In response to the FCC’s decision to end federal network neutrality protections, California and other states have introduced bills to fill the gap left by the Commission. Local communities who had flirted with the idea of publicly owned Internet infrastructure in the past have now taken a second and more serious look to counteract the FCC’s harmful policy shift. Assembly Member Ed Chau’s AB 1999, making its way through the legislative process, is opening possibilities for local communities to invest in their own Internet infrastructure. Chau recognizes that publicly owned networks are an option for more than network neutrality protections, especially in rural communities.

Attitude Adjustment

Our Christopher Mitchell travelled to California in May to testify about the bill as it worked its way through the committee process. AB 1999 could indicate that big telephone and cable companies now have less influence in state Capitols around the U.S. than in past years. We recently wrote about a New Hampshire bill that gives us similar hope — a piece of legislation signed by the Governor there that removed restrictions on local investment in broadband networks.

Like New Hampshire's SB 170, AB 1999 allows communities where big national providers don’t want to invest have more control over how they improve local connectivity. If passed, the bill will give California's community service districts the ability to develop public broadband networks and offer services. The language of the bill also requires that any networks developed by community service districts adhere to network neutrality rules.

Rural Communities Serving Themselves

Community service districts (CSD) are independent local governments created to provide services in unincorporated areas of a county. CSDs are...

National ISPs with millions of customers are some of the most hated companies in the U.S. Poor customer service, contract tricks, and a refusal to upgrade services are only a few of the common complaints from subscribers who are often trapped due to lack of competition. Frontier Communications is proudly carrying on that tradition of deficiency in Minnesota. In fact, the company’s excellence at skullduggery has drawn the attention of the state’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC), which launched an investigation into the service quality of Frontier this spring.

So Much Going On Here

While many of us are used to some level of poor service when it comes to the big ISPs, Frontier in Minnesota accumulated so many complaints, the PUC felt they had no choice but to take action. According to Phil Dampier from Stop the Cap!, the Commission received 439 complaints and negative comments in a five-week period in early 2018. Some but not all, of the types of issues that subscribers described included:

• Lack of telephone service for up to a week at a time.
• Poor quality telephone service, including missed calls and noise on phone lines.
• Subscribers charged for services they’re not receiving.
• Service visits that accomplish nothing but for which customers are still charged.
• Missed service appointments and long delays in getting repairs scheduled.
• Mistaken disconnections, service additions customers did not ask for, and service errors.
• Contract issues that include penalties for early termination, even if the subscriber told Frontier they did not want a long term contract.
• Auto-renew contracts that customers were never told about.
• Threats to customers’ credit if they don’t pay bills, even when there is a dispute regarding the charges.
• Customer service promises of discounts not being applied, penalties on disputed bill totals, and checks sent to Frontier but not credited to subscribers’ accounts.

The PUC wanted to hold public hearings to seek out other information from subscribers and those who had previous dealings with Frontier. In order to limit the public spectacle, Frontier and CenturyLink filed comments arguing that the PUC had no authority to review Frontier’...

Local communities considering investment to improve connectivity for businesses and residents have many factors to consider, including state laws. The best laid plans for broadband can be torpedoed if state legislators are influenced enough by incumbent lobbyists to pass laws that complicate local authority or funding. This week, we hear about Wyoming from Cheyenne Mayor Marian Orr.

Mayor Orr describes how incumbents in her community claim that access to broadband is plentiful, but business leaders and residents describe a different reality. In order to seek out possible solutions, the city has now created a broadband task force to analyze the problem.

Earlier this year, Mayor Orr expressed excitement about SF 100, a state bill that was written to provide funding for local communities interested in exploring better solutions for local connectivity. While the bill was in committee, however, lobbyists from incumbents CenturyLink and Spectrum found a way to derail the parts of the bill that would help places like Cheyenne make their own decisions. Now, the bill requires that funding be used only for public-private partnerships and focus only on the areas with the worst connectivity.

I shouldn’t have been surprised to learn industry completely re-wrote proposed broadband legislation to their favor as a “substitute bill” in legislative cmt today. CenturyLink and Spectrum are bullies. It’s wrong and they are hurting WY communities. @ENDOWyo @WYLegislature

— Mayor Marian Orr (@gofishwyo) February 19, 2018

This show is 16 minutes long and can be played on this page or via iTunes or the tool of your choice using this feed.

Read the transcript for this show here....

We’re a little off kilter these days when it comes to state legislation. Typically, we spend our efforts helping local communities stave off bills to steal, limit, or hamstring local telecommunications authority. This year it’s different so Christopher and Lisa sat down to have a brief chat about some of the notable state actions that have been taken up at state Capitols.

We decided to cover a few proposals that we feel degrade the progress some states have made, bills that include positive and negative provisions, and legislation that we think will do nothing but good. Our analysis covers the map from the states in New England to states in the Northwest. 

In addition to small changes that we think will have big impact - like the definition of “broadband” - we discuss the way tones are shifting. In a few places, like Colorado, state leaders are fed up with inaction or obstruction from the big ISPs that use the law to solidify their monopoly power rather than bring high-quality connectivity to citizens. Other states, like New Hampshire and Washington, recognize that local communities have the ability to improve their situation and are taking measured steps to reduce barriers to broadband deployment.

While they still maintain significant power in many places, national corporate ISPs may slowly be losing their grip over state legislators. We talk about that, too.

For more on these and other bills, check out our recent stories on state and federal legislation.

This show is 24 minutes long and can be played on this page or via iTunes or the tool of your choice using this feed.

Read the transcript for this show here.

You can download this mp3 file directly from here. Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes ...