilson, NC pay $99/month for 10/10 Mbps internet service, 81 TV channels and telephone service. How'd they manage that, you ask? Well, the city-owned and operated cable service called Greenlight came into being when the City of Wilson approached TWC and local DSL provider Embarq and requested faster service for the area. 'TWC refused the request. And so Greenlight was born,' says blogger Peter Smith. 'Now Time Warner Cable and Embarq are upset that they've got competition, and rather than try to go head to head with Greenlight on price and service, they've instead been lobbying the state government of NC to pass laws to put Greenlight out of business. Apparently they're having some success, as the NC State Senate has proposed bills that would do TWC's bidding.'"
Would it just be easier to convert Greenlight to a citizen run corporation or make it a utility?
I am not a legal eagle on NC law, but I would think it wouldn't be that difficult to convert to a citizen run profit/nonprofit corporation and then TWC is effectively screwed.
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
The US needs competition for all these Cable/ISPs. I just read an article about how most countries with high-speed internet offers about 50Mbps for the price I pay for 10 Mbps.
It's mostly because of the competition among the providers.
What's the matter TWC, afraid that your archaic bloated business model couldn't compete?
Shameless plug alert: Game server control panel
So is this proof that the Gov't is run by Corporations? Like we really didn't already know but come on...
If all lobbying was eliminated, we might have a semi-fair and equal system but that won't be happening while the politicos keep getting free vacations and money to line their bentleys.
Der Tod ist der einzige Weg hier raus!
This is why TWC needs to be investigated for their practices. It seems to me that the NC government just wants to roll over to TWC wishes. I for one applaude that community that actually went out and did something to improve their service. Also I believe 10/10Mbps for $99 is a fair price as long as the quality is there.
It's sickening to watch massive corporations give up on the ideals of commercialism (competing for the consumer's dollars on the basis of quality, service, and price) and instead simply doing business through legislation (make it illegal for your competition to exist...). I feel like I'm watching someone's Cyberpunk or Shadowrun campaign come together as megacorps take control of governments... It's all sickening...
They have Greenlight and Time-Warner cables running in parallel to one another? Good!!! I wish more communities would do stuff like that. If every city had TW, Comcast, Cox running 3-4 cables in parallel, then the power would be in the hands of the People to choose which one they like best.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
But only when it is convenient. When it isn't convenient, they expect the government to prop up their business model in order to ensure that their profits are maximized and that their competition is none.
This is an extremely ugly an hypocritical face of modern business today. People want lower prices and more affordable services and if they have to build it themselves to get it, they should be allowed to do it.
This is not an entirely new story as other communications/media companies have sued municipalities to prevent them from making competitive progress in areas where they otherwise did not want to compete or operate. And these companies won. I am a little lost on what legal justification was used in winning their cases though... anyone have any insight?
This has happened before, for a municipal-sponsored project.
From the project manager's blog, some of what they are doing is actually fair: not allowing cities to price below costs. This makes a lot of sense and is actually good for competition. Not allowing subscription fees to pay for other city projects - this on the other hand is not necessarily fair. Ideally TWC should be pricing their service competitively to Greenlight such that no extra profit is left over to fund other city projects. But they don't want to do that. They just want to minimize the threat from Greenlight given that they can't get rid of them. In my opinion, though, a public service using public resources should not overcharge to begin with - it should charge all subscribers a fair rate so that it's a self-contained project which provides exactly the service it was created to do.
ISPs and cable companies have a history of trying to avoid competition like this. A similar municipal wi-fi initiative was stifled in Pennsylvania a few years ago.
Amen to that.
Bubububbut I thought the market decided these things! I guess I didn't realize that the legislature was on the market as well.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Corporations have always used the power of government to stifle their competition. It has been this way especially since the advent of mercantilism 400+ years ago.
It was this way when the East India company was importing tea to England. It was this way with the railroads in the 1800's. It was this way under FDRs New Deal (which had the gove help big corps and put policies in place to screw over smaller ones). Its that way now.
The product may change over time but the methods used to bury your competition are ancient.
Do you really think that $99 is a good deal?
How much does TWC charge for similar service?
It does seems like it from the few working experiences that we have around the world [1,2]. I hope this is realized that we do need to guarentee a public network, maybe along the private one but nonetheless a good public network!
We need ISP agnostic fiber to the homes, now!
