Category: Lafayette

AT&T Wireless Call Center Helps Out

Here’s a good thing: the AT&T call center (the call center formerly known as Cingular) is helping a local church develop a community center by donating 13 computers and encouraging its employees to volunteer there. From the Advertiser article:

The new computer lab, donated by the AT&T Call Center of Lafayette, will help empower at-risk teens, ex-offenders and undereducated or unemployed adults.

“After you get their minds together, then you want to get them the skills,” said Phylissa Driver, area manager for AT&T. “There’s a real shortage of hirable people here for employers. We’ll take those who aren’t hirable and make them hirable.”

Free computer access is there for people to develop job-search skills, résumés and career goals. Driver will teach free classes about interviewing, dress and mapping out career goals. Other AT&T Call Center staff also will teach on their own time, Driver said.

This is just the sort of thing that demonstrates some real concern for a company’s neighbors just down the road. Hats off to the AT&T call center.

Cox Talks to the Trade Press

Back in February, in a story I missed then, Cox’s Baton Rouge unit was treated to a profile story in Multichannel News, a leading industry trade magazine. (Baton Rouge Beefs Up To Meet Demand Surge). It’s a very interesting story in which Cox Baton Rouge–then recently merged with Lafayette’s Acadiana unit to form the new “Greater Louisiana” marketing unit–tells its own story to its colleagues in a sympathetic forum. It is revealing of how Cox wants its knowledgeable industry friends to regard it.

One thing that leaps out is that it doesn’t try to blow as much smoke about its network and discusses network upgrades fairly frankly. For instance, it notes that the local unit was participating in the Cox-wide program of expanding bandwidth from 750 Megaherz to 860 Mhz. Hopefully that will improve its Video On Demand capacity in my neighborhood. (1, 2) But the story also reveals that Cox has not, contrary to its vauge assertions and local rebranding efforts, been not building out fiber in Lafayette, apparently not even in its fiber backbone–but has in Baton Rouge. According to the story in the last year:

In response to the market’s growth, the system last year added about 130 miles of new coaxial cable and 65 miles of fiber in Baton Rouge, and 61 miles of coaxial cable in the Lafayette cluster.

Even sixty one miles of new copper is nothing to sneeze at but the copper coax portion of a hybrid fiber coax (HFC) architecture is mostly in the last mile–and one is lead to presume that this new coax is predominantly in new subdivisions in our “cluster.” But this does confirm that the local rebranding of Cox’s network as a “fiber” network is truly misleading…nothing is altering Cox’s committment to HFC and its disavowal of FTTH. (I’d be happy to be shown otherwise.)

However the article chiefly focuses on Katrina’s consequences and the merger of the Baton Rouge and Lafayette markets. Both lead to a much larger market with Cox adding more than 5000 customers post-Katrina. That brings its combined total to 291,551. A very respectable combined market. The story also makes it clear that the Acadiana unit was absorbed into the Baton Rouge one and not simply combined. (That was certainly the experience here where the distinctive local elements like lower pricing, and a French and weather channel on basic cable were “aligned” to the Baton Rouge pattern.)

The integration of the Lafayette system, which is about 50 miles southwest of Baton Rouge, has involved a number of initiatives. For example, Cox Greater Louisiana has aligned the channel lineups — and retail pricing — across the Baton Rouge and the Lafayette clusters.

More broadly, Cox has tried to more fully absorb and acculturate the Lafayette cluster, so that it conforms to the company’s corporate strategy: That its cable systems offer state-of-the-art technology, be perceived as doing so and be very involved in their communities.

The bit about being “very involved” with their communities was directly tied to LUS–presented as simply a “municipal overbuilder:”

There was a need to forge closer ties with the community in Lafayette, where Cox faces competition from a municipal overbuilder, Lafayette Utilities System, Vines said.

The overbuilder “was pushing that it was bringing fiber to the home, but there was really not a sense that Cox was doing that as well,” Vines said.

“Louisiana is very parochial,” she said. “It’s a very relationship-oriented state. So as we were integrating the Lafayette system we had to introduce ourselves, reintroduce Cox Communications … to make sure [customers] understood we had fiber and they didn’t necessarily have to go with our competitor.”

