Save Access

from: MultiChannel News

Fla. Senate Amends Franchise-Reform Bill
Low-Income Homes Protected with Build-Out Guidelines

By Linda Haugsted 3/26/2007 5:48:00 PM

A telephone-company-friendly franchise-reform bill passed late last week by the Florida House of Representatives was amended in a Senate committee to require penetration into one-half of the low-income homes passed by a new provider.

Note: This is just a small example of the political weight a 260 billion dollar company can throw around in a state legislature. Texas set the standard in 2005 when AT&T and Verizon had one lobbyist for each state legislator. This isn't so much politics as a corporate takeover.

from: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

from: DSL Reports

Telco, CableTV Price Wars Aren't Coming
Says Wisconsin professor, despite think tank reports...

from: NY Times

AT&T Has Done the Deals. Now It Needs Results.
March 27, 2007

By MATT RICHTEL
Edward E. Whitacre Jr., the chairman and chief executive of AT&T, is captivating several hundred employees in an Atlanta auditorium with a pep talk about the rosy future of the world’s largest telephone company. His demeanor is commanding, cut with a practiced avuncular charm.

from: Bradenton Herald

Debate over state cable bill intensifies

BY JIM WYSS
jwyss@MiamiHerald.com
Posted on Sun, Mar. 25, 2007

TALLAHASSEE - One of the most watched dramas unfolding here isn't on TV -- it's over TV. For the second year running, telecommunications and cable representatives have descended on the state Capitol to battle over The Consumer Choice Act, a bill that rewrites the rules that govern entry into the cable television market.

from: Peoria Chronicle

Almost a year later, and still no cable franchise agreement

Cable TVOn April 15, 2006, Peoria’s 20-year cable franchise agreement with Insight Communications expired. As of today, we still have no cable franchise agreement, but City Attorney Randy Ray is hopeful that we will soon. In an e-mail I received in response to my question on how negotiations were going, he said this:

from: Not Neutrality

Not Neutrality
Why are the Communications Workers of America opting out of the Save the Internet coalition?

By Brian Cook

Last year, the telecommunications industry did their best to build a tiered Internet that would have privileged the Web sites that paid companies like AT&T and Verizon an additional fee and degraded the speeds of Web sites that did not. But it was the advocates of “net neutrality”—the Internet’s long-standing design principle that prevents service providers from discriminating against any content, Web site or platform—who ended up with a string of impressive victories.

from: Telephony Online

AT&T CEO paid $32M for 2006
By Ed Gubbins

Mar 23, 2007 11:19 AM

AT&T paid Ed Whitacre nearly $32 million for his work as the company’s chairman and chief executive officer last year.

Whitacre, 65, received a $2.1-million base salary, $6.78 million in incentives and stock worth about $22 million at the time it was awarded. He also made more than $268,000 in returns on deferred income and nearly $462,000 in other benefits, such as life insurance and the use of the corporate airplane and other transportation.

from: Journal Times

News from around Wisconsin
Sun Mar 25, 2007

MADISON, Wis. (AP) _ A state bill would decrease the amount of money local governments receive from cable providers but would benefit consumers by increasing competition and driving down overall fees, according to AT&T lobbyists who are aggressively pushing the measure.

Message: Earth to Sen. Bill Ketron - you are dreaming and living inside an AT&T advertisement - please wake up!

from: The Murfreesboro Post

Competitive cable bill drawing some fire
By ERIN EDGEMON Business Editor

Legislation drafted to create competition in the cable industry won't hurt municipalities; it will lower customers’ monthly bill, said the bill's co-sponsor.