Month: July 2005

Sponsored by all endorsing organizations:

Acadian Home Builders Association
Committee for Rebuild Lafayette North
Downtown Development Authority
Downtown Lafayette Unlimited
Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce
Lafayette Economic Development Authority
Lafayette Parish Democratic Executive Committee
Lafayette Parish Republican Executive Committee
Louisiana Conference of Mayors
Louisiana Municipal Association
REALTOR Association of Acadiana
Lafayette Yes PAC
Lafayette Coming Together PAC

Come Rally in Support of Saturday’s Fiber Vote

In the continuing vein of having fun with this thing Zydetech‘s support for the fiber optic initiative will take the form of a “Tour de Fiber” in conjunction with Lafayette Coming Together. The tour is conceived of as being a bit of a whacky way to get out the Yes vote and keep awareness of the vote high in the areas it tours on the day of the vote.

One of the best things about this fight has been the fun that at least the pro-fiber side has had with it: the fiber film festival, the fiber jams, and now the “Tour de Fiber.”

Laissez le bon ton roulet!

Follows the Zydetec Press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ZYDETECH TO SPONSOR “TOUR DE FIBER” BICYCLE RALLY

Zydetech, Lafayette’s community based technology awareness initiative, announced today that it will be sponsoring the “Tour De Fiber” in conjunction with Lafayette Coming Together PAC and other pro-fiber optic advocate groups on Saturday, July 16th, from 8:30 to 11:30am. The ride is being conducted as a means of raising awareness for the Fiber to the Home vote, which is scheduled for July 16th.

“Zydetech believes that fiber to the home is an important economic development tool for Lafayette.” said 2005 Zydetech Chairman Chad Zerangue. “The Lafayette technology sector is growing rapidly, and infrastructure such as the fiber optic system proposed by LUS could really open the door for technology professionals to relocate to Lafayette.” Zerangue continued.

Abigail Ransonet, local technologist and municipal fiber optic deployment advocate concurred, saying, “Lafayette was recently named one of the top 30 markets in the United States to start a technology based business. The LUS proposed fiber optic system, as an economic development asset, only adds to the allure of Lafayette for technologists and the companies they represent.”

The event will be a bicycle rally through many neighborhoods throughout Lafayette. Anyone who is pro-fiber and has a bicycle is invited to participate. Sponsors for the event include Zydetech, Lafayette Coming Together PAC, Golfballs.com, MelloJoy Coffee, Diamond Data Systems, Global Data Systems, Pixus, CBM, Bizzuka, and Abacus Marketing Resources.

The riders will start at Golfballs.com on Johnston Street and proceed through various stops and neighborhoods, ending at 3810 Ambassador Caffery in the parking lot in front of Pearson’s Luggage. For more information please email Chad Zerangue at info@blog.zydetech.org.

Today’s Advertiser story tries to back off some of the firestorm that its sensationalistic Sunday story on the PSC produced. I have to suspect that some push back has been felt at the Advertiser offices though I have no way of knowing for sure. The Lafayette Coming Together response to that story circulated widely throughout the community not only to its own mailing lists but more significantly in the form of viral email redistributed on major local tech and political lists—when email starts coming back to you after being forwarded via several links you know folks are hot about something.

This title, “PSC: LUS protests can be worked out” reflects the tone of the story; it highlights the tentative nature of the proposed (and contradictory) rules and suggests that at least one of the difficulties thrown up is so obviously in contradiction to the law that Public Service Commissioner Jimmy Field is willing to dismiss it out of hand. He believes, as well, that others can be worked out. The one blindingly obvious one is the bond argument:

A recommendation that would prohibit LUS from pledging assets of its other utility divisions to secure bonds for the fiber project is one that Field said he feels comfortable will be resolved.

“It looked like they had a pretty good argument that that was not contemplated by the (Local Government Fair Competition) Act,” Field said.

There is a clause in the law that specifically, specifically, allows this. How a staffer could be induced to suggest that it not be allowed is hard to understand.