No mention, of course, that Cox fought a bitter, losing battle, much of it covered in the magazine, to prevent this “overbuilder” from building a competitive network. In truth, most of the need to repair its relationship in Lafayette was NOT due to our “parochial” nature but to Cox’s many blunders during the fiber fight—the first and most serious of those blunders being to oppose the clearly stated desires of the community for a fiber network. Vines is blowing a bit of smoke in implying to her fellows that their fiber was similar to LUS’. It isn’t of course; fiber “in” the network is universal–both AT&T and Cox have fiber cores–and so will LUS. What makes a network a fiber network in the usual usage is that it takes fiber all the way to the home. That is what Lafayette fought for and the people here understand (correctly) that that is what “fiber network” means. Changing the description of your network from HFC to “fiber” in order to pretend that it is the same as what LUS will be offering is a continuation of the deceptive tactics Cox used during the fiber fight. If Cox really wants to repair its relationship with Lafayette ceasing its attempts to mislead us would make a better start than helping pay for Chamber diners or being a sponsor of Festival Internationale.

There are other interesting bits of insight scattered through the article. Take a look for yourself if you are a connoisseur of all things telecom in Lafayette.

One final bit of fun: The story reveals that Jaqui Vines, the new head of the “Greater Louisiana” section is a Ray Nagin protege. Yes, the same Ray Nagin that is mayor of New Orleans and was General Manager of Cox New Orleans. He hired her away from Time-Warner during his tenure in the New Orleans’ Cox system. It’s a small world down here. Sometimes it is a bit “parochial” down here in the sense that personal relationships do count…at least who Jaqui Vines knew proved helpful.

Thinking in Tucson, AZ: Getting it Right

Muniwireless points to a study, meant to inform about how to write up a request for proposals for Tucson’s prospective wireless RFP that caught my attention. First, the extent of the research and the detail in the study far exceeds that which goes into most full proposals, much less the RFP. A large amount of information about broadband usage, digital divide issues, and market questions is in this study—enough to provide plenty of well-researched data to support both public purposes (like economic expansion and bridging the digital divide) and to support a strong marketing plan (it includes current costs of broadband and geographical usage patterns).

Lafayette needs such a public document. Without the baseline it provides it will be difficult to demonstrate the success of the fiber project. You need such a baseline to demonstrate the economic benefits and to document the effects of lower cost broadband on bringing new faces into the broadband world.

But if possible, even more impressive than the original survey research was the quality of thought exhibited. Doing a study like this is a job–and most folks are tempted to do the job to specs even if that is not what is called for by the reality of the situation. CTC, the consultants doing this study didn’t succumb to that temptation. The job specs, it is clear, were to tell the city how to write an RFP that get private agencies to provide city-wide wifi without municipal investment. Universal coverage, closing the digital divide and economic development were apparently important parameters given the consultants.

Trouble is, it’s become clear that the private sector simply won’t, and perhaps can’t, fill that wishlist. And CTC, instead of just laying out what would give such an RFP the best chance, more or less told the city it couldn’t have all that without at least committing as the major anchor tenet. That was responsible, if unlikely to make the clients happy. And on at least two other points (Digital Divide issues and Fiber) they pushed their clients hard.

1) Digital Divide issues:

The interviews indicated that as computers become more affordable, the digital inclusion challenge that needs to be addressed is not as much equipment-based but rather how to overcome the monthly Internet access charge. (p. 18)

Concentrate WiFi provider efforts on low-cost or free access – not the other elements of the digital divide. (p. 17)

Entering the digital community is no longer about hardware; it’s about connectivity. The hardware is a one-time expense that is getting smaller and smaller with each day. Owning a computer is no longer the issue it once was. Keeping it connected is the real fiscal barrier these days. As their survey work shows, the people most effected know this themselves.

A CTC review of Lafayette’s project would note we’re doing several things they say most cities neglect to do: 1) LUS has consistently pushed lower prices as it major contribution to closing the digital divide—(and we must make sure that there is an extremely affordable lower tier available on both the FTTH and the WiFi components). 2) Ubiquitous coverage is a forgone conclusion; LUS will serve all–something no incumbent will promise (and something they have fought to prevent localities from requiring). 3) Avoiding means-testing. Lafayette’s planned solutions are all available to all…but most valuable and attractive to those with the least. Means-testing works (and is intended to work) to reduce the number of people taking advantage of the means-tested program. If closing the digital divide is the purpose means-testing is counterproductive.

