Month: January 2005

As a counterpoint to USAToday’s endorsement of Lafayette’s right to self-determination (blogged earlier) the paper allows William A. Oliver, president of BellSouth Louisiana, the space for a rebuttal.

Mr. Oliver, unfortunately, doesn’t really attempt a rebuttal. After all, he isn’t planning to provide fiber to the home in Lafayette any time soon and he can’t just own up to being afraid that a Lafayette with LUS providing a telecom utility won’t be much less lucrative for his company.

So instead of any rebuttal of substantial points of the newspaper’s editorial he weakly and rather incredibly resorts to claiming that he doesn’t actually want to stop us. I know that seems just too obviously a lie to possibly be what he says. But that is what he says, and I quote:

“It has never been BellSouth’s intention to derail this project.”

To which I can only say BS–and that I can now see why BellSouth’s initials are BS.

This is the sort of contemptuous lie that assumes that his readers are so stupid that they can be swayed merely by his pious claim to “fair competition” sanctity. BS.

It’s BS to say that the law that BellSouth tried to get passed in the Louisiana Legislature wasn’t intended to stop LUS from even thinking about such a project by making it impossible to even fund a study of the issue.

It’s BS to say that the fake “Academic” forum they helped sponsor that featured bought and paid for “expert witnesses,” the fourm that simply lied about the history of municipal successes in this area was intended to do anything but stop the project.

It’s BS to be paying legions of your lobbyists to use the regulatory power of the PSC to impose conditions on your opponent that you claim should not be applied to your provision of the same service isn’t intended to do anything but stop the project.

And today, on the very day that the executives of BS try turn their loyal local employees into a paid political arm of the corporation. On the very day that their trucks roll all over Lafayette charged with getting signatures on a dubiously legal petition from folks who they visit on service calls. On today of all days it should be apparent that it is BullShit to claim that BellSouth is not trying to stop LUS. They are. And if they had a grain of honor they’d own up to it.

The sort of mindset that allows Oliver to write an essay like this is contemptuous of the truth. For these guys: no quarter. The incumbents have behaved and continue to behave dishonorably. They deserve our contempt and nothing more. I invite you to join me in that condemnation.

The USToday largess continues! Words you never thought you’d hear: USAToday ENDORSES Lafayette’s cause. But its true. They do so pointedly saying:

Lafayette, like dozens of other cities unwilling to wait for telecommunications giants such as Bell South to install broadband pipelines, decided to build its own. That should have been the end of the story. Why shouldn’t citizens be able to use their own resources to help themselves?

The editorial goes on to review the case, easily dismissing specious incumbent arguments that we already have broadband we need by pointing out that what is being offered is slower, more expensive, than our alternative and is not available to all our citizens, as LUS’ will be. And to drive the point home they let their national readership know that BellSouth and Cox are simply refusing to provide the services they are trying to prevent the city from building.

As Durel said in the article that inspired for this endorsement: They need to get out of our way!

The story closes with this endorsement of Lafayette’s basic position:

Louisiana regulators are busy reviewing the case. But for Lafayette to lose, there are a couple of things the regulators will have to ignore: fairness and common sense.

Lafayette has every reason to enthused about this. It’s rare to get such explicit encouragement from a national outlet. The paper is absolutely right, of course; the argument is simple and compelling: The big out of town corporations refuse to provide what we need; so we are doing it for oursleves. There’s nothing unfair about that, contrary to the incumbent propoganda, and nothing offensive. Doing for ourselves is just good common sense.

A little Lagniappe: You know, if this is so clear to the folks who work for Gannett way across the country, you’d think that the local Gannett newspapers could see what is right in front of their faces. Where are our local endorsements? We can no longer put it off on corporate timidity. No, the lack of vision and courage is in downtown Lafayette.

Talk to the BellSouth workers. And the Cox ones for that matter. In my experience they are good folks; and while they’ve been feed a line by their employers they are local people who talk sense if you scratch the surface just a little.

Coming back from the doctor’s this morning I saw a BellSouth truck pulled up on a side street. I had earlier resolved to talk to one of the guys in the trucks to see what they thought about being “allowed” to carry it around it so I took the opportunity to ask.

He was a local guy (our accent is clear) and I opened by asking him if he was carrying “that petition” around in his truck. What followed was a good conversation that reconfirmed my feelings that they guys who do the work are good folks and that BellSouth has really stepped out of bounds by setting its local employees to the task of tending its political messes.

