Red Bank TV

Just wanted to include a link to a short video on YouTube.com

This video does a great job of explaining Net Neutrality and is being linked to by people all over the net.

Please take a few minutes and watch 

Posted by Tom at 05:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Jersey’s 1^st official electronic newspaper, The Atlantic Highlands Herald, chose to publish a letter I wrote to them about Red Bank and Verizon.  Thank you to the editor for publishing it.  You can visit the Atlantic Highlands Herald or click here to go directly to the letter.

Posted by Tom at 07:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Not that we needed another reminder of what lengths Verizon will go to in order to get these cable franchises but lo an behold our Mayor McKenna was recently on National Public Radio’s Marketplace talking again about how Verizon faked faxes to his office to try to show support for Verizon’s application.

Here is our Mayor’s quotes from the piece:

Edward McKenna is the mayor of Red Bank, New Jersey.

In a normal week, he receives about 10 faxes from constituents. In three days last November, McKenna says he got more than 200.

EDWARD McKENNA: "Those faxes all purported to come from people who said they were Red Bank residents. In fact, each fax started out by saying, "I am a Red Bank resident and I vote."

These so-called residents all wrote in support of new legislation to increase competition in the cable industry. McKenna noticed the faxes had names, but no signatures.

EDWARD McKENNA: "When I called them, a number of them said they had not authored any such letter. Nor did they authorize anyone to send it on their behalf."

He says the traced the fax number back to an organization funded by the telephone giant Verizon.

Dawn Holian with Common Cause has studied these front groups, also known as "astroturf."

 

You can read or listen to the entire story by clicking here:  Marketplace

Posted by Tom at 07:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

I’ve been receiving feedback asking me that question.  And my answer is: absolutely these are issues that affect people living my town and Verizon approached my town with their desire to run a new type of business.  How can these issues not be addressed locally?

Let me try to talk out my reasoning on ‘A La Carte’ cable service a bit more in this post.

Not offering ‘A La Carte’ cable service will continue to make cable TV service too expensive for some Red Bank Residents; all while Verizon makes more educational programming available to those who can afford a package.  There is a big discrepancy between income levels on the “two sides” of Red Bank.  This void means that families on the two different sides of town have differing levels of real dollars that can be put to use on educational spending.  I am not an expert on public education but I can use common sense to conclude that this gap has to contribute to making the job of educating Red Bank’s children more difficult.  So I think it would be fair to say that anything that exasperates this gap would make teaching Red Bank’s kids harder.  Isn’t that a local issue?  

Our town council has an opportunity to help keep the educational gap between the two sides of Red Bank from growing.  Pushing Verizon to offer ‘A La Carte’ cable service is good for our town; thus it is a very local issue.

There is legislation working it’s way through Congress that would require cable companies to provide ‘A La Carte’ cable service.  I don’t like relying on Congress to handle issues that we can deal with locally.  Verizon and the Cable companies have too much money and too much influence in Congress.  If you agree that this is a local issue then I urge you to ask our town council to deal with this issue locally and not wait and hope for Congress to act.

Posted by Tom at 06:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This Saturday at the Red Bank Primary School members of RedBankTV.org will be handing out informational flyers.  There will be a meeting held by the town to discuss how best to develop pathways and walkways along the riverfront.

This is an open meeting and they are calling for suggestions and public participation.  I plan on suggesting that free wireless internet be provided along the riverfront so that students can do their homework outside and business people will be able to sneak out and get some work done along the river.

The people who will attend this meeting have a good chance off being sympathetic to the issues I have outlined on this website.  Hopefully by handing out simple flyers we will be able to steer them to this website.

I need help getting the word out and if you can spare some time on Saturday morning it would be greatly appreciated.

-- Tom

Thanks to the Asbury Park Press for the tip:

Red Bank officials are open to ideas about use of riverfront open space 

Posted by Tom at 07:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here is a link to an article that was published on April 23 talking about A La Carte cable services.

Here is a quote from Mike Mcdaniel's article:
Powerful people in Washington, including Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin, believe a la carte cable would not only trim a subscriber's monthly bill - currently averaging between $48 and $49 in Houston, according to Time Warner - but also allow consumers to decide which channels are allowed in their homes.

McCain, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, plans to introduce a bill this week that would free new cable competitors from local franchising regulations. In the House, U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal (R-Ga.) has said he will offer legislation allowing consumers to choose the channels they want.

Posted by Tom at 05:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Kevin Smith, the famous film maker, has long been associated with Red Bank. His trailer for his new movie Clerks 2 provides a good example of how Net Neutrality could affect local artists.