For those in Canada (note the "eh" in the title :P), give your voice below, the CRTC is asking for advise (for what it's worth...):
http://isppractices.econsultation.ca/ (english)
http://pratiquesfsi.econsultation.ca/ (franÃais)
[1]. http://cis471.blogspot.com/2009/04/why-is-connectivty-in-stockholm-so-much.html
[2]. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/04/shocker-aussies-to-build-own-open-access-fiber-backbone.ars
These are the same companies that scream "socialism" every time the government even HINTS at nationalizing anything, but the second they face any REAL competition they run screaming to the government to give them special protected status (with campaign donations and other bribes in hand). Their "free market" means "free for us to rape anyone we want market" and alternatives be damned.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
and nothing the government provides or does is any good.
One could make the counter argument that we wouldn't have this duopoly situation to begin with if Government wasn't so involved in the marketplace. In most parts of the US I can't legally start my own cable or telephone company without signing a franchise agreement with the local government. Said agreements are virtually always exclusive and serve the purpose of shutting out competition.
Mind telling me what possible public interest is served by prohibiting me from rolling out my own cable service if I've got the capital and the wherewithal to do so?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
This is another example of how a socialist system run by the peoples representatives can do better than some private dictatorship run for the benefit of wealthy elite interests. This is because the city government is controlled by the people and is operated with consent of the people to provide services in the common interest and in the common good, at the highest quality and lowest cost. The purpose of corporations instead is to provide the worst service at the highest cost to enrich wealthy plutocrats that run them. Thats why the corporations adn wealthy elites through their Republican conservative ayn rand and rush limbaugh elitist pro-corporate totalitarian plantation slave labour admirer puppets will fight tooth and nail against anything that will benefit and improve the conditoons of the common people and give them control over their lives and make systems that benefit everyone, rather than exploit us for the mansions and yachts of a wealthy elite. This totalitarainists are clearly in control of North Carolina, being the neofascist Republican totalitarian state it is, and want to assure that the people are rupe to be raped by massive corporations and to destroy anything that gets in the way of exploitation of the people for benefit of elite yachts.
Their goal is to impoverish common people, starve people to death with slave wages and deny health care to the people so they can continue to expand their own wealth. since the 1980s this is whats been happening, with waes of common people falling, unemployment growing, and quality life falling, the only people who have gotten wealthier are the elite fat cats who control our economic system. When are we going to stop putting up with slave wages, high prices and lousy service so some arrogant CEO can sit on a yacht all day, and who considers that his birth right. A major cause of our present economic recession and as well the fact americans are dying because of lack of healthcare when every other country has universal health care coverage for less per capita cost, is that we have greed and an economic system rigged up by the wealthy and greedy elite to make themselves richer at the expense of everyone else. They own so much opf the economy that they control everything, people are under their control at their wal mart job, how much money adn what life they have is controlled, their health care is controlled, how much things cost is controlled. There is a hidden tax in everything we buy that goes not to help the poor but to pay for some greedy corporate elites yacht, this is the corporate overhead adn profit margins corporations put ine verything we buy which is made for cents in china and sold for hun dreds here, both impoverishing chinese and destroying american jobs, the only winners are corporate elitist fascists. ALL of this is done WITH NO CONTROL over it by the people. Unlike our government, the people have no voice in this corporations which have more power over peoples lives than government, and who actually buy the government through campaign contributions, dismantle all pro-consumer and pro-working class government regulations so corporations become defacto governments above the law. THus law becomes something ratheer than to protect peoples freedom, something to protect masive corporations like we see with RIAA and MPAA, at the same time government ignores the basic needs of people to food shelter, medical care and housing. The corporate system is one who only see people has having a value to expand and enrich corporations, they see people as things to be exploited, used and thrown away again and left to die when no longer useful to them. It needs to be replaced with an economic system for and by the common people, a democratic socialist system where we elect who runs the corporations who control the economy.
Do you want private companies having to compete with the government? Generally, past history suggests that is a bad idea. The government is a special entity with special powers so you have to be very very careful when you allow government to go into "profit based business" - which is what this is. Tax spending on services/infrastructure is one thing. Profit based business is an entirely different animal.
I have no problem with the idea of busting up the monopolies but you don't do that by making your government compete with private industry. No, instead you encourage OTHER private players to come in and compete with the monopoly (or you pass legislation, tax cuts, or whatever that does the same). If you insist on putting your government "in business", then you will eventually drive out all the other competitors aside from the government. Remember, the government can do LOTS of things that private industry can't so, by default, it's an unfair playing field. Look no further than the banking system right now for an example of how that plays out. Government was never designed to "be in business".