After a little back and forth he told me had put his “copy of the petition in the shredder” and wasn’t intending to ask any of his neighbors to sign the thing. He didn’t feel like that was his job. And, he made it clear, in part he felt that way because he didn’t really trust his company’s motives: he thought that “they were all about the money.” He didn’t like the way that when you called up with trouble on your phone that you didn’t get local people like you used to. Instead you got someone in Birmingham or Nicaragua. He was a good enough member of the Communications Workers of American to know that BellSouth’s policies weren’t always good for him or his fellas.

I dont’ want to misrepresent him. He was also a company loyalist who had been with the Bell through decades of changes. He thinks LUS overcharges. He is proud of his and his colleagues technical expertise in splicing cables and such and thinks LUS is currently taking advantage of their expertise. He has no sympathy for competitors like EATEL and AT&T who he believes are renting lines below cost and making BellSouth maintain them at below cost prices. He doesn’t really trust the city to act any differently from his own company and believes that working and poorer parts of town won’t get service soon from LUS either. You get the drift. He’s proud of his work. He thinks he and his fellows do a better job than those other guys. He’s earned his pride. It’s guys like him that have kept the services I’ve enjoyed so clear all these years.

So he’s proud of his work and his company; at the same time he resents being asked to carry around a petition on a local political issue for out of state bosses he doesn’t particularly trust.

We ended up shaking hands and exchanging names. I recommend you repeat my little experiment. I think you’ll enjoy it and find out that the official line is not necessarily the position of the guys on the line. And you’ll have the opportunity to let these guys know, that like them, its the BellSouth executives you don’t trust, not the people who actually do the work.

The ministerial group mentioned in the story linked to in the headline for this post gets to the heart of the corporatist approach to infrastructure buildouts: It perpetuates and magnifies divisions in communities.

In the views of Cox and BellSouth, Louisiana is not ready for fiber to the home technology; and, if Louisiana is not ready, then Lafayette is not ready. Once Lafayette is deemed ready (at some point a decade or so into the future and probably after Baton Rouge and Jefferson Parish) not all of Lafayette will be deemed ready; it will be certain sections of Lafayette.

This is the essence of the digital divide.

Critics (i.e., petitioners) of the LUS plan are, apparently, threatened by the prospect of all citizens — regardless of class — having access to advanced network services.

That is the true beauty of the LUS plan: it is for ALL of us!

Back in the day, when Cox Regional VP Gary Cassard was barnstorming the parish touting his company’s prowess and the woe that awaited LUS (and its ratepayers) if our municipally-owned utility built its fiber network and began offering services, Cassard told anyone who would listen that Cox had a trump card that would lay waste to the best laid plans of LUS.

The trump card? The Cox “Triple Play” — voice, data and video for about $85 per month.

Being a Cox customer for about a year, I have looked forward with some anticipation to the unveiling of Cox’s telephone service, which finally rolled out in the last quarter of 2004. At my house, we have all four tiers of the Cox digital cable service (plus the HBO package) and high-speed Internet. The monthly bill runs right at $130. Fairly steep, but it represents a significant improvement over what we were paying when I had a BellSouth DSL line and Dish Network satellite service. Dish was cheaper than Cox, but BellSouth was sticking me something awful for the DSL line.

So, when the Cox phone service rolled out, we decided to check it out. A friend of my wife had told her that she (the friend) had received discounts on the cable and Internet service when they signed up for the phone service.

So, between Christmas and New Year’s, I made the call to make the phone service switch from AT&T to Cox.

There are three tiers of Cox phone service. The deluxe (my name for it) is about $55 per month, but you get pretty much unlimited calling in North America. The second tier (let’s call it “middlin'”) offers 1,000 minutes of calling anywhere in North America for $39.99. The basic phone service, which provides unlimited calling in Lafayette Parish is $12.95 per month.

I asked about the discounts I’d heard might be available. I was told that because we are digital cable and high-speed Internet customers, I could knock off $10 whole dollars off the deluxe and middlin’ prices, but that the basic was locked in at $12.95.

I asked about Mr. Cassard’s promise of the $85 Triple Play. What followed was an explanation of why Cox and BellSouth have so little credibility with the general public here — there was, as usual, some fine print in Cassard’s promise.

Yes, I could get that Triple Play package for $85 per month, but I’d have to ratchet down to basic cable and basic Internet. On the other hand, I would get the deluxe phone package! Woo-Hoo!