Another candidate for the blindingly obvious category is that the in lieu of tax payments AND the “imputed” taxes would have to be paid. (“Imputed taxes” is not a real tax it is an imaginary figure invented in BellSouth’s (un)fair competition act and used solely by the PSC to raise customer’s rates; LUS keeps the money…they just are not allowed to use it to lower your rates.) Asking LUS to “pay” both “imputed” taxes and in lieu of taxes is massively nuts, is in complete contradiction to the purpose of the compromise and the direct language of the law which allows the in lieu of tax payments to be applied to the imputed taxes. Now BellSouth and Cox may not have grasped that it meant that LUS would end up not raising rates to compensate for “imputed” taxes but the fact that things didn’t work out the way they wanted them to (with you paying higher rates, let me emphasize) isn’t cause to renege on a deal they agreed to.

In fact, an underappreciated and completely unreported aspect of this story is the way BellSouth and Cox have not only chosen to not only not play by “the rules” but to not even play by their rules. They have no shame, and apparently no one expects a corporation to show any. I’ve talked to people who negotiated those agreements at the capital last summer and read accounts of the same and it is clear that at least on the pr0-fiber side the feeling was that a real compromise based on on clear principles was being hashed out–a good-faith compromise that would stick. The principle was actually supposed to be a level playing field and to restrict LUS from doing things a private company could not. BellSouth and Cox play in different fields and the agreement was supposed to be that LUS could play by the least restrictive rule that applied to either of it competitors. Understand that this was a much greater “compromise” for LUS than the incumbents who actually conceeded nothing of substance…except their word. LUS gave up huge swaths of rights in excahnge for….what? All LUS got was the deal alone: the Promise that they could go ahead obstructed by no more than the rules mutually agreed to.

That promise has been broken repeatedly. Cox wrote the Broome bill this season that attempted to impose two elections and a huge fine on Lafayette if it had the courage to defy Cox’s judgment about what is best for Lafayette and approved the referendum. The worst of that got beaten back. But Cox clearly felt no compunction about changing the rules before they ever got a chance to be put in play. They thought of something more they could get and went after it. Last years promises: gone with the wind.

This thing with the PSC is BellSouth’s version of the same disregard. They go in and try and ignore the deal they made earlier on numerous parts of the law. They sat there and know what the deal was and what principles governed it. Getting advantage at the moment is all that matters apparently; it speaks poorly of their ability or willingness to work as trusted partners. I feel free to tell you that feeling among those who were privy to the conversation on the Lafayette side in Baton Rouge last year runs high. There is a sense of real betrayal.

These two corporations will undoubtably trumpet their willingness to make a “risk-free” deal to “partner” with the people of Lafayette in the waning days of this campaign. It’s the only new card they have to put on the table. None of the old ploys have worked.

But they’ve demonstrated vividly what sorts of partners they are and how they honor their agreements. No partnership with these guys is viable because they are not trustworthy.

———–

We citizens have a way to effect the outcome of the upcoming battle at the PSC. Turn out and vote. Shoot not just for a victory but for an overwhelming victory. Run up the score onn BellSouth, Cox, and the naysayers. The PSC is an elected board. They are politicians. The only reason that BellSouth has any traction with the PSC lies in their role as Louisiana’s largest single contributer to election campaigns. Money talks. But in politics votes talk louder.

Don’t just vote Yes! Get yourself in gear and turn out the vote. Volunteer at Lafayette Coming Together. Or do it yourself. Treat your grandmother to a ride to the polls. Knock on a few doors in your neighborhood on July 16th. Call up your notoriously disorganized sister who you know is For Fiber but….and urge her to go vote. Buy her lunch. 1 vote is all we need but a 40 point spread would be much more convincing at the PSC.

Joey Durel’s Interview with Sun’s Scott McNealy.

This is a quicktime link to the interview that autoplays when the page loads. So be prepared to fiddle with the audio quickly. (I don’t know why folks don’t consult with me about interface issues. This is almost as annoying as the blink tag. 🙂 )

Readers of the blog will recall that I posted in anticipation to McNealy’s appearance. My fantasies about what this could mean are to found in “Sun CEO to be guest on Durel radio show” DO NOT MISS

I never found the time to finish a post on the follow up stories in the Advocate and the Advertiser. Here’s the fragment and links to those stories if you’d like a little more background on the interview:

Both the Advocate and the Advertiser carry the story of the Sun CEO’s interview. Joey Durel interviewed the executive in that mutually supportive and congratulatory style that has always reminded me of our courtship rituals. It had the feel of dancing a pas de deux. Lots of smiles, lots of expression of mutual attraction. No announcements of betrothal but something was certainly in the air. It was a great interview and the possibilities for a partnership in Louisiana were largely unspoken though passing references to SunRay thin clients kept alive the practical political and economic motivations beneath the mutual admiration society that we heard.