For a bunch of tin-foil hat guys, the slashdot crowd really puts a lot of faith in government solutions of all kinds.....
I hate Comcast as much as the rest of you. But I cringe at the idea of my city government being in the ISP business.
After all, Greenlight, being government-run, is by very definition grossly inefficient. Time Warner ought to be able to beat them on both performance and price and still have a wide profit margin.
Either that or maybe sometimes the government can actually provide decent, efficient services...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
here is the link to the actual bill: http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/Sessions/2009/Bills/Senate/PDF/S1004v0.pdf
In essence, what the bill is saying is that a govt provided internet service should be self-sufficient, unsubsidized and be applicable to all costs and taxes that a private organization is. It is not trying to establish a monoply but instead trying to take the unfair advantage away from a govt sponsored organization.
Here is the text from actual bill:
Requirements. â" A city that operates a public enterprise under G.S. 160A-311 that provides communications services to the public for a fee over a communications network that is directly or indirectly owned or operated by or provides a financial benefit to the city or another city shall meet the following conditions with respect to the provision of communications service:
(1) Comply with all local, State, and federal laws, regulations, or other requirements that would apply to the communications services if provided by a private communications service provider.
(2) Establish a separate enterprise fund for communications service and shall use this fund to separately account for revenues, expenses, property, and source of investment dollars associated with the provision of communications service.
(3) Shall not subsidize the cost of providing communications service with funds from any other noncommunications service, operation, or other revenue source, including any funds or revenue generated from electric, gas, water, sewer, or garbage services. In complying with this requirement, a city owned communications service provider shall not price any communications service below the cost of providing the service.
(4) Shall, in calculating the cost incurred and in the rates to be charged for the provision of communications services, impute: (i) the cost of the capital component that is equivalent to the cost of capital available to private communications service providers in the same locality; and (ii) an amount equal to all taxes, including property taxes, licenses, fees, and other assessments that would apply to a private communications service provider including federal, state, and local taxes; rights-of-way, franchise, consent, or administrative fees; and pole attachment fees.
(5) Shall annually remit to the general fund of the city an amount equivalent to all taxes or fees a private communications service provider would be required to pay the city or county in which the city is located, including any applicable tax refunds received by the city owned communications service provider because of its government status and a sum equal to the amount of property tax that would have been due if the city owned communications service provider were a private communications service provider.
(6) Shall prepare and publish an independent annual audit in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles that reflect the fully allocated cost of providing the communications service, including all direct and indirect costs. The indirect costs shall include amounts for rights-of-way, franchise, consent, or administrative fees, regulatory fees, occupation taxes, pole attachment fees, and ad valorem taxes. The annual accounting shall reflect any direct or indirect subsidies received by the city owned communications service provider, and any buildings, equipment, vehicles, and personnel that
32 are jointly used with other city departments shall be fully allocated to the city owned communications service. The North Carolina Utilities Commission may adopt rules and regulations to ensure compliance with the provisions of this subdivision, and all records demonstrating compliance shall be filed with the North Carolina Utilities Commission and made available for public inspection and copying.
Yes it is an no it's not. This is a semantics thing. You hear "free" and assume it's structured to be a level playing field. They hear "free" and assume it means that they are free to bribe, cheat, steal and pass laws to screw others without prosecution.
The difficulty here is that we associate the word "free" with good things. This lead to terms like "pro-life" and "pro-choice" instead of "anti-choice" and "pro-death" -- the terms used by the controllers of the message about the other guys.
There's no point in having "free" market discussions, therefore. You'll never agree until you abandon the term to the guy who controls the terms (ie. has more money to influence the media).
Which means you're screwed from the outset: You're bringing a well-reasoned argument to a knife fight.
However, due to government provided monopolies given because businesses are allowed to lobby the government, this doesn't happen.
The best solution is probably to strip the cable and phone providers of its guaranteed monopoly and let other businesses compete.
What if I don't want to pay somebody else's profit? What if we, as a community, decide we want to start a service cooperative, where no one takes any profit, rather than shoveling our money into some fat cat's pockets? We as a community decide what to do, and we do it. And nobody profits, which is how it should be. We put up the money to do it, we reap the reward, and the capitalist vultures can go steal someone else's money.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Except that, FTA, Greenlight is not using tax dollars to subsidize the service. The service is paying for itself. It is not as profitable as TWC, but it is still profitable. Simply put, TWC does not want to actually compete with anyone -- they want to maintain the monopoly they have on high speed Internet services.