So, I could get the Triple Play at the touted $85 per month rate, but only if I was willing to give up the things that (in the view of those in my household) make the current costs worthwhile.

On the other hand, if I want to add the deluxe telephone service to my package (a telephone package designed for people without national calling plans on their cell phones) my bill would actually be about $185.

Not in my lifetime, thank you!

We’re going to go with the basic phone package ($12.95 per month), which will bring our bill up to about $144 per month.

Now, LUS has premised their projections on what percentage of market share they can win on the idea of eventually winning about half of the cable, telephone and Internet customer base in its service area.

LUS will offer a triple play package, too. Their package (based on comments made by LUS head Terry Huval and consultant Doug Dawson before the Parish Council and other public meetings) will consist of a basic cable package of about 85 channels (the Cox website won’t show my the channel list of the Basic Cable package here), telephone (probably packaged somewhat similarly to the tiers now offered by Cox) and high-speed Internet (at a minimum speed of about six times faster than Cox’s high-speed service) and do that for 20 percent less than the incumbent.

Well, this package is going to hold powerful appeal for Internet users in Lafayette, particularly those (like me) currently using ‘high-speed’ services. I think the Internet package offered by LUS will draw a higher percentage of Internet users to its service than was represented in the LUS market survey conducted last spring.

As I recall, Internet usage was important to something like 40 percent of those surveyed. But, as a person who knows a fair number of Internet users, I believe LUS will attract a very high percentage of those who rated Internet access as important to them.

I think many of these people probably have some form of high-speed Internet access now — either DSL or cable modem-based service. Those are premium services for both Cox and BellSouth. In fact, the only way to get Cox high-speed Internet is to have digital cable service.

So, based on that, my guess is that a large percentage of the early adopters of LUS’s offerings (I am convinced that this system will be built) will consist of former premium services customers of Cox and BellSouth.

This is significant for a number of reasons. First, it indicates just the kind of threat that the LUS plan presents to Cox (BellSouth is hardly worth mentioning on this because they can’t offer Triple Play now and probably will not be able to do so for at least five years). These high-speed Internet customers are the best customers Cox has in Lafayette. Cox’s digital cable package runs about $70 per month. Cox High-Speed Internet runs about $40 per month. So, these Cox High-Speed Internet customers are paying a minimum of $100 per month for their service. Add Cox basic telephone ($12.95 per month) and the Internet-heavy, phone-basic Cox Triple Play package comes to about $115.

LUS says it will beat market prices by 20 percent. So, pricing of a competitive LUS package would be about $92 per month.

So, a prospective Internet savvy LUS customer could get about five times the bandwidth for $23 per month less than they are currently paying for a high-speed Internet package from Cox.

The significance of this is that a high percentage of first adopters of LUS will not be looking for savings compared against the Cox basic package or whatever jack-leg phone and satellite gig BellSouth can patch together in the next 24 months. Instead, they’ll be switching to get the LUS version of REALLY High-Speed Internet and be getting discounts based on the premium service packages currently being offered by Cox.

These bandwidth hungry early adopters will mean higher revenues per customer for LUS than customers who are primarily interested in cable or telephone. And, these higher per customer revenues will put the LUS project on the fast track to fiscal stability.

Those opposing this plan don’t want us to understand this. But, of course, they have not wanted any accurate information about LUS’s prospects to see the light of day.

Doug Menefee, fellow fiber blogger and the chamber’s go to tech guy, has a guest editorial in today’s Advertiser. It basically sings the praises of Mayor Durel. Fiber, our favorite topic, is a surprisingly minor note in the song. It’s lauditory tone sets a sets off some sort of reflex in me, making me want to point out that there were at least some misteps. —The aborted moves to rename Lousiana and to cut meals on wheels come to mind. But, you know, both of those were things Durel was willing to back off of. Knowing when to fold ’em is a the trait of a good leader as well.

No, all in all, Doug is right on this one. We’ve been awfully lucky in Joey Durel. Certainly there’d be no fiber initiative without him and his upstanding style has been a pleasure to watch.

(I tried waiting for the online version of this essay but, oddly, there hasn’t been one.)

I’ve posted a collection of Anti-Anti-Fiber artwork to an “ArtWork” page on the Lafayette Pro Fiber Website. What started as one of those joking moments where friends try to outdo each other in suggesting outlandish ideas for responding to an offense has matured into something quite passable; even if I do say so myself.