Both stories are good and worth a read on their own. The most refreshing element of the Advocate story was that reading it made it clear that it is not always necessary to hunt up a small naysaying voice whenever the CEO of a national corporation passes Lafayette a complement.

The Lafayette Daily Advertiser persists in giving space to a paid shill, Stephen Titch, in his attempt to influence the people of Lafayette. I am sorely disappointed. The old saw goes: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice shame on me.

Shame on the Advertiser.

Titch who, I think, lives near Houston, and works for the sock puppet institute known as the “Heartland” (AKA Heartless) Institute in Chicago runs a business called “expert editorials, inc.” which advertises the service of inserting the opinions of “experts” (Titch) into public discussions about corporate behavior without involving the “marketing and….” of the firm in any messy overt lying. This man’s history is well-enough known locally to have precluded the Advertiser from running the letter.

Titch has had a previous “guest editorial” after which his night job as an editorialist for hire was revealed. That editorial appeared across the country as part of a concerted effort to smear municipal telecom utilities. He has continued to send out editorials to papers large and small, most of which do not see the light of day except in small, regional newspapers. As part of that ongoing campaign Titch is the author of a recent, thoroughly debunked, psuedo academic attack on LUS. That paper (represeented as an independent outside study) fits the modus operandi of Titch and the Heartland Institute to a “T”: get paid for your opinion through the secret funding of the Heartless Instititute or “Expert Editorials, Inc.” and then present a “expert” paper that you claim is objective. The problem in this instance is that Titch and the Heartland Institute left a tell-tale trace: an early draft of the Bristol/Lafayette paper was presented on behalf of BellSouth at the state bond hearing. Authored by Titch and associated with the Heartland Institute this advocacy brief was originally intended to convince the bond commission that LUS’ business plan was flawed with the hope of preventing LUS from getting the authority to issue bonds that is the basis for the July 16th referendum. The bond commission saw through it and the election is being held. So, being frugal at least, Titch has repackaged the bond commission paper for wider dispersal. This is the know history. And the Advertiser should take it into account before reprinting his words.

Titch is welcome to his opinion, even paid for, but the letters to the editor space should be a forum for ideas, not a space for product placement by those whose opinions are for sale.

Now on to Titch’s deliberate distortions and the central lie in the letter. Here’s the crucial bits:

Is OptiNet a model worth emulating? Not if the goal is universal high-speed Internet access. OptiNet recently stopped selling Internet access as a free-standing service and now requires customers to commit to paying $44.95 a month for assorted services before it will run fiber to a home.

Mission failure – the decision to abandon the universal service goal in order to stay financially stable – tends to be the common outcome of municipal excursions into broadband. The municipality must adopt the same business approach as the commercial service providers it sought to replace.

Titch is knowledgeable enough, even if demonstrably unprincipled, to know that universal service is not about cost but about access. Precisely as he says in the second sentence cited above. If he were actually concerned that all Lafayette’s people be equitably served he’d not complain about a questionable business decision 700 miles away but about a questionable business decision made public right here in Lafayette: BellSouth’s “generous” plan to provide advanced services to 80% of Lafayette. Titch knows quite well who the 20% will be. They will not be able to buy these services at any price–because their neighbors aren’t wealthy enough. Making sure that this does not happen is what universal service is and has always been about and what utilities do that private concerns do not: provide clean water and electricity to all at affordable prices. If Bristol had decided not to sell in those areas where the Return on Investment was low Titch would have a case. But since it is the industries that he defends, and not public utilities, who calculate this way Titch is obliged to try and sneak by a change in definition. Do not let yourself be fooled.

Here is what is really happening: Titch has been rocked back by events. His initial “guest editorial” made sweeping assertions that no utility had ever been successful. That was and is clearly nonsense and the repitition of the claim by the opposition in the face or repeated disproof is simply evidence of the their fundamental dishonesty. Lafayette went its own way. His more recent attack on Lafayette via an attack on Bristol’s business plan has clearly has failed to stir up any real energy. He’s gotta produce… that is the point of his involvement in a town a days drive away. So he switches from hoodoo about business failure to the equally bogus claim about universal service. LUS will provide universal service paid for by those who use the service. That is their plan. BellSouth will provide universal service if we pay them from our general tax revenues. Only if we pay them off with our taxes. That is their plan, publicly and proudly announced.