About hardware, yes, working to systematically lower the costs and accessibility of hardware through wise selection, quantity purchase, and allowing people to pay off an inexpensive computer with a small amount each month on their telecom bill makes a lot of sense and should be pursued. But the prize is universal service and lowering the price of connectivity. Eyes, as is said, on the prize.

CTC additionally recommends against allowing extremely low speeds for the inclusion tier and for a built-in process for increasing that speed as the network proves itself. It also rejects the walled-garden approach, an approach which they discreetly don’t say out loud, turns the inclusion tier into a private reserve that will inevitably be run for the profit of the provider.

Good thinking…

2) The Necessity of Fiber

CTC also boldly emphasized fiber, not wireless, as the most desirable endpoint for Tucson.

We strongly recommend that the City of Tucson view the WiFi effort as a necessary first step, then look at ways to embrace and encourage incremental steps toward fiber deployment to large business and institutions, then smaller business, and eventually to all households. (p. 19)

Although wireless technologies will continue to evolve at a rapid pace, wireless will not replace fiber for delivering high-capacity circuits to fixed locations. In addition, fiber will always be a necessary component of any wireless network because it boosts capacity and speed. (p. 20)

The report explicitly rejects the theory that wireless will ever become the chief method for providing broadband service to fixed locations like businesses or homes. Few in the business of consulting on municipal wireless networking are so forthright in discussing the limitations of wireless technologies and the role of fiber in creating a successful wireless network that is focused on what wireless does best: mobile computing.

Again, good thinking.

Communities would do well to think clearly about what they want, what is possible, and the roles of fiber and wireless technologies can play in their communities’ futures. CTC has done a real service to the people of Tuscon. Too much unsupported and insupportable hype has driven muni wireless projects. That unrealistic start will come back to haunt municipal broadband efforts nationally as the failed assumptions show up in the form of failed projects. But those mistakes were not inevitable. The people of Lafayette should take some comfort in the fact that we haven’t made the sorts of mistakes that Tuscon’s consultants warn against and are planning on implementing its most crucial recommendations.

Just Not True: Cable Rates Not Falling in Texas

Here’s something to think about:

Competition has not led to lower basic cable-rates in Texas. (MultiChannel News)

That’s the long and the short of it according to a study by the Texas chapter of NATOA.

Two years ago Texas’ Telephone companies (basically SBC (now AT&T) and Verizon) used the Texas legislature’s famous penchant for failed deregulation to initiate a national push to move control of cable franchise from local communities to the state. The phone companies’ purpose was to avoid the demand that cable companies serve the entire community—and not just the most profitable part–if the companies wanted to use the right-of-way property owned by the community to turn a profit on the people living there. Local counties and municipalities consistently insisted on this principle….and the new state “regulators” (deregulators) do not. Louisiana dodged a bullet last year when Governor Blanco vetoed a similar bill approved by our legislators.

The Texas legislators were promised that they’d see “competition” and dramatic reductions in prices in exchange for removing local government’s ability to determine what is done with local property. And as the phone company juggernaut rolled through state legislatures they promised state after state the same — and told them it had worked in Texas, the first state in the union to enact such a law. They told that story about the success of competition in the halls of Congress as well. It was easy to believe; after all everyone knows that competition brings lower prices.

Except it hadn’t worked. And it still isn’t working….

You can take a look at the data gathered by the Texas chapter of NATAO. What is clearly shown is that the cable companies are not lowering their rates to compete with Verizon and SBC/BS/AT&T’s very limited rollout.

This is very similar to the disappointment that has accompanied the fashionable deregulation of electricity in a number of states. The data shows that the electricity is cheaper in the regulated states–and the gap is growing.

What’s wrong with picture? Why hasn’t “competition” worked? Legislators across the nation have endorsed the politically correct argument raised by the monopoly corporations that owned the electrical and telecom wires and bet their citizen’s money on the faith that deregulation would lead to falling prices. They, and their constituents, have lost that bet. And a whole lot of people are trying to make sure that the public does not notice.

Here is a hard truth: The blind faith that “deregulation” leads to true price competition is a false faith. In natural monopoly markets regulation–or public ownership–is the only real way to establish fair prices. Utility markets are monopoly markets…and giving the monopolists free reign won’t lower prices–quite the contrary. Utility deregulation is a failed experiment.