Mr. Smith has decided to release the trailer for his film on the free video web site YouTube .  YouTube is exactly the type of web site that the big telecoms want to restrict access to.  If the big telecoms get there way on Net Neutrality local Red Bank artists will have a hard time getting their work seen.

Net Neutrality is a serious issue.  To lighten things up I recommend watching the trailer to Mr. Smith’s Clerks 2 by clicking on the link below.  (Parents be forewarned some of Mr. Smiths work may not be appropriate for viewing by children)

  Official Clerks II Trailer

Posted by Tom at 07:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The national movement against the Tiered Internet is really picking up momentum today.  Another coalition, this one made up of leading tech companies, has put up a web site encouraging people to get involved with the movement to save the internet.

Take a look at Don't Mess With The Net

Posted by Tom at 04:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Keeping the internet a level playing field is much more than just a local issue.  A new group went public yesterday and is fighting to make the issue of Net Neutrality better known.  It is called www.savetheinternet.com

Check out the site.  There are some real heavy hitters of the internet getting involved. 

Posted by Tom at 08:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You may have noticed a lot of Verizon trucks around town hooking up new cables over the last few months. Much of the work is part of an effort to bring Red Bank onto the cutting edge of internet technology. Verizon has targeted Red Bank as one of the few towns in the country to pilot a new service called FIOS™, a high speed fiber optic connection into the home. This new fiber optic technology uses pulses of light to bring the internet to your home with amazing speed, fast enough to provide Red Bank residents with cable TV service as well as phone and internet access.

 

Our town council recently approved Verizon’s application to operate a cable TV service, leaving it up to Verizon and Red Bank to negotiate the terms of the cable franchise agreement. The town council made the right decision in approving Verizon’s application because the agreement will spur on direct competition between Comcast and Verizon, which in turn should lead to better and less expensive cable service for all Red Bank cable consumers. Now begins the hard work of deciding what a fair franchise deal entails, and there is more at stake here than just determining how much money Red Bank should receive from Verizon. The town council must make certain that Verizon does not abuse its franchise rights by imposing unnecessary service restrictions on paying customers or road-blocking potential future community technology projects.

I have set up the website www.redbanktv.org in order to track the progress of these complicated negotiations, to provide a discussion forum around the relevant issues, and to provide a commonsensical analysis of the constantly evolving cable TV and internet landscape. Foremost, I am asking our town council to make Verizon address three important issues during the negotiations:


A La Carte

Not everyone in our town can afford a full blown cable package. Yet there is a great deal of quality educational and children’s programming available on cable, much more than on free over-the-air TV. With a standard cable package if you want to get that educational programming for your child then you must also pay for gossip, sports and talking-head news channels. ‘A La Carte’ service means you pick and choose which channels you want to pay for. Just like Comcast, Verizon does not plan to offer ‘A La Carte’ service. Comcast’s franchise agreement is not before the council, but Verizon’s is, and our council should ask Verizon about their position on ‘A La Carte’ service.

Municipal WiFi

As New Jersey’s ‘hippest’ town, Red Bank may one day choose to offer a free municipal WiFi service. Many progressive towns around the country are setting up muni-WiFi’s. Muni-WiFi’s bring free wireless internet access to all town residents. Philadelphia is one such city that chose to offer a muni-WiFi and their integration plan has been hailed as a great way of reducing the digital divide. Verizon, now infamously, has fought Philadelphia’s muni-WiFi all the way. Our town council should ask Verizon if they would oppose a free municipal WiFi network.

Keeping the internet a level playing field.

Verizon will be using a technology known as Video over Internet Protocol (IP) to deliver their cable TV service. Therefore, it is appropriate for our town council to ask Verizon about their plans for providing internet access. Verizon and the other big telecommunication companies have been talking a lot about Tiered Internet access. In that scenario, the teleconms would control what kind of access we have to the internet. This grates against the essence of the internet as a success story - its enormous growth and increase in popularity over the past decade have come about precisely because it is a level playing field. With "Tiered Internet" access, they could decide how the internet is used, restricting access to competing services, or selectively charging for access to independent services such as Apple’s iTunes™ or Google’s Video™. Our town council should ask Verizon about their future plans for the internet.

Summary

Red Bank’s fiber optic future is looking bright. We should be proud that Verizon has recognized our town as a place that other municipalities can learn from. Our role as a leading edge, contemporary community makes Red Bank a town that others look to as an example. Our town council must ask Verizon to address these important issues. If we don’t act on these issues then Verizon’s standard answer will be: "If it was good enough for Red Bank then it's good enough for your town." Let’s be leaders. Ask the town council to push Verizon to commit to a better future.

