Michigan Telecommunications Act … Michigan Loses
January 4th, 2006 | by christine |I have been working on an article about the new Michigan Telecommunications Act. I was going to publish it toward the end of January, but Jeremy Ellwood’s recent letter to the editor changed my plans.
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What Jeremy describes in his letter sounds like bad customer service. That certainly is possible … I’ve had experience with both AT&T and Verizon, as well as SBC and others. When you need help, you usually can’t get a real person. If you do get a real person, the person doesn’t speak your language. If you get a real person who speaks your language, then you are connected to the wrong department. Their service is absolutely unacceptable, but you as a consumer /have/ to accept it because in most cases you have nowhere else to turn for the products that the big guys provide. |
However, aside from rotten, really bad service, these big telecommunication companies have rotten, really bad political & economic agendas. Of course their agendas are all driven by profit, and there’s nothing wrong with that … these companies are in business for profit. They should be able to compete in a free market and make lots of money and provide lots of jobs. But one of their major accomplishments this year in pursuit of that profit was that they were able to re-write the Michigan Telecommunications Act, which did two things that I don’t like:
- Made it illegal for public entities to own public networks
- De-regulated pricing for telecommunications
Rural Broadband
Let me tell you, Shiawassee, why this should matter to you … first of all, regarding the public networks … this means that Shiawassee County cannot provide rural areas with broadband. A big private company has to do that. Byron had a small company that was willing to provide residents with broadband … but the small company didn’t have the support of the big companies, and now the little guy is out of business.
Those of you who were online & in Shiawassee in the 90’s probably remember that the only ISP in Shiawassee that wasn’t a long distance phone number was Shianet … AOL, Earthlink, CompuServe, etc. just couldn’t be bothered with us country folk. Shianet demonstrated that there was a demand for a local ISP in this area, and so users in Shiawassee eventually were able to get AOL, Earthlink, etc. Initiatives like Shianet are not going to be possible under the Michigan Telecommunications Act.
Piggy Back Networks
Many communities like Shiawassee have one large network that connects all the schools, and the municipalities will piggy back that network for their own connectivity. For example, if a city like Corunna wants to connect all of the city buildings into one network, it could use the Shiawassee RESD network for connectivity.
It wasn’t so long ago that municipalities didn’t really need to have every building connected, but things are changing. They now see the benefit of connectivity. Having one big network rather than multiple small networks means that a municipality doesn’t have to buy as many versions of a program, because users can connect to one installation on one server. It means fewer printers, because users share these devices. Users can use instant messaging or voice over ip or email, rather than plain old telephone systems. Even meter readers can send in their data from the road, if the city is wired (wireless). There is a legitimate demand on the part of municipalities to connect all of their resources, and now the new MTA requires that the city install its own network rather than piggy backing on other public networks. This drives up the cost for the public entity, and creates a ‘sale’ for the private company.
Deregulation
Another thing the new MTA does is remove regulation on rates that telecommunication providers can charge. I have mixed feelings about this … generally speaking, the government shouldn’t dictate what a private entity charges its customers. However, without regulation, the smaller telecommunications guys will be driven out of business, and the big guys will further consolidate their control over America’s communication infrastructure.
Smoking Gun
So what’s all this business with the MTA got to do with AT&T? Well, AT&T just merged with SBC, and SBC is the company that wrote the new MTA. MTA sponsor Mike Nofs will deny that, if you ask (which I have), but he’s lying. Somewhere
out there is a letter that begins,
“Dear Representative Nofs; the following are the revisions we would like to see enacted in H.B. 5237“
It lists 70 bullet points of changes, and it is written on SBC letterhead.
This letter was shown to me and several other people who work in the telecommunications industry. Unfortunately I was not allowed to make a copy.
SBC denied writing the letter.
So, the big guys have strengthened their position in Michigan through the MTA. I think that’s bad for business, because I like small business and I’d rather see a bunch of little guys succeed than to have power consolidated with a few big guys.
Free Speech No More?
But this is also bad for people in terms of free speech, because when a company like Comcast or SBC controls what gets to your desktop, then how much freedom do you really have? Some of you remember the buzz about Comcast spam filters blocking all mail that included www.afterdowningstreet.org (http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001602.htm) … that was just a simple case of Comcast adding a new word to their spam filter. I’m sure that if the government was controlled by Democrats, Comcast would be adding “freerepublic.com” to their list of spammers. It’s all about who is in power at the time. Furthermore, like Yahoo/Hotmail/etc., these guys can stick an advertisement in the bottom of every email message you send/receive. We must have more diversity in our ISPs. When only 3 or 4 companies control 90% of America’s email, that’s a lot of potential content manipulation by just a few people.
SBC Loves Google
A final thing that I’d like to point out is that when you have few choices in terms of ISPs & backbones, you start to see the face of the internet changing. For example, SBC recently discussed the idea of charging Google to be delivered to the end user via the SBC pipe. Some might see this as responsible business, because Google & other companies are being delivered to their site visitors via SBC. I see it as ridiculous, since the site visitor is already paying SBC for the ISP service … but the relevant point is that while the big guys strengthen their market position, they’ll be raising our prices on our Internet content. The new Michigan Telecommunications Act takes us one step closer to this scenario.
Back To Jeremy …
Was Jeremy’s experience just a case of really bad customer service? It’s certainly possible … customer service is usually bad while companies undergo changes like mergers & acquisitions. Or is there something else going on? Perhaps someone saw that there was some demand in the Byron area for broadband, and they wanted to keep that market open.
Caveat … I am not a lawyer, and certain provision of the Michigan Telecommunications Act are open to interpretation and will probably be defined in court.
/cb