It is something the country as a whole ought to be thinking through rationally. The honest solution is to reinstitute real regulation where markets don’t work. Most places don’t have the resources to resist the drain on community wealth that private energy utilities and private telecommunications utilities represent. But a few communities, like Lafayette, can choose to opt out of the mistakes that the rest of the country is making. Lafayette has done so and will have its own locally-regulated power and telecom utilities.

Lafayette made the right choice on July 16th two years ago.

More on the Bonds

The Advocate covers the Fiber To The Home bond presentations in New York this morning. Sounds good! Apparently the visit went well and Durel and Huval returned feeling good about Lafayette’s prospects for a favorable bond rating.

Some of the recent local contretemps were frankly discussed:

Last week, attorneys for the plaintiff in that lawsuit, Elizabeth Naquin, suggested that Lafayette might be subject to further legal action should it proceed in the manner it’s planning to issue and pay back the bonds.

Durel said he thought the timing of that suggestion was an attempt to spook the bond markets into a higher rate.

Ottinger said Lafayette officials discussed with the bond market representatives the possibility — or lack thereof — of another lawsuit stalling the project.

The Louisiana Constitution prohibits further challenges to the ordinance that authorized the bonds to be issued, Ottinger said.

Good. Being upfront about the opposition is the way to go in most cases and I’m sure honesty served them well here. The bond guys have done their homework and asked the next obvious question:

The bond market representatives also wanted to know if LUS was prepared should the existing telecommunications companies in the area start practicing “predatory pricing,” in an effort to undercut the new LUS venture, Durel said.

That is, indeed, the next issue; and that for which the people of Lafayette should prepare. The incumbents tried this in Bristol and it didn’t work. I suspect that the folks in Louisiana will recognize the ploy as easily as did those in Virginia.

It’s all good so far:

“The bond rating agencies and the bond insurers were impressed with the depth of information and analysis we had as well as our passion, and the community’s support, for the project,” Huval said. “We received favorable comments about LUS’ proven track record in managing the deployment of large projects.”

Let’s get on with it!

Light a Candle For Lafayette

The Advertiser carries a brief report on the state of the fiber bond rating process currently going on in New York.

The initial reaction from bond rating agencies that will rate revenue bonds used to finance the project was positive, LUS Director Terry Huval said…

A good rating means that Lafayette is a good risk to potential investors. It also means the city’s bonds will have a lower interest rate and will cost less to pay off.

That’s good news. This is vitally important. Though they are low profile, these negotiations will determine the cost of the single most expensive element of the fiber to the home project: the cost of the money. A good bond rating will mean a low interest rate.

Seriously, go light a candle. (I’ve got a St. John the Conquerer candle that I save for special occasions. It didn’t seem to hurt during my dissertation defense. 🙂 I’m going to go light it now.)

Lafayette, LA to Wilson, NC: Fight It!

Does this sound familiar?:

Wilson, NC is getting hit with a “Local Government Fair Competition Act” written up by their local incumbents (AT&T and Comcast) that intends to keep the city from expanding its current, successful fiber optic ring to provide its citizens with a little competition to the current phone and cable monopolies and the internet duopoly.

Sounds mighty familiar. That is exactly the title of the bill that has cost the people of Lafayette millions of dollars and which has delayed Lafayette’s fiber-optic project by 3 years. Without this law Lafayette’s citizens would be using their network now; instead we are just starting after a long obstructionist battle waged by the incumbents–all of which was enabled by the “Local Government Fair Competiton Act.”

Lafayette, Louisiana to Wilson, North Carolina: FIGHT IT. No half-a-loaf compromises, no handshakes, no backing off when offered a “grandfathering” clause.

People of Wilson: You cannot expect your opposition to honor any commitment it makes in conferences. They didn’t in Louisiana and you shouldn’t expect it in North Carolina. Without such a law you are free to make your own decisions and take responsibility for them. Such a law gives the incumbents the opening they need to sue you based on a law they have drafted. The incumbents will not hesitate to return to the legislature in the very next year to further “fix” the bill to disadvantage localities. They will use the law to pursue lawsuits that they cannot win. They will use lawsuits to simply delay project and they will use lawsuits to try and pursue interpretations of the law other than those they agreed to in conference. (Things got to such a pass here that even the legislator that skirted the rules to sponsor the bill later complained that the incumbents were suing over things that had been settled in favor of the municipality during compromise discussions!) You DO NOT need the “bigger, smarter guys at the statehouse” to protect you from yourselves. DO NOT buy the line that this sort law “protects the local taxpayer” or that it “levels the playing field.” It intends to shift your control of local resources away from local citizen-owners and to a compliant state house; you can protect yourself quite well without their dubious help, I am sure. It intends to establish rules that would cripple your local utility’s ability to compete; rules that the incumbents would rage against should anyone dare suggest applying such to them.