Posted by Tom at 06:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (506)

Money talks.  Especially when talking to politicians and corporations.  So let’s try to speak their language and figure out if there are any costs associated with the issues I’ve brought up. 

First, let’s see if we can identify any costs associated with not getting Verizon to commit to not opposing a municipal WiFi. 

Verizon has a well documented record of sparing no expense when it comes to opposing muni-WiFi’s.  I would venture to guess that if we don’t remove their opposition to a Red Bank muni-WiFi now then we will have to entertain legal measures down the road.  What would a legal battle with Verizon cost?  Five thousand dollars? 25,50,150?  Philadelphia spent millions fighting Verizon.  We are a small town.  Hopefully it would cost us less.  For the sake of this post let’s put a number on it.  You can choose your own but let me pull a number out of thin air and say it would cost us $250,000 in legal fees to fight Verizon for something that could be taken care of now.  We have some 5000 households in our town.  That works out to about $50 per household. 

I don’t know how many households in town subscribe to cable so I’ll have to do some guessing here.  Let’s say 4000 households subscribe to cable.  Let’s be generous and split that right down the middle and say 2000 households will switch to Verizon.  So 250000 / 2000 would be about $125 per Verizon subscriber.  This should be passed along in the franchise agreement.

What about the Tiered Internet issue?  How could that cost Red Bank money?  The big cost that would be associated with this issue would be along the lines of an opportunity cost, which would then be passed along as a realized cost in the form of lower tax revenue. 

People who watch internet growth and development worry that Tiered Internet plans will make it harder for new companies to emerge and compete with the big guys.  There are a lot of small companies in Red Bank and with the proposals before the town for more office space there are sure to be many more small companies in our future.  What if one of those companies has the next big internet idea?  Analysts say that in the world of Tiered Access that our little Red Bank company with the next great idea would have almost insurmountable barriers in place that would keep our company from competing with the more established players.

It is not hard to assign costs to a Red Bank business that looses out to bigger competitors and has to shut down, all because the big telecoms used Tiered Access to create an uneven playing field.  Just pick a sample business from the tax rolls and take away the tax revenue generated by that company and take away the tax revenue that the employees of that company. 

 

How could lack of “A La Carte” cable plans cost Red Bank money?  I’ll admit, lack of affordable cable TV programming is hard to translate into a revenue stream.  But this is a blog so why don’t I give it a shot.

If there truly is value to educational programming on cable TV then one could assign cost to the education effort required to bring children who don’t have cable TV in line with those who do.  It’s a stretch. I know.  But maybe this issue isn’t so much about the money but the cost that could be associated with losing out on that one kid who could have but was not inspired to learn about something different or explore a career they might not have heard of on TV.

So long story short.   There is real money associated with not getting these issues addressed by Verizon.  If our town council can not convince Verizon to address these issues then we should charge them more in anticipation of future costs.

 

If we can not get Verizon to work with us on the issues I’ve identified then we should be proactive and work these additional costs into the franchise agreement.

 

Posted by Tom at 04:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There is a conference going on at Yale this weekend called The Access To Knowledge (A2K) conference.  I just read through a transcript of a discussion that took place today, April 22.  I encourage you to read through it.

 

It can be found here

 

Here are a couple of select quotes:

Public vs. private internet: Verizon's FIOS service delivers high def tv plus web content for those people willing to pay. Everyone else gets slower public Internet. They have exclusive deals with companies like Disney and EA Sports. They're proud of these deals but they're open only to those who can afford to pay for them, creating a new digital divide.

Website premiums (access tiering). BellSouth speculates about charging sites to access their customers or prioritizing some sites over others. Verizon raises similar noise about two-tiered Internet.

Posted by Tom at 02:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Thanks to The Consumerist , a very popular consumer rights website, for the mention of the blog on thier website.  Love the Headline: "NJ Townsman Fights Verizon on Net Neutrality"

Good Stuff. Thanks for the link. -- Tom 

Posted by Tom at 04:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There are two main reasons why it is important for our town council to get Verizon to guarantee to respect the tenets of Network Neutrality

1.    Red Bank residents want to be able to use the internet without their internet service provider restricting which web services the use or charging them extra to go “outside” the provider’s network.  Internet Access Tiering plans will allow the internet provider to control access to the internet through their network.  Fiber optic internet service is great but what if the provider charged you extra for using Apple’s iTunes? Or prevented you from using Google video?
2.    Red Bank has many small internet related businesses.  What if one of these businesses hit it big?  In a world with Tiered Internet Service, customers for that company may be restricted from visiting their web site because the small company is unable to afford to pay the big telecoms the fees they will charge to be on their preferred network.  That Red Bank company’s growth would be restricted.