Palm trees and 8
Yeah! And we should make sure they get out of the Water business, since both Coke _AND_ Pepsi have bottled water now, right?! I mean, I can't wait until I can use the new Coke Shower or the Pepsi toilet!
And man, how cool would it be if I could drive on GM Roads! I'm sure they'd be making a profit if they had their own roads. If only it wasn't for that nasty government making all of their roads public. I mean, look at what the auto industry did for the wonderful Public Transit system was have in the U.S. now! Wow! I mean, who wouldn't want to wait for the once and hour bus, pay over two dollars a trip, and have a 14 minute trip take almost an hour! /Sarcasm
We need an IP infrastructure to be in public hands, and we need it ten years ago.
I think people have forgotten the difference between government at the township level and government at the state/federal level. The local government is mostly residents who are ignored by lobbyists and do their best to make the town thrive. Yes, I am saying that if it is the people wish that the government should make their lives better, they should be able to use government to make their lives better. (Provided, of course, that they are educated and not being hoodwinked into giving up rights). Also, however, the township should not enforce the monopoly and if a small ISP wants to use the lines to compete with the township, they should have access to the lines. (Perhaps they want to offer 2mbit for $20 a month?)
This situation is similar to the people forming a co-op to provide themselves with network connectivity, only corporations are crying foul because instead of forming a co-op to get things done, the citizens (not subjects in this case) went through existing channels (local government).
This is precisely the kind of grassroots involvement that I LIKE to see because if people believe they can change the local government, they might believe that they don't have to lie down when corporations make their state and federal government steamroll them.
A government should, ideally, stand back and let private citizens do their own thing, but thats not happening, not at the state level, not at the federal level. TWC has lobbyists, the township citizens did not. Until the township has the same pull as TWC, the local government needs to step up and fight fire with fire.
We are well beyond a free market economy, and while its nice to think about what government would look like without the past 233 years of corporate influence, that's not the world we live in. The only way to get a free market economy would be to abolish corporations, abolish the current government, demolish the infrastructure, and start from scratch. Why? Because for every email, vote, and action taken by a citizen, a corporation will pay X dollars to a lobbyist to drip honey in senator's ears. To get a free market economy, you'd have to get rid of lobbying, all of the laws influenced by lobbying, the lobbyists, and all of the senators who were put in place by campaign contributions from corporations.
Besides, as long as there is a system to game, people will game it, why shouldn't the local government game it for the direct benefit of its citizens?
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
I'm not defending TWC in any way, but municipal Internet systems are generally a bad idea. They don't keep pace with technology improvements and the cross-subsidy from the grants and what not tends to drive all the commercial systems out of the community.
Altoona PA was a good example. They created a municipal dialup system in the mid-90's because they thought that $20 was too much to pay for dialup. They were still stuck with it in the middle of this decade because they'd driven out the ISPs who would have brought in DSL and Cable modems.
Municipal physical infrastructure (like Utopia out in Utah) is a somewhat better idea. There you reframe the competitive process without ending it.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Do you want private companies having to compete with the government?
Sometimes yes and sometimes no. In this case, yes. Municipal internet is a great idea just like municipal water, fire, police, trash collection, etc. I like my utilities to be provisioned at cost. Private enterprise won't do that.
Generally, past history suggests that is a bad idea.
Can you provide an example and explain how it applies to this case?
Edith Keeler Must Die
This should be a big clue to the pro privatization crowd who routinely claim that government provided services are inevitably many times more costly or much poorer quality than what a corporation would provide.
TW clearly doesn't believe it can compete with what is already offered. If they did, they'd just compete Greenlight into the ground and save the legal fees.
Riddle me this: What incentive does your municipal internet have to improve services over time? or even offer the level of service you desire?
What incentive is there for your local cable internet monopoly to do the same? Are they doing it? I see stores about fee increases and bandwidth caps. Is that meeting customer demand? Where are these customer that are demanding higher fees for less service?
Your question assumes private industry is doing those things. But the fact that there is a demand for municipal internet service says private industry isn't doing that everywhere it could. Instead, they are seeking laws that prevent municipalities from filling in the gaps in coverage of private for-profit service. Private internet is intervening in the workings of the market by trying to use the law to prevent municipal providers from filling in the gaps where they aren't meeting customer demand. If that isn't anti-competitive and anti-consumer, then I don't know what is.
Edith Keeler Must Die