From the Wilson Daily Times Article:

City of Wilson officials and the North Carolina League of Municipalities are seeking to kill a bill that would place what they say are undue restraints on municipalities establishing “communications services.” Wilson officials expected some legislative opposition when they started planning to provide broadband services to the city.

The bill, called the Local Government Fair Competition Act, places several obstacles in the way of local governments seeking to provide services such as broadband Internet, telephone and cable television. The bill is sponsored by state Reps. Drew Saunders, D-Mecklenburg, Hugh Holliman, D-Davidson, Harold Brubaker, R-Randolph, and Julia Howard, R-Davie. Lawmakers representing Wilson County have not sponsored the bill.

Some of its provisions include requiring two public hearings where the city’s business plan would be available, including cost analysis and four-year projections. Also, a special election would be held to allow citizens to decide if the city should establish any communications service. Such a service would also have to be self-supporting and could not be subsidized by the city’s electric fund.

“There is no good reason for this bill,” said Ellis Hankins, director of the N.C. League of Municipalities.

And

City attorney Jim Cauley said the House bill was written and supported by the telecommunications industry and is “clearly designed to protect their pocketbooks at the expense of the public good.”

“In the interest of corporate protectionism, it will create such a barrier to the construction of municipal broadband infrastructure that many citizens will not have access to high-speed fiber-optic services in the foreseeable future, thereby making our economic development efforts that much more difficult,” Cauley said.

I hope the people of North Carolina will learn from Lafayette’s experience and kill this ugly example of “corporate protectionism.”

“Weather Channel to return to basic cable”

The Weather Channel is returning to Cox Communications’ basic cable lineup in time for hurricane season.

So says this morning’s Advertiser. That’s good news as we head into hurricane season.

Those with long memories will recall that Cox pulled the Weather Channel in the middle of hurricane season last year in a public relations gaffe that it is difficult to credit that ANY company, even Cox, could make a year after Katrina and Rita ripped across south Louisiana. That move caused a firestorm of criticism—that extended from letters to the editor to a command performance for Sharon Kleinpeter before the City-Parish Council. But last year Cox held firm.

It was part of a larger disturbing trend. Lafayette and the rest of Acadiana was being completely brought into line with the Baton Rouge market to create a single large entity dominated by the interests of Baton Rouge.

In both markets the channel guide was moved off basic onto a $30 dollar a month more expensive tier. In Acadiana the weather channel was also moved up (Rita not withstanding) to that tier. (Cox New Orleans, a different division, had the good sense to leave the weather channel alone in their area.)

Also at issue was the single French channel. It was moved up to a more expensive tier associated with sports. (Hunh?) This in a city where 13% of the population tells the census they speak a French dialect in the home. (The “large” Spanish-speaking population got a new 10-channel tier in contrast.)

Rates were raised on most services with Lafayette getting larger increases to bring them into line with Baton Rouge.

Local people were unhappy, to say the least.

The Advertiser story repeats Cox’s explanation that the channel was moved to make Lafayette more like Baton Rouge. While that wasn’t particularly well-received (Acadiana has no desire to emulate Baton Rouge, quite the contrary) there were other explanations at the time. A more complete explanation of the impulse to unify Baton Rouge and Lafayette lies in the size of the large new, unified advertising market Cox would create by combining Louisiana’s two most dynamic economic markets.

Moving popular and useful channels like the Weather Channel, the Channel Guide, and the French channel up into substantially more expensive tiers was meant to push as many people as possible off the cheaper tier which is still watched by regulators and whose valuable analog bandwidth is lusted after by the programmers. –Each analog cable channel can be made into many digital ones. Both short-term profits and long-term strategic goals make this a financially advantageous move for Cox. (If not for Lafayette.)

The changes to the lineup and the concurrent rate increases were all about increasing Cox’s bottom line.