No amount of fancy dancing from the likes of Stephen Titch can change those raw facts.

Eyes on the prize, folks: Vote Yes! For Fiber on July 16th.

KLFY-TV reported today that Lafayette Parish Assessor Conrad Comeaux endorsed the LUS fiber to the premises project while he was waiting to cast his absentee ballot.

Comeaux added his name to the still-growing list of citizens, business leaders, civic groups, and associations that have openly endorsed the fiber project.

It’s a beautiful thing to see such a broad consensus emerge on a community issue like this!

The tech-savvy in Lafayette can quickly recite the benefits of the proposed fiber to the home and business project: greater bandwidths, 100 megabits per second, faster upload and download speeds.

But, the fiber-to-the-home and business issue garners a less than enthusiastic response from those who may not understand what all the fuss is about or what’s at stake.

As a pro-fiber partisan you have to like that lead. Today’s Advertiser article focuses on some of the benefits claimed for fiber and sets it up in a loose he said/she said format. What makes this particular instance somewhat more interesting than the usual story in that genera is that there is a much richer chorus of voices. At least on the profiber side the diversity was striking, but even Cox managed to have one new “official spokesman” that I hadn’t noticed before.

The story covers job, small business and home uses, and –my favorite–cost savings.

Recently the opponents have tried to make an issue, in various ways, of LUS’s promise to dramatically lower rates by 20% when they enter the market. Where these objections even have any pretense of substance they rely on the ideas that telecom, and especially cable is a competive industry with reasonable, competition-based pricing. That just isn’t so. Cable is an effective monopoly in 95% of its footprint. It’s not (just) me that says so. And its not (just) a bevy of economists. It’s the facts of the matter. Research shows that in that 5% of the country where there is competition between cable companies that prices average 17% lower than they do where there is one cable company. That 17% is monopoly profits…by definition: the margin of profit the industry takes that is beyond that which would be available if competition were in place.

So not only is a price drop in the 17% possible; it is practically inevitable. Let no one shed croccodile tears for the incumbents when LUS’s presence forces them to lower their prices…those prices have been far too high for far to long. The delicious thing about this is that by getting out in front of the price slashing that was pretty much inevitable and dropping the price to a competitive one at one blow LUS does itself enormous marketing good. They give the people lower prices and the “others” are always struggling to meet LUS “deal.”

In fact the LUS plan is already saving you money, and the article alludes to it:

Cox Communications recently announced it was raising rates in the Baton Rouge area because of higher programming and fuel costs. Cox spokesman Gene Regan told The Daily Advertiser in May the company has no plans in the near future to increase rates in the Lafayette or Acadiana area. Calls to Cox Friday to find out why rates will not be raised in Lafayette went unanswered.

It’s no wonder that Cox doesn’t want to talk about it. What they told Baton Rouge was that higher programming costs and higher gas prices had forced them to raise their rates. That sounds reasonable on the surface. Until you realize that Lafayette has the same gasoline and programming costs that Baton Rouge does. Why no raise here? The spector of competion.

It’s already saving you money.

(Want more on the cable monopoly? I’ve got more. But so does the Consumer’s Union.)

Feast your eyes on bipartisan support. This is the absentee voting mailer featuring the logos of both parties. Lafayette is indeed coming together, For Fiber.

To: Lafayette Voters
From: The Lafayette Parish Republican Executive Committee
The Lafayette Parish Democratic Executive Committee

Dear Lafayette Residents,

We all have a unique opportunity together, to make a decision for our city
and ultimately our region by voting in favor on the LUS Fiber To The Home
& Business Initiative in the upcoming Bond Election.

While our committees came to our conclusions differently – BOTH parties
agree that this opportunity is good for Lafayette. This decision is
landmark and we have the ability to set our community apart and
distinguish ourselves for many years to come as a leader in technology
innovation and implementation.

Because Fiber To the Home & Business is truly a “tide that will lift all
boats”, create competition, lower costs, and improve Lafayette’s
technological infrastructure, we ask that you make a concerted effort to
get out and vote “YES”, whether you are voting absentee, from Tuesday,
July 5th – Saturday, July 9th, or at the polls on Saturday, July 16th.