Internet Access Tiering is important on a national level but also on some very real local levels.  The rise of the internet has seen the rise of some of America’s new breed of innovative and fast moving companies.  These companies were able to grow because the internet is Neutral.  Everyone plays on a level playing field.

Verizon will be using Internet Protocol and Internet Technologies to deliver cable service to Red Bank residents.  It is absolutely appropriate that the topic of Network Neutrality be on the table during negotiations. 

It is important to Red Bank consumers and Red Bank companies.

Verizon should be pressed to gurantee Network Neutrality.

Posted by Tom at 03:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was contacted and had a brief conversation with a representative of the local media today.  They were kind enough to let me ramble on about the thoughts I have expressed here on the blog.  For those of you have been e-mailing and contacting me with encouragement, the media people would like to know if anyone local to Red Bank would be willing to talk to them (perhaps on camera?) some time next week.

Please e-mail me if you would be interested: tom@redbanktv.org

Posted by Tom at 01:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Business Week just released an article saying that Verizon and the other telcos are spending huge amounts of money lobbying at the federal level to eliminate their responsibility to negotiate with individual towns on cable franchises.  Red Bank can not rely on the federal government to address the issues I've brought up in this blog.  Verizon is going to use its deep pockets to ensure no federal laws are passed that make them commit to doing what's good for small towns.

 

Business Week article 

Posted by Tom at 08:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am a long time subscriber and satisfied customer of Verizon Wireless cell service.  In my opinion they have the best cellular coverage in the area.  I have a relatively new Motorola cell phone.  My phone supports Verizon’s high speed internet service EVDO, also known as V-Cast.  V-Cast allows me to watch streaming video, play games and buy and download music to my phone.  There is however; one catch.  I can only watch video that Verizon provides. I can only buy music from Verizon’s service.

 

I pay Verizon Wireless for network access.  I should be able to watch video provided by any online provider.  I should be able to choose to buy my music from Apple?  I should not  be locked into Verizon’s services to get pictures taken with my phone off of my phone?  Verizon says no.  I disagree.  I think that if I pay for access to the network then I should be able use any service I choose.

 

This is essentially the crux of Network Neutrality.  Verizon and the other telecoms would like to control the internet the way they control their cellular services.

 

Verizon and the other telecoms have been talking a lot lately about Tiered Internet access.  Red Bank should get an agreement from Verizon as part of the franchise negotiations to not implement a Tiered Internet Access policy.

Posted by Tom at 05:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The purpose of this blog is to track the negotiations between Red Bank and Verizon and to try to encourage the two to address important issues.  I would like to step away from that purpose for a second to bring your attention to a couple of friends of mine.  Vince and Vance Moss, I just found out, are featured on the cover of today's Asbury Park Press  These are two amazing guys. I encourage you to read their story.

 

Posted by Tom at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Red Bank Mayor Ed McKenna sent a letter to me thanking me for my correspondence and for appearing at the council meeting.  Mayor McKenna says that the council will not give up on the "whole tiering issue"when they deal with them in future negotiations.

I think it was very nice of the Mayor to write back to me.

When I wrote to Mayor McKenna and spoke to the council I did not have this blog set up.  I hope he doesn't mind that I quoted his letter to me.

 

Posted by Tom at 08:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This letter, with some minor proofreading changes, was recently send by Tom to a local online newspaper. 

 

 

I am happy to see that Verizon picked Red Bank as one of its pilot towns in which to apply for a cable TV franchise and I am glad to see that the Red Bank town council has approved Verizon’s application.  Now that the two partners have entered the negotiation phase I see several subjects that should be on the negotiating table.

 

‘A la carte’ cable service

‘A la carte’ cable service allows the subscriber to pick and pay for only those channels that they want to subscribe to.  Many of us don’t think twice about the price we pay for cable service but to many Red Bank residents cable TV is not within their limited budget.  If you are a parent and want to help your child by subscribing to educational or children’s programming then you are forced to subscribe to a cable package which will include many gossip, political and sports networks.  You should not be forced to pay for those channels.  Verizon should promise to offer ‘A la carte’ to Red Bank residents.