The offense we were joking about was the Fiber411/BellSouth Anti Fiber petition. The most nearly reasonable of our ideas was the old mainstay of bumper stickers and buttons. The set posted here is downloadable as PDF and have been set up to fit on traditional sizes of bumper sticker and button blanks.

This series takes its inspiration from Joey Durel’s immortal words in reference to the incumbent’s obstructionism: “But they have to get out of our way, because we are not going to stand down on this.” Words destined for history books. 🙂

Its all mostly for fun—but we’re serious too.

Here is the eye candy. Link back to the ArtWork page for the downloads.

Eye on the Prize folks, with today’s distractions I don’t want to lose track of what is really important and digital divide issues are perhaps the most important of the outstanding fiber issues for Lafayette’s future.

Almost a week ago I foolishly followed the Advertiser in burying a call to participate in a digital divide committee in a story about the anti-fiber petition.

Here is the relevant text disinterred from that story:

Meanwhile, LUS is proceeding with the fiber plan. A committee of residents is being formed to address the digital divide, the gap that separates residents familiar with computers and the Internet and those who are not, Huval said.

Walter Guillory, Lafayette Housing Authority executive director, will head the committee. After Jan. 1, Huval said interested people will meet to discuss how to address four aspects of the digital divide: Explaining what the Internet can do for those unfamiliar with it, training on use of the Internet, offering the Internet at a reasonable price, and offering computers or other equipment to access the Internet.

The committee will help develop a plan to be presented to the council when LUS officials ask the council to issue bonds for the fiber network, Huval said.

Anyone interested in serving on the digital divide committee should call Abigail Ransonet at LUS, 291-8947.

I know that lots of folks have expressed an interest in participating in these decisions. Certainly many that appeared at the council in support of fiber were in part motivated by the possibilities for addressing the digital divide that the project provides. (This is one of those things a private entity would never bother to address; it’s only when we are doing things for ourselves that it’s a possible issue.)

I urge interested readers to call and offer their services. There is little more important that you could do with your time.

Promoted from the comments to the earlier post “Back and Up; Welcome Back and Welcome!” in which I welcomed Fiber411’s new site to blogosphere and the Lafayette fiber debate. A debate over Fiber411’s petition drive ensued, a debate which might have a special poigniancy now that it appears that BellSouth, and not the two original petitioners will be the major player.

(begin material from the comments)

Neal Breakfield:

Lafayette Utilites System has served this city well for over 100 years and is probably the City’s single most valuable asset aside from the strong, friendly community and unique Cajun culture. We firmly believe that.

LUS wants to enter into the telecommunications industry to compete against the incumbent service providers: Cox Communications and Bellsouth Communications, two of the largest telecommunications comapnies in the Southeast. This is a HUGE increase in the size and scope of government due to the logistics of the undertaking, the dollar amount (~$120 Million), the number of constituents affected, the risk involved… we could go on and on. Let’s just say that NOBODY should underestimate or trivialize the impact that this will have on the community whether it succeeds or fails.

Having established the importance of the issue and the fact that that it WILL have a tremendous impact on the citizens in general and on business and industry alike, we feel that it would be a gross violation of the trust of the citizens if such a project were to go forward without voter approval.

Mayor Durel and many of the City-Parish Council members have publicly taken the position that we elected them to make decisons on our behalf, so they will decide this matter for us. They have all been publicly addressed with the concern that this matter is too large and too risky to be left to a simple majority council vote. Almost all of them have flatly refused to even discuss the matter of a public vote. One Council member (Marc Mouton) even said, “absolutely not” when asked if there would be a vote.

Since the Council and the Administration have chosen to ignore and impune our concerns, we have chosen to present the matter ourselves to the community to give the people a chance to voice their opinion.

In the coming weeks we will be circulating a petition to call for a public vote to approve or disapprove of the sale of public bonds to finance the project. PLEASE REALIZE THAT SIGNING THE PETITION IS NOT SIGNIFYING THAT YOU ARE AGAINST THE FIBER OPTIC PROJECT. Your signature merely means that you believe as we do that the matter is simply so important that it MUST have the input of the people direclty.

We hope that during the course of our efforts and through this web site a public discussion involving ALL parties will allow the public to be educated about the advantages and disadvantages of the project and then make an informed decision. The merits and specifics of the project will be covered on another discussion topic. We would like this thread to be confined to the matter of a public vote to keep the dialogue coherent. This web site is big enough for any and all related matters to be discussed in due course.