The weather channel replaces an all-ads-all-the-time channel at 22 that often is used to promote Cox products–and had kept its privileged place in the basic tier when the French channel and the Weather Channel were expelled. This was a change that the Lafayette City-Parish Council suggested during the dispute but at that time Kleinpeter said legal issues made that impossible and her claim went unchallenged. Apparently it wasn’t so impossible after all.

At one point Kleinpeter explained the community’s vocal distress with:

“It’s just change. People don’t like change”

That was never anything but a breathtakingly arrogant response. One that only a monopoly could make. Apparently Cox is now taking the upcoming competition from LUS a tad more seriously as we head into this year’s hurricane season.

You can chalk the change up to the mere promise of locally sensitive competition.

Good.

Joost

We are in the final days…of TV1.0. The signs are everywhere. Most recently, I received an invite (thanks to a sympathetic reader) to beta test Joost–a combo software client and web-based content library that allows the user to demonstrate for themselves that the old way of doing things is numbered.

TV1.0 is the familiar old broadcast model of one broadcaster sending to many, passive “receivers.” TV stations send their signal out and we sit and watch it. Defined by limited spectrum, there were only a few channels, shows appeared in their set time slot, for the defined number of minutes less the minutes devoted to the ubiquitous ads. Shows are designed to appeal to the broadest number of people and offend the fewest. Cable changed very little except that it gave you more channels. PBS introduced the idea of voluntary subscription support–but remains in other ways locked into the broadcast model as well.

There’s lots to hate about this model of video. (And I’ve been happy to jump in; see “Die TV. Die! Die! Die!” or “Why You Want Real Bandwidth”.) I’ve called the emerging model “DV” for Downloadable Video. The basic idea is that when bandwidth is no longer scarce (e.g. when we have fiber to the home) and we can download video to our hearts content, then the reasons for the old, annoying way of getting video will go away and new forms will emerge that cater to our obvious interest in watching shows whenever we want to, unlimited by advertiser-defined time slots, and uninterrupted by ads. Shows can be designed to appeal to the passionate viewer and world-wide, cheap, direct-to-consumer distribution can be counted on to provide an audience to support even the most specialized shows.

Joost plays in to this because it has become the most credible contender for long-show, commercially-produced content king. (YouTube has the short piece, self-produced end of the DV market pretty much sown up–and in some ways is even further into a DV1.0 world.) Joost first hit the news as the brainchild of the same guys who brought you the telephony-disrupting Skype and terrified the music and video businesses with Kazaa. The trick in all these enterprises was leveraging the unused bandwidth of customers using an idea described as peer-to-peer aka P2P. In return for the downloaded service you get you let the network use your spare uploading capacity.

Joost uses this technology as well and so holds down their main operating costs…but the real splash came when they began to sign up real, long-form content and supported it with in-video advertising. That gave them both content credibility and a visible business plan–something no similar competitor has. The jury is still out on whether long-form content has to be supported by advertising that is embedded in the download or whether, like YouTube, advertising can be on the supporting web page or whether, like iTunes, a pay-per-view model is possible.

Part of what is interesting about Joost is that they are setting up to be a very social site. They’ve got chat, you can invite friends, and there is an API for new widgets that could further extend the ability to hook into IP services and RSS feeds. This opens doors. Conceivably one could invite friends from all over the country to watch the same show or sporting event and chat online while it was playing. No doubt “clubs” will arise focused around particular shows and scheduled meetings. RSS will allow for further amalgamation and integration with other services and video feeds.

But the proof is in the pudding; or in this case, the viewing. I recently sat down, played around with the (very slick) interface and actually settled in to watch a commercial TV/now DV show. It played at full screen on my laptop–there was noticeable blockiness but no actual hesitations even though the feed was being relayed over my wifi. Cox had provided me access to the first real, commercial television show I’ve streamed down and watched in its entirety over the internet instead of watching it when it was scheduled to be on cable. It’s a sign. We’re in the final days of TV1.0.

——————–

(Like the idea and have found by clicking through that Joost is still in beta and requires an invite from a user? Happy days: GigaOm’s influential NewTeeVee blog has the pull to get a simple sign-in sheet for its readers. You can use it too.)

Incidently, there are other, less high-profile startups trying to do something similar. The Joost page on Wikipedia points to several. I’d particularly recommend the Democracy site and player.

Slime: Naquin & Attorneys try to Drive up Bond Costs

Slime. Unprincipled, low-life slime.

