Month: January 2005

As John blogged earlier, the DULL (Delusional United Luddites of Lafayette) have filed a random petition with the Lafayette Parish Clerk of Court. In the press reports, they repeat the lie that they are not opposed to the LUS fiber to the premises plan — apparently, with straight faces. I’m not going to dignify the stories by providing links to them.

Well, on the back cover page of the January 10, 2005, edition of New Orleans CityBusiness I found what they are petitioning for: the right to be ripped-off!

A bit of a review is required by way of explanation.

LUS is proposing to bring to every home and small business in Lafayette a very fat connection to the Internet. The smallest connection ever mentioned was 24 megabits per second. 100 megabits per second is just as easily done as 24 megabits. And, a gigabit of intra-city connectivity is not out of the question, nor off the table.

LUS promises to do this at a significant discount to whatever services are offered by the incumbent carriers Cox and BellSouth. LUS also promises to continue regularly adjusting prices downward on a path to deliver “more bandwidth for less” to consumers and businesses here throughout the life of the project.

Now, despite their protestations, the DULL crowd is against this. Maybe not against this trend, but they are dead set against LUS delivering these benefits to Lafayette consumers and businesses. The fact that neither Cox nor BellSouth have indicated they would deliver similar infrastructure with a similar intent (and, in fact, have flatly declared that they would not) matters not to the DULL.

So, clearly, DULL is about ideology, not facts.

No, rather than allow the benefits of massively cheaper bandwidth make their way to Lafayette consumers and businesses, the DULL would have us gasping through the bandwidth reeds that the respective boards of Cox and BellSouth determine we should have.

Which brings us to the back page of New Orleans City Business.

It is a full-page ad for Cox Business Services. The headline reads: “No One’s Ever Complained That Their Internet Service Was Too Fast.” That is followed by a photo of a mouse leaving skid marks on a mouse pad; followed by the subhead: “Think Faster. Think Smarter. Think Bigger.”

Cox then proceeds to make a pitch for Cox Business Internet: “1.5 Mbps/384Kbps service for only $89 per month and get free installation.*” The asterisk refers readers to six-plus lines of fine print at the bottom of the ad which inform them that this is a special rate that won’t last past February 28, and that free installation only comes at the cost of a three-year contract, otherwise it could run as high as $249. There is also: “Rates and bandwidth options vary and are subject to change. Services not available in all areas. Other restrictions apply.”

You know the drill.

Cox Business Services in “Greater Louisiana” offers the same package as they do in New Orleans. I’m not sure if the rates are the same and they don’t provide any information on rates on that page or on the PDF which you download from that page.

So, in the name of ideological purity, the DULL would impose a bandwidth tax on every business in Lafayette because THEY would prefer that businesses in Lafayette wait until Cox and/or BellSouth decides that they will spend the money to bring fiber to every home and business in the city — if ever.

That is, the DULL would deny small businesses in Lafayette access to the kind of bandwidth that Cox doesn’t even offer it’s largest business customers. The DULL would do this because they oppose the concept of LUS providing services for philosophical reasons. The DULL may walk the streets as business people, but their brains live in ivory towers far removed from the real world.

What is particularly insulting about their opposition to the LUS plan is that the proceeds from the DULL Bandwidth Tax would not go to the benefit of the community but would instead go directly into the coffers of Cox and BellSouth! That is, the higher bandwidth costs which businesses would continue to pay if LUS is prevented from building their network and delivering their services would be money taken from those businesses and shipped off to Atlanta.

That this is the preferred course of events for the DULL is proof positive that they do not have the interests of this community at heart and that they do not have the interests of their fellow business people at heart. All they are about is garnering attention, defending the corporate interests of BellSouth and Cox, and demonstrating just how pristine are the ivory towers in which their thought processes are locked.

Executive Summary:

“‘Honestly, we’re not sure how it will work,’ Supple said. ‘This is the only thing we know to do”

Honestly, that’s all you need to know.

————

The saga of the petitioners who couldn’t get it right goes on. Both the Advocate and the Advertiser runs stories on the petitioners submitting their document to the registrar for signature validation.

