[Cialug] Iowa Municipal Telecom Legisation

[Jon Clemons]

The big play now is all the big Telco's trying to monopolize
telephone, internet and TV so they can be the provider of
all three services which if successful will shut down
a lot of other businesses. They don't want Municipalities
to take that market share away from them anywhere.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Champion" <dave@visionary.com>
To: <cialug@cialug.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 3:41 PM
Subject: Re: [Cialug] Iowa Municipal Telecom Legisation


So, rather than fix the legislation that the telcos must endure, let's
make municipalities use similarly messed up rules. Gotta love that.

Municipalities provide all kinds of public utility services, like
electricity, water, sewer, and sometimes cable TV and phone. All of
these are complex and expensive, and yet hundreds of towns in Iowa
manage to support them. Why should internet service be MORE regulated
than any of those?

Seems to me like a win/win situation would be for XYZ ISP to contract
out to a municipality to do this (doubtful that the town would have the
resources to do it themselves). Then the town handles the support /
billing / day to day junk that would be a hassle for the ISP, and the
ISP gets paid for the big contracting and probably for providing the
upstream bandwidth.

-dc

Michael Osten wrote:
>
> 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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>



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