That is the mildest and kindest epitaph that I can manage for Elizabeth Naquin, her Plaquimines attorneys and the incumbent corporations who are pretty obviously paying them off. The only possible purpose for stirring things up right now is to drive up the costs of the bonds that are to be marketed in New York next week. And that is plain, flat, wrong.

According to Kevin Blanchard over at the Advocate the attorneys for Naquin (BS/AT&T and/or Cox?) have shot off emails — to the media — threatening to sue Lafayette at some unspecified future moment over the plan to fund the construction of Lafayette’s fiber network. That plan has already been approved by the court of last resort, the Louisiana Supreme Court, and the objections raised have already been dismissed. Further, according to the Louisiana constitution the bond ordinance becomes immune to challenge when it is validated and that immunity extends to:

“the validity of the . . . means provided for the payment of such bonds and the validity of all pledges of revenues and of all covenants and provisions contained in the instrument or proceedings authorizing or providing for the issuance of such bonds, and as to all matters adjudicated and as to all objections presented or which might have been presented in such proceeding, and shall constitute a permanent injunction against the institution by any person of any action or proceeding contesting the validity of the bonds or any other matter adjudicated or which might have been called in question in such proceedings.” [Legal citation from Ottinger’s press release]

That is pretty conclusive. Let us be very plain: No one and no “thing” can challenge a bond once it has been validated and issued. The constitution is clear; no matter how defective a bond ordinance might prove to be, it cannot be changed after it has been validated and sold. The business plan supporting it is incorporated into the ordinance and becomes a contract with the bond holders. NOTHING can be done to change it. (Even if the court hadn’t already ruled on the question.)

So this is clearly FUD–an attempt to sow Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. It cannot be a valid legal objection and would only result in ridicule if actually brought before a court.

The real question is: WHO are they trying to scare now? And the answer is plain: the men who will sit across the table from Lafayette’s representatives setting up the bond sale. They would like to make those men fearful, uncertain, and doubtful. They hope those men will condition the bonds in such a way as to force millions more in interest costs on the people of Lafayette.

That the “lawyers” (aka PR agents for BS/AT&T and/or Cox?) are sending reporters multiple emails with their threatening “news” the week before the Lafayette team is set be in New York setting up the bond sale makes the whole slimy thing disgustingly transparent.

———————
To this point I’ve been willing to do no more than say that Naquin and her attorneys are pretty transparently serving the interests of AT&T (nee BS) and Cox. There is no money in a successful suit for Elizabeth Naquin and very little for her ambulance-chasing “personal injury” lawyers. With the Supreme Court decision they have lost all hope of ever being paid a penny by LUS or LCG on this case. Yet still they spend money on lawyers–money that cannot bring them any return. This has been an expensive lawsuit to carry forward–backed by a team of lawyers from several law firms, none of which are noted for their charity work. Someone is paying for this. Who benefits? Cox and BS/AT&T benefit. Who is hurt? The people of Lafayette.

Naquin is a new resident in Lafayette and clearly not a woman of means. She has been unwilling to make the slightest effort toward explaining to her neighbors why she wants to stand in their way and cost them millions of dollars in extra expenses to implement a decision that the people overwhelmingly approved in an hard-fought election.

This is a case made for investigative journalism. Who is Elizabeth Naquin? Why does she not have the decency to publicly justify the cost she is imposing on her new community. What is her connection with BellSouth and or Cox. What is her work history? When exactly did she move to Lafayette and why? Who is actually paying the expense of this series of lawsuits and threats? Are corporate funds or money from anyone employed by the incumbents involved. Are public relations firms involved in passing money on to its recipients? Which ones? What about Naquin’s repentant ex-ally, Matthew Eastin? Who recruited this student? Where did he get the money to pay his “share” of the expenses while he was involved? Did he pay anything? Was he asked to? How much?

Really…these lawsuits are going to cost the citizens of the community millions of dollars. It is now past the point where there is any possible legal or ethical rationale that could justify the continued legal harassment and hence no conceivable reason to not thoroughly investigate this situation. (Recall the feeding frenzy about much less expensive irregularities at the airport commission?) There is a big story here somewhere; anyone can smell it and the people deserve to know. (ULL journalism students, anyone?)

I’d like to know more–if anyone out there can shed any light on this please let me know. Here or via email.