These guys continue to look for the absolutely easiest way out. Having started with a law that, upon reflection seems unlikely to produce a valid petition, they up the wishful thinking quotient by hopefully asserting that only need to get enough signatures to meet the number required from city voters–a number smaller than the city-parish signatories. Trouble is, as all who attended the council meetings will recall, is that the council had to go through a series of double votes of both city and city-parish members to make sure that the parish, under whose authority the bonds were issued would be legally obliged, as well as the city, which had formal control of LUS. No one doubt the city-parish is the issuing authority. But the silliness doesn’t end there. Since they collected signatures from city-parish citizens all along (and none of their petition locales were, in fact, inside the city limits) it must be that they had another interpretation in mind when they began collect signatures? Look for a large number of invalid signatures under their interpretation. At some point you don’t need to be a lawyer to recognize how poorly this whole project was conceived. And they expect the people to trust their judgment about LUS and fiber? Really now.

The Advocate has the better story, as we’ve come to expect. Go there first.

Move on to the Advertiser if you’re interested in quotes from two signatories who work for BellSouth or it’s subsidiaries. (Neither paper reports the number of signatures gained for the petition during that window between Williams issuing the petition to his employees to carry around the city while they worked and his memo demanding that they not work on it during company time. –The petitioners aren’t the only ones having trouble getting it straight.)

At the Advertiser you’ll also be able to review the Advertiser’s first take on the now week and a half old story that Cox is in talks with the city on this issue. Maybe next week they’ll notice that BellSouth has also been down to city hall.

Competition springs up and whaddaya do? Sue ’em. If you’re BellSouth. Trouble is, it doesn’t always work.

BellSouth lost again Tuesday in its fight to stop the city of Laurinburg and a Fayetteville company from providing high-speed Internet access in Laurinburg.

A state Court of Appeals panel unanimously rejected BellSouth’s claim that Laurinburg and Schoollink Inc. use the city’s fiber-optic network to illegally compete against private industry.

Check it out in: Court Rejects BellSouth Complaint Against City’s Internet Service.

It’s a trend.

One of the dailies catches up to the local weekly (though trailing your friends here at LPF by a week) in Durel, Cox discuss fiber optics. Mostly this story repeats, with some interesting quotes, information and interpretation our readers will already be familiar with from our own report and the Independent’s. But there is a nugget worth pondering in regards to the incumbent hopes of joining the wining side:

“That window (of opportunity) starts closing every day to the day we sell the bonds,” Durel said.

And, indeed that is the limit for all opponents of the project. When the bonds are sold the train will have left the station.

Indeed, it’s my sense that the train has already pulled out. The odor that drifts over the battlefield is one of retreat and dissarry on the part of the incumbents. Some Cox managers appear to still be out of the loop as colleagues go around them to City Hall. Williams of BellSouth asks his employees not to circulate a petition that he had earlier issued them; abandoning the Fiber411 partisans in the field with a petition weapon that’s firing blanks. Williams has even begun ardently declaring that he was always been for bringing “Lafayette forward in the world of technology.”

My guess is that within a week our cautious majority will have turned into an all but unanimous chorus of support. And that it will be hard to find anyone who ever had any doubts.

Here’s something that is a little fun: A few knockoffs of our bumber sticker got printed locally and we’re happy to see some of them making their way onto cars. The more the merrier. You can download your own at our ArtWorks page.

Jon Fitzgerald, local fiber partisan, produced the current crop via the subscription method. If you’d like some get in touch with him. He says let him know. He’s got plenty left.

Update 1/21/05: My error! If you ‘ve tried to get in touch with Jon by email and the link didn’t work it was my error. I used the wrong domain (.com instead of .net) in the mailto link which provided a well-formed address that goes nowhere. Apologies to all those who eager desires were frustrated :-).

It is fixed now.

The Times has come out with a very interesting personality piece on our fiber controversy, if you don’t try too hard to read it as an accurate recounting of the news story but instead look at it as a kaleidoscope of various ways to look at the issue.