The Republican Party Resolution & Endorsement may be located and
viewed at: http://www.lafayetteparishgop.com/press_releases.htm,
and the Democratic Party Position Paper & Endorsement may be found
at: http://www.lafayettedemocrats.org/forms/PR02182005.htm .

Respectfully,

Denice Skinner – Chairman, Lafayette Parish Republican Party
Frank Flynn – Chairman, Lafayette Parish Democratic Party

To the surprise of absolutely no one familiar with their lap dog-like fealty to the wishes of BellSouth, the staff of the Louisiana Public Service Commission has confected a preliminary set of rules that run counter to state law, common sense, and trample the home rule charter that governs the parish.

The story was breathlessly reported by The Daily Advertiser in Sunday’s edition as though it was earth-shattering news. This kind of hyping of the opposition has become common place in recent weeks as the paper has operated without an editor, and publisher Ted Power has taken to directing editorial coverage.

A prime example of the sorry state to which ‘coverage’ by The Advertiser has fallen since an actual journalist is no longer in charge of the paper’s news section was the Lafayette Coming Together For Fiber Breakfast two weeks ago. The Chief Sock Puppet was quoted (even though he was not present) but the name of the organization hosting the event which prompted the story was not even mentioned. Under the current situation, I guess we should be thankful that Power allowed the comments of the featured speaker to be mentioned at all; the fact that the name of one of three organizations endorsing the project got mentioned should be considered a minor miracle.

But, I digress.

The staff of the Louisiana Public Service Commission has been one of the chief tools of BellSouth in suppressing telephone competition in Louisiana.

A prime example was a case that began in 1999 and involved reciprocal compensation that BellSouth was refusing to pay competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs). These reciprocal compensation agreements were actually created at the insistence of the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) shortly after passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

The RBOCs, having the vast majority of customers, wanted to charge CLECs for the privilege of connecting the calls of CLEC customers to the phones of RBOC customers. But, a little thing called The Internet happened and the vast majority of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) connected their servers through CLECs because of the cheaper rates offered by these new companies. As use of the Internet spread, the amount of traffic to CLECs skyrocketed. That meant that the RBOCs actually owed the CLECs money! This was not the way the world was supposed to work.

The RBOCs were outraged. They refused to pay the money. The CLECs were much smaller companies than the RBOCs and not getting that money put a serious crimp in their business operations. So, the CLECs sued to get the money.

In Louisiana, I believe the CLEC that brought suit was eSpire Communications. The Public Service Commission sent the case to an administrative law judge who took extensive testimony and accepted a good deal of evidence from other states. At the end of the months-long case, the law judge handed down a decision favoring the CLECs.

The PSC staff, however, recommended to the full PSC that they reject the administrative law judge’s decision and rule in favor of BellSouth — which the commission promptly did, in a 3-2 vote.

BellSouth and other RBOCs used this refusal to pay reciprocal compensation to CLECs as a tool to drive them out of business. When it was finally ordered by the FCC that the RBOCs had to pay the money (BellSouth, according to this 2001 news release, owed $90 million in fees and penalties), the money went primarily to bankruptcy courts where many of the CLECs found themselves in no small measure due to their inability to collect the fees owed them by the RBOCs like BellSouth.

So, the fact that the PSC staff has produced a proposed rule that, though inconsistent with the law, is consistently favorable to BellSouth should come as no surprise. They are, after all, listening to their master’s voice.

This much can be said in defense of the PSC and it’s staff: the Louisiana Legislature has refused to allow the PSC to retain more of the money it collects in fees from the utilities it regulates. As a result, the staff is small and under-funded. The commission and the staff must rely on ‘outside experts’ (frequently hired by the regulated utilities themselves) for guidance on issues.

There is no doubt that BellSouth had an active role in producing these rules. One can only hope that LUS’s response will result in the PSC staff actually reading the law in question, rather than taking the word of the various BellSouth lobbyists who have, no doubt, been fixtures in the rule making process since the act was passed last year.

The bottom line is that, having pushed for a referendum that they are now poised to lose, BellSouth has fallen back to their ultimate defense which is mastery/ownership of the regulatory machinery in Baton Rouge in an attempt to prevent this project from moving forward.

No doubt we’ll hear more in coming days from Bill Oliver and others of BellSouth’s ‘good faith’ offer to do business with Lafayette in an attempt to upgrade telecommunications here. If Oliver wants to prove his good faith, let him pledge now not to file any more law suits to slow this project if it prevails at the polls on July 16.