And remember, keep it nice and civil. This is a vey controversial topic, so the debate can get a little heated from time to time, but in the end we are all neighbors.

Thanks and best regards,

Neal Breakfield

Mike Stagg:

Neal Blakefield,

Your position that signing the petition does not constitute opposition to the LUS fiber project is delusional!

What you and your cohorts are asking is for a change of venue that gives the advantage of the debate to Cox, BellSouth and their out-of-state-puppets-posing-as-experts.

As you may or may not know, local governments cannot wage political campaigns in support of election issues. As we saw this summer, Cox has the ability and the willingness to run a virtually unlimited number commercials on its system at no cost to itself. BellSouth is likely to follow the example set by other RBOCs in similar situations and pour big dollars into a campaign designed to sway voters’ minds.

So, what your petition asks for for Consolidated Government to be forced to willingly walk into an ambush. In some quarters that would be considered suicide; but, in your book, it’s a fair fight.

This failure to comprehend the implications of your actions and recommendations is consistent with ideologically-driven behavior in which that facts just will not be allowed to stand in the way of what the ideologue percieves to be a good argument.

The ideological nature of your criticism of the LUS plan is evident by your willingness to choose to leave the economic future of this city in the hands of Atlanta-based decision-makers whose interest in Lafayette suddenly became acute when LUS announced its intentions.

You and your partners are, in fact, pawns of Cox and BellSouth made all the more valuable to them by the fact that you emerged on your own.

And, thank you, too, for telling us how to conduct the debate. I can’t speak for John, but I refuse to be civil with people whose theories crowd out the room in their minds for unpleasantries like facts. To paraphrase Barry Goldwater, derision in response to bullshit is no vice.

You want a debate? Bring it on! You want to set the terms of the argument? Dream on!

John St. Julien:

Hi Neal,

Nice post, kindly put… but mostly wrong or at least confusing (to me, anyway–see my “whaddya want” posts).

Just to walk through..

I’m thrilled to see that you recognize the value to and the role of LUS in Lafayette’s development and current prosperity. Back then they entered the most demanding technical field of their day and for 100 years have successfully competed against the largest private regional providers of electricity. I’m confused as to why you would think this new challenge shouldn’t have exactly the same outcome.

You say LUS wants to “enter into the telecommunications industry to compete against the incumbent service providers.” This just isn’t true in a strict sense. They want to provide a telecommunications infrastructure that no one else will provide _to the people of Lafayette_. I don’t think I’m picking nits here–the difference in motivation is the difference between being arrogant (as you cast them) and having a service orientation–which I contend is the natural attitude of a good local utility. Which is what LUS is by your own admission.

Surely you recognize that we do elect representatives to represent us? It isn’t suspicious for them to want to do their job. They approved a much larger bond issue for LUS just a few weeks earlier as a routine matter. As to your feelings of being ignored and impugned: I watched those meetings and no one one the council or the administration “impugned” you or Bill. Really, that’s not fair. You got a lot of support for your effort there and even some scolding of the audience by the council when your claims raised murmurs of disbelief in the techy quarters of the audience. (At times, I confess, some of those murmurs were mine). You got a fair and, in the eyes of many, more than fair, hearing. You just weren’t as convincing as the advocates. Really this isn’t the sort of claim you should be making.

The problem with a vote is, as I am sure you must realize, that if this issue would go to a vote the incumbents would have a radically unfair advantage. (Mike’s response has more detail) They’ve been willing to lie and treat us like children in order to make a little extra money. I get the feeling that some people feel that when a corporation lies, tries to make people fearful, uncertain and doubtful about things which objectively are simply factual that it is somehow ok because they are pursuing profit. It’s “expected.” I think that attitude is poisonous and wrong. Lying is worse when its done under the cover of some sort of righteous excuse. On that: no quarter. The incumbents have behaved dishonorably. They deserve our contempt and nothing more. I invite you to join me in that condemnation.

