Red Bank TV

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.