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Broadband Black Holes, iPods, and Astroturf
Unserved user gets broadband, attention, iPod, and used as lobbying tool

Back in May of 2004, we profiled one of our rural forum users who was told by Time Warner Cable he needed to pay $25,000 to have his area wired with broadband. Stuck in a zone of unserved broadband purgatory between Time Warner Cable and Cablevision, the user was just a few hundred feet from getting service.

The user pleaded with Time Warner Cable for five years to no avail. The company did five surveys to estimate how much it would cost to wire his road, with estimates ranging from $18,000 to $26,000. Bombarded with service ads, the user says he filed complaints with the NYS Public Service Commission, circulated petitions, and attended town board meetings - all to no avail.

Recently Cablevision was granted a local franchise agreement to serve his town, and the company - after a six week construction period - finally provided him with broadband access last October as per the terms of that agreement.

The user, David Shapiro, told his story to the website My Cable Nightmare, which is operated by Consumers4Choice, a group "committed to the development of a competitive, vibrant cable communications market." In December, Shapiro was awarded an ipod for his horror story, thereby getting service, attention, and an iPod.

Stop reading here if you simply like a happy story, and don't appreciate irony or nuance.

Consumers4Choice is a PR front group backed by the telcos to sway public opinion. Their primary goal is to push frequently uninformed citizens to clamor for the elimination of local franchise agreements - thus speeding up telcoTV deployment (at least to profitable areas, which Mr. Shapiro's is not). Cable companies are doing the same thing, launching pseudo-consumer groups of their own to counter the telco message.

Mr. Shapiro's story is being used by Astroturf (bogus grass roots) groups to sell the public on the need to eliminate "cumbersome" local franchise agreements. But in reality, he couldn't get DSL or cable, and because he lives in rural America, will likely will never see telcoTV, regardless of which type of franchise his state employs.

Ironically Verizon paid Consumers4Choice $75,000 in startup funds to help support their effort to eliminate local franchise agreements with stories like Shapiro's. In the end, Shapiro wound up ditching three Verizon landlines and getting triple-play service from Optimum Online, thanks to build-out requirements of a local franchise agreement. The irony runs deep.

Most recommended from 33 comments


jp10558
Premium Member
join:2005-06-24
Willseyville, NY

3 recommendations

jp10558

Premium Member

Isn't broadband starting to be like roads?

I mean, ok, socialist here - and lots of people hate this, but we've had years of telcos battling cablecos sort of fighting wireless/satallite/whatever nonexistant/expensive alternative there is.

At this point, it's basically an issue of no one wanting 50 different wires to their house, or 50 different companies tearing up the roads and such.

So why isn't this a government project like running electricity or telephones were? Why not do it like the roads, and then let the digital equivelent of FedEx, UPS,DHL, and the USPS and whoever else wants duke it out for the head end connection to the net?

Sure, this isn't fair to those who don't have broadband, but then road taxes aren't fair to those who don't drive. School taxes aren't fair to those who don't have schoolchildern. Isn't general infrastructrue basically the reason we have a government? And one of the main things it makes sense for them to do?

I mean, otherwise, we have the crazy inability of customers to get service, or ridiculious connection charges. Then we have the lawsuits against people banding together to get it themselves when the companies don't want to provide it.

Is there a better way? Cause what we have now doesn't seem to be working.