[Cialug] Iowa Municipal Telecom Legisation

[Jon Clemons]

  I see no reason they should intentionally prevent municipalities
from at least considering options to do things themselves. The think the 
whole
Opportunity Iowa thing was spawned from some things done by Clark McLeod
who started a new business apart from his ownership in McLeodUSA.
His group has been talking to cities about doing their own community
based service. I personally can't imagine why anyone would put a lot
of weight in any of his ideas especially if they ever owned McLeodUSA 
stock:)
 On the issue of telcos having to spend money to bring services to rural 
areas
in which they will never recoup their costs I think that can be debated.
 There is a charge on everyone's monthly phone bills that the Telco gets to
keep which is supposed to be utilized to build out infrastructure. I 
personally
would like to see how the Federal Universal Service Fund money
has been utilized to build out infrastructure in the past 10 years by the 
different Telco's.
 I know their have been many CLEC telcos utilizing the ILEC's facilities and 
collecting
these fees and never bother to aquire any of their own telco equipment.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Osten" <lists@bleepyou.com>
To: <cialug@cialug.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 2:45 PM
Subject: Re: [Cialug] Iowa Municipal Telecom Legisation



On Feb 22, 2005, at 10:50 AM, Dave J. Hala Jr. wrote:

> Its another example of Republican Bush-O-nomics.  Its more legislation
> sold under the guise of "Improving the business Environment" Basically,
> its eliminating community players in potential Telco markets.
>
> I wouldn't be surprised if a new bill popped up saying that ISP's had to
> use MS servers, in order to protect us from Cyber Terrorism. Its a such
> load of crap.
>
> Internet infrastructure should be a public utility, if a community would
> choose to have it that way... Communities should not be hampered by this
> Kind of B.S.   They don't need feasibility studies, they have the
> community to answer to.
>
> It offends me to the point where I become almost insane enough to run
> for public office.

As a disclaimer, I work for a telecom, which also happens to be the
largest ISP in the state of Iowa.  However, my opinions are not that of
my employer.

It really isn't a case of the evil telecoms forcing over-priced
products on cities.

What people fail to realize the telecom industry is one of the most
heavily regulated industries in the country.  Telecoms are forced to do
hugely unprofitable things for the benefit of public good.  Such as
running telephone lines into rural areas.  Sometimes running millions
of dollars of infrastructure to areas that serve a very small amount of
people.  Such a small amount that the cost would never be recuperated
simply because of the regulated prices that telecoms can charge.  We
currently have DSLAM's in areas that serve fewer than 10 people,
providing the only hope these people currently have for affordable
broadband.  The small towns that we serve have no hope of providing
service to their residents, it is simply to expensive and complex. This
is not profitable for us, but is the cost of doing business.   Telecos
are fighting these municipalities simply because they put local
municipalities on a unleveled, unregulated playing field with the
heavily regulated, "for profit" telecos.  This really also has nothing
to do with internet access per-se.  IMHO it has more to do with the
coming of VOIP products that are completely unregulated, and do not
require the infrastructure that the telecoms have been forced to put in
place.  Other "for-profit" entities we can compete against, but tax
payer fed, and deficit running municipalities used to hemorrhaging
money we can not.

You also need to look at why cities would want to do this?  Is the
service they currently have so terrible and overpriced?  I doubt it.
Sure to people like us, fiber to the door would be nice, but do you
really think "Joe six-pack" really needs or wants to subsidize said
fiber, or wireless for that matter?

Below is a quote from Alan Wells, the CEO of Iowa Telecom in the Des
Moines paper:

Q. There is an effort to bring fiber to the home with OpportunityIowa.
What are your thoughts on that?
A. You have to take a step back and say what’s the need we’re trying to
address … Is telecom and capacity on the network holding us back from
economic development? I don’t think so. If it was, I think we’d have
heard a lot more about communities coming to us or somebody else saying
we have a development need. How can you help us meet it? (Fiber to the
home) is an awful lot of money for cities and communities to take on
responsibility for without a demonstrated need.

Q. Is that a statement in opposition to OpportunityIowa?
A. I wouldn’t say opposition. Whoever makes the decision about the need
for fiber to the home really needs to understand the costs and risks
that go along with it and make sure those costs and risks are
warranted… . If a community decides it’s being held back because of
telecommunications, it really take a close look whether that’s the case
before deciding to spend millions of dollars of city money to go build
something.

I think that Mr Wells is right, the only sane reason to use tax payer
money for infrastructure is where private enterprise would be too cost
prohibitive (ie roads, power plants, etc).

Here is also something to think about, if the communities take over a
utility, would in the world would you complain to if it wasn't up to
your standards?  We all know how well government handles our tax money.





--
Michael Osten
http://www.bleepyou.com/~mosten/pgp.txt

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