The story, as I understand it, started out as an interview-based overview of the contending partisans (and not LUS/LCG). But with the emergence of a series of petition missteps, it looks as if it were incompletely converted into a news story.

What’s missing are the perspectives and words of Huval and Durel, both articulate men with a distinctive point of view and an original voice. But what you get is interesting enough in its own right: the voices of those who are passionate about the project, both pro and con.

You’ll get some definite opinions from Doug Menefee, Neal Breakfield, Mike Stagg and me. Not all partisans on either side fully agree and you’ll get a taste of that, too. All in all, it’s well worth reading. Nobody will really like this version, but it should inform us all about the way folks are thinking.

There was one throw-away line in this week’s Independent fiber-optic story that deserves its own post:

As the LUS initiative draws nearer to becoming reality, the two private providers are scaling back any opposition to the project people may associate with their company. Local BellSouth representative John Williams says the company recently sent out a memo requesting that their employees no longer take company time to solicit signatures for a petition to hold a public vote on the LUS issue. Cox employees have not participated in the petition. (emphasis mine)

More evidence, were more needed, that most opponents are beginning to get realistic about about Lafayette’s determination to do this thing. Would that our sputtering band of petitioners, now abandoned by their only large public supporter, do the same.

Someone’s hearing our message:

“…get out of our way, because we are not going to back down on this.”

The Independent’s Nathan Stubbs covers, for the first time in the mainstream media, a story we broke here last Thursday: the news that the incumbents have begun to make “overtures” to LUS and the city. That story, Cracks in the Axis of Evil? Is Cox Seeking a Place at LUS Table? Cox Makes “Overtures” was based on news that Joey Durel had mentioned such talks at a Rotary breakfast, a fact later confirmed by Durel via blackberry and email.

Here’s the heart of the Ind’s story:

Riding high on favorable coverage the fiber initiative received in two recent USA Today articles (including an endorsement of the plan), Durel says some of the top executives with the two national companies may now be ready to talk about ways they can work with Lafayette Consolidated Government.

“Anyone that wants to come talk to us has got to put an extremely sincere and serious offer on the table,” he says. “Otherwise it will only be a five-minute conversation.’

Apparently BellSouth, ever arrogant, suggested that Lafayette could trek to Atlanta to talk about it. Partisans will be pleased to note Durel’s response:

“Our attitude is basically, tell Atlanta to come to us. We’re here,”

Some disarray in Cox’s ranks seems likely. While Durel continues to say Cox has made the trek to city hall, Cox’s local representative, Cassard, is unaware of any visit. The rumor mill has it that Cox’s exTCA staff and much of the personnel associated with the early stages of the battle (For instance, the infamous TJ Crawdad (1) (2)) are gone, leaving Cassard virtually the only local or regional representative of the old regime. Possibly he is no longer in the loop.

While I personally remain reserved about handing these guys any of the income that LUS will need to secure the network I’d love to see how they might bring new revenue to the table. Remember, they had a chance to be participants and chose to trash our community, now they come as beggars to the feast.

Reservations aside, there is no question but that this is major news. Even if nothing comes of it, it is now apparent that the talks are at least feelers–and it can only mean that the big boys are bracing for LUS’ success. And, like good businessmen everywhere, trying to figure out how they can profit from the new reality.

The Dailies covered the strange story of the dead man walking petition this morning. It’s a story we’ve told and retold on these pages so I’ll just let them tell it this time.

Advertiser:

A petition being circulated calling for a vote on the LUS fiber optic project is not valid, LUS Director Terry Huval told the City-Parish Council on Tuesday.

Advocate:

… it’s not clear whether the petition is valid in the first place.

The administration has contended all along that, if a group wants to call for a vote of the people, it should follow petition and referendum procedures in the city-parish charter, which requires signatures of 15 percent of registered voters.

Fiber 411 is seeking signatures under the authority of a state statute dealing with public improvement bonds, which requires signatures from only 5 percent of the turnout from the last election.

But LUS is issuing the $125 million in bonds using a different state statute — one that regulates revenue bonds and that contains no provisions for a petition.