 

Municipal WIFI

As New Jersey’s ‘hippest’ town, Red Bank may someday choose to follow the lead of progressive cities around the country such as San Francisico and Philedelphia by offering a free municipal WIFI network.  This network would provide free internet access to all residents regardless of income level, thus helping to fight the emerging digital divide between the “well off” and underprivileged.  Verizon has vehemently fought municipal WI-FI plans.  As a partner with Red Bank, Verizon should promise to not oppose a future municipal WI-FI network.

 

‘Network Neutrality’

Verizon will be using Internet Protocol (IP) to deliver video service to Red Bank residents.  Thus it is appropriate to ask Verizon to address the issue of Network Neutrality.  Telecom bosses, including Verizon’s, have been talking a lot lately about Network Neutrality and Tiered Internet plans.  These plans would restrict or charge extra for internet users to visit certain web sites such as Google Video or Apple’s iTunes.  Verizon should promise Red Bank residents that they will respect the principals of Network Neutrality and not implement Tiered Internet plans.

 

CableCard and V-Chip

The federal government mandates that cable services support these two consumer protection technologies.  Verizon should promise to support these technologies from the get-go.

 

Many municipalities are watching to see how Red Bank and Verizon proceed with their partnership.  The Red Bank town council is in the unique position of holding sway over a huge corporation.  Verizon needs this deal with Red Bank much more than Red Bank needs the Verizon cable service.  The Red Bank town council must negotiate strongly with Verizon and not be dissuaded by corporate largess or red herring excuses.

 

If Verizon is not willing to address these issues then the Red Bank town council must not be afraid of walking away from the negotiating table and pulling the offer.

Posted by Tom at 08:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I’m glad to see that Verizon has chosen Red Bank as one of its pilot communities in which to compete using high tech fiber optic delivery of television services.  I’m glad that the Red Bank borough council chose to accept Verizon’s application to operate a cable franchise in our town.

 

I am hopeful that as a new cable franchise partner with Red Bank, Verizon and the Red Bank borough council can work together to negotiate a franchise agreement that is good for competition now and into the future.  I hope that these new partners can come to some agreements as they work together that benefit all of Red Bank’s residents; the well-off, the underprivileged, the technological novices and the town’s innovators.

 

There are some areas in which we can work with Verizon to help Red Bank now and into the future.

 

• ‘A La Carte’ cable services
• Non-Tiered internet access
• Non-opposition to a municipal WI-FI network
• Support of federal government mandated technologies such as V-Chip and CableCard

 

These subjects are all important to Red Bank’s future and can save Red Bank residents money and cost Verizon no money.  These are the classic examples of a Win-Win relationship that any two partners working together to come to a long lasting agreement can see will benefit the community.

 

Let me explore these areas in further detail.

 

‘A La Carte’ cable service

Most of us are familiar with the current cable TV offerings.  If you subscribe to cable TV you are familiar with the way the cable company sets pricing plans based on packages of TV channels.  You don’t get to pick and choose which cable channels you pay for.  While you may only be interested in subscribing to educational and children’s programming channels you will also have to pay for a myriad of sports and gossip channels.  ‘A La Carte’ cable service allows you the consumer to pick which channels you pay for.  The Federal Communication Commission released a report on February 9^th of this year in which they studied the affect that ‘A La Carte’ cable service would have on the average consumer.  The FCC concluded that an ‘A La Carte’ offering could save consumers up to 13% on their cable bills.  Senator John  McCain of Arizona has been a big supporter of giving consumers the choice of ‘A La Carte’ cable service.

 

It is not only about savings to Red Bank’s consumers. It is also a choice for Red Bank’s parents.  A lot of the packages offered by cable companies may include channels that parents may not want their children to be watching.  ‘A La Carte’ cable service gives parent’s more control.

 

We are fortunate in that Verizon is looking to help Red Bank consumers by partnering with our town.  There are a lot of people in our community to whom cable TV might cost too much.  While there currently are no laws forcing Verizon to offer ‘A La Carte’ cable service there are also no laws forcing Red Bank to allow Verizon to run a cable franchise in our town.  If Verizon wants what’s best for the Red Bank cable consumer then they should commit in the franchise agreement being negotiated right now to provide Red Bank with an ‘A La Carte’ cable service.

 

 

Non-Tiered Internet Service

I subscribe to Verizon’s Fiber Optic Internet Service, known as FIOS.  I consider myself to be lucky that Verizon chose to provide this service in our town.  The speed and reliability is amazing.  I encourage you to try surfing with FIOS.  It is this Fiber Optic network over which Verizon provides their FIOS internet service that Verizon will be using to provide cable TV service.  The technology is known as Video over Internet Protocol (IP).