I have to join Mike in saying that I think it disingenuous of you to claim that a signature on your petition has any other effect than to position the signatory as an accomplice in stopping LUS’ fiber optic project. That is the effect it would have. That is the effect you want it to have. Neither you nor Bill (the only two public faces on the project) would vote for the current plan. You want to halt it. Don’t deceive signatories that this is some sort of earnest good government petition. The fact of the matter is that LUS is your only chance of getting an open network. And the only time is now. Block it now and another, private, monopolist that you can never hope to control will take it over. If you really want a structurally separated system built and maintained by LUS your only hope, ever, is to back LUS now and fight for that later. Be honest with yourself and others. That all caps plea is dishonest, even if you didn’t realize it before you took the position. Maybe your idealism or ideology leads you to believe there ought to be another choice. But this is the real world and there is not.

You can’t hope to try and limit the discussion during a debate to some faux issue of a public vote alone. I won’t do it and no honest partisan would for the reasons outlined in the paragraph above. You have to take responsibility for the consequences of your actions. Folks like Mike and I do that regularly. Might we wish there was a fantasy world in which different patterns were possible? Sure. I’ve got lots of candidates for happy fantasies. I even struggle to realize some of them. But I recognize, and act, in the real world. The biggest reason to refuse to sign the petition is that it dishonestly pretends that it will not have the effect of damaging the fiber project. It will. I hate the idea because I am utterly convinced the project will succeed and bring more benefit to my home than almost any I can imagine. No, limiting the debate is not acceptable.

I suppose I am willing to be civil, if you count the above as civil. (I do.) But I think a little anger and absolutely straight talking is healthy. I’ll happily get less than civil if I become convinced that you or the group you represent is being dishonest with the people of Lafayette. (My current take is that you are not there…yet. But that the temptation for a true believer is great.)

—My “So Whaddaya Want?” posts are largely inspired by your and Bill’s positions. I’ve had some good, long talks with Bill and look forward to more. I’d be curious as to how you’d or he would respond to those posts.

(end comments material)

Ok, that’s the current state of the debate. I’d love to hear from folks in the comments. What do you think?

Well it’s official; the fiber411 petition drive has finally taken shape: as a tool of the incumbents.

“BellSouth employees are circulating a petition with the aim of bringing Lafayette Utilities System’s planned telecommunications venture to a vote.”

“Williams said BellSouth is allowing its employees to carry the petition with them at work.”

This no doubt “rescues” what had begun to look like a pitiful attempt to put together a petition based on the wrong law by a group whose big push was to have been to have their petition join the anti anti-smoking one at two local body shops. On the tenth. Maybe. Premised on the wrong law and accomplishing nothing but the opposite of what the two front men claimed to desire the petition seemed destined for a slow and quiet death.

No more. As of today it becomes a creature of BellSouth.

This strategy of “allowing” your employees to carry the petition is transparent and typical of the sort of casual duplicity that the incumbents have pursued since the day one of this battle. If you were an employee of a big corporation in little ole Lafayette would you really believe it smart not to carry such a petition? Don’t you think there will be implied, but well-understood, quotas for these guys to meet. No, make no mistake about it: BellSouth has turned its entire workforce into a paid petition army. That they are willing to use their people in this way, knowing as they do that some–perhaps many of the more technically sophisticated–must in their hearts think BellSouth is in the wrong on this one confirms Lafayette’s conclusion that these guys are simply without honor. All that matters to them is lucre. And it is all that ever has.

Trust me, BellSouth is not acting out of a pious hope to help the people of Lafayette. BellSouth is imposing on its employees because and only because it hopes to derail Lafayette’s project. LeBlanc and Breakfield must be realistic enough to know that. The position that this is only about giving the people a chance to vote is transparent. That plea gathered about 10 members on a thin website one of my informants revealed yesterday. And some of those are clearly pro fiber. NO, the petition as of today becomes only about trying to find a way to toss a roadblock in the way of LUS, and the incumbents have demonstrated once again that they are willing to use any tool.

Since LeBlanc seems determined to go through with a petition that has dubious legal basis the number needed will be small enough that this paid army will amass it in short order, I have no doubt. I also have no doubt that the legal eagles at the incumbents realize it has no basis. But hey, they can sue! They can pop up a little fear, uncertainty, and doubt. They can delay and try and get a complaisant court to issue a restraining order until the thing is appealed. And appealed again.

I hope all that fails. In a fair world that is what would happen. But what you can do is register your complaints. Let BellSouth know what you think of this sort of tactic. Let their employees know when you see them. And let Williams and the central office know as well.

John Williams

Regional Manager, Acadiana

BellSouth

(337) 491-6850 (337) 261-2800 (Updated by a helpful reader! Thanks!)

John.C.Williams@BELLSOUTH.COM