In effect, the Fiber 411 petition may not be anymore than a representation of public opinion — not a legally binding document.

On the Honesty of the Petition’s Presentation

Advertiser:

City-Parish President Joey Durel again Tuesday encouraged residents not to sign the petition unless they oppose the fiber project. Some individuals circulating the petition are falsely telling residents that signing the petition does not indicate opposition to the fiber plan, he said.

“They are completely against the project,” Durel said. “If you sign the petition, realize you are against the project.”

Advocate:

Durel said the group is using “false pretenses” by telling people a signature on the petition indicates only a desire to vote.

“While they’re telling you that they are not for or against it, they are not being honest,” Durel said. “They are completely against it.”

Advocate:

Councilman Louis Benjamin said there’s a lot of misinformation circulating about the LUS project.

“The bottom line is very simple,” Benjamin said. “If I own the company that I’m doing business with, then naturally it’s going to be a cheaper product.”

LUS is owned by its customers and overseen by the Lafayette Public Utility Authority — made up of the councilmen whose districts are primarily inside the city limits.

The fight here in Lafayette is a part of the larger story of a telecom industry gone increasingly awry. The citizens of Lafayette are not the only Americans to have reason to distrust companies like Cox and BellSouth.

A sign of how serious the problem has become is that Consumers Union, nonprofit publisher of the ad-free Consumer Reports, has launched a new project, hearusnow.org, aimed at helping consumers understand their choices–and more significantly, helping them learn how to fight for a fairer economic balance between consumers and the increasingly powerful telecom giants.

This is a model site, well designed, easy to navigate, and above all rich in useful information. Such sites are hard to review–they are too rich for a simple review to do them justice. One way to help readers of this blog to get a sense of its power is to link down to some good content from the top in hopes of introducing the site instead of “telling about” it.

In that spirit try this:

Head on over to hearusnow.org take a look around, get a sense of the breadth of telecom issues covered (from Internet & Broadband, to TV, Radio & Cable to Digital Content on the navigation bar). Not issue but activity oriented? Try Get Heard, Get Involved, and Get Help sections. Got a sense of the choices?

Click on Internet & Broadband and admire the interface consistency for a moment. Then try the story from the center aisle: Issue Alert :: It’s Only Fair: All Americans Should Have Access to the Internet. Give it a read; its worth it. Here’s a teaser from down it the story:

The primary cause of the digital divide is that consumers pay inflated prices for the basic services needed to connect to the high-speed Internet. In fact, U.S. consumers pay more than consumers in other parts of the world for broadband, and generally experience lower service quality (in the form of slower speeds). For example, Americans pay ten to twenty times as much as consumers in Korea and Japan for broadband, and the U.S. has fallen from third to thirteenth in the world in the percentage of citizens with broadband service.

The telecom giants in our country aren’t tending to their job. What we’ve noticed locally is true across this country: we are being charged far too much for far too little. It can be done a lot better. If the teleco’s won’t do a good job we can do it for ourselves.

Run on down the bottom of the page and take a look a the nifty graphs. One may surprise those among us who haven’t been doing the research: Drawn from a federal study with an obscenly obscure name it demonstrates something that the cablecos would just as soon you didn’t know: that contrary to their propoganda satellite TV has not proved to be an effective restraint on the steadily increasing charges of monopoly cable companies like Cox. (This little fact is lying around anywhere the research can be found; this is far from the only study.) Nope, monopoly pricing really does flow from cable’s monopoly coax network, just like your economics teacher would have insisted.

Outraged? I don’t blame you. Me too. Scroll back up to the top of the page and click on “Get Involved” in the right hand column. There’s lots of neat things to do on that page but let’s say you are attracted to “Share Your Story” because you’re miffed about incumbent disinfo in Lafayette. Et voila: there you are–in a place where you can tell the world Lafayette’s story.

Neat eh? That is one of many routes you can take. It is a rich site.

Lagniappe: thought that was all, eh? No. Any site so comprehensive couldn’t miss Lafayette’s story. Consumer Union thinks we have a point too: “BellSouth puts pressure on small town.”