 

Recently some of the bosses of the big telecommunication companies, including Verizon, have starting discussing a new type of control over the internet.  It is called “Tiered Internet Service” or “Internet Access Tiering” and it has the potential to change the way we surf the internet and to restrict the growth of future enterprises.

 

Internet Access Tiering is a somewhat complicated issue but boiled down to it’s simplest it means that Verizon may decide at some time to slow down or restrict internet access to web sites or services such as Apple’s iTunes or Google’s video if they feel that you should be paying them more to access their sites.

 

I am a long time Verizon wireless cell phone user.  I think they have some of the best coverage around but I am always amazed at how they choose to restrict which web sites and services you can use on your cell phone.  If you have experience with their cell phone you can easily imagine a point in the future when Verizon may choose to restrict access to certain parts of the web, compelling you to work with their partner web sites and limiting access to their competition.

 

Here is another opportunity for a Verizon, a huge company, to do some good on a local level and it will cost them nothing.  As negotiations continue with Red Bank on the cable franchise deal Verizon should offer Red Bank residents piece of mind regarding their internet access and write into the agreement verbiage that says clearly that as a our partner they will not implement Tiered Internet Service in our town.

 

Non Opposition to a municipal WI-FI network

Red Bank is the hippest town in New Jersey.  That being the case we are always looking toward the future.  Somewhere in our future we may elect to implement a city wide WI-FI network.  WI-FI is what is commonly known as wireless internet service or wireless hot spots.  WI-FI allows anyone with a computer and the right equipment to gain access to the internet without connecting with wires.  Progressive cities and towns all over the world are looking to WI-FI as a low cost way to bring the internet to everyone and help reduce the digital divide between those who can and cannot afford internet access.  Philadelphia and San Francisco are some of the big cities in the US that are building municipal WI-FI networks.  Just this month Google and San Francisco entered into an agreement to provide internet access, wirelessly, for free to the entire city.

 

Philadelphia is considered by many to be the pioneer in municipal WI-FI.  Their network is up and running and has been recently citied as one of the leading factors contributing to that cities resurgent art and design community.  However; the road to municipal WI-FI for Philadelphia was not smooth.  Verizon vehemently opposed the implementation of the citywide free wireless internet.  In the end Verizon relented but they fought against the WI-FI tooth and nail and now have a new law in Pennsylvania that makes it harder for individual municipalities to run their own WI-FI network.  In a lot of ways the law that Verizon pushed Pennsylvania to enact, that makes it harder for individual towns to choose their WI-FI provider, is similar to the law they want to NJ to repeal that would make it easier for them to provide cable TV to individual towns.

 

In negotiating the cable TV partnership with Verizon our Red Bank council should ask for in return an agreement that says that Verizon would not be opposed to Red Bank some day in the future offering our own low cost wireless internet service.

 

Support of federally mandated technology

There are two main federally mandated technologies that cable providers must support.  One is V-chip technology which supports the v-chip that all new TV’s come with and allow parents to control access to material that their children view and the other is CableCard technology.  I believe that Verizon supports both of these technologies.  The CableCard technology allows you to view digital programming without the need of a “cable box”.  The FCC mandated in 2003 that all cable companies support CableCard technology.  There have been mixed reviews regarding Verizon’s support of CableCard technology.

 

Summary

I believe that Verizon is a forward thinking organization and we should be proud that Verizon has chosen Red Bank as a beacon for their new television service.  I believe that a lot of communities around our state will be watching to see how our town negotiates our deal with Verizon.  I think that our town Council is in a unique position in which we have the ability to negotiate a deal with Verizon that will be beneficial to Verizon and pioneering for our town.  Our council should not accept a deal that does not address the issues I have brought up in this essay.  Verizon needs Red Bank at this point a lot more than Red Bank needs Verizon.  There are no laws compelling Verizon to address most of these issues but there is also no law saying that we have to allow Verizon to operate a cable TV franchise in our town.  Verizon stands to gain a lot by getting the franchise but they stand to loose so much more if we decide to walk away from this deal.  Not for a long time has our town wielded so much sway over a corporation as big as Verizon.  I encourage Red Bank residents and Red Bank Town Council members to work for a deal with Verizon that will benefit our town for a long time to come.

Posted by Tom at 07:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (40) | TrackBacks (1)