The reach of AT&T inside TN state government is frankly - scarey. This spans everything from them winning a 10 year telecom contract (who in their right mind would sign a 10 year telecom contract when the telecom industry changes monthly?) , to the breakup 3 years ago of the state's perfectly fine education network that had a 100% customer approval rating for AT&T - with no real end user benefit gained.
This action was met with an 80%+ defection rate from the state's choice because the schools saw that there was little objectivity or common sense in action and lots of political backend by AT&T. This year DOE tried to push the AT&T choice to school districts by playing the "budget cut" card and cut school district's legislatively mandated funding to make their own choice for an Internet provider. The swap was that you give up your choice and use AT&T instead of the state money - such a deal.
Now the the state is proposing that a chunk of the broadband stimulus funding be spent on building another state network that no one wants or needs and, according to comments at the Broadband Task Force meeting a few weeks ago, apparently will not be open for use by independent ISP's.
In the meantime some cities like Chattanooga are trying to make it happen for their own citizens the right way - treat it as a utility and make it happen.
Thank God for some local sense but there are forces in Nashville that would stop cities from building and operating Internet access networks because they are "anti-competitive" i.e. you might take business away from the incumbents like AT&T. The Shrine of Competition needs to be torn down and the Temple of Consumer Public Interest needs to be erected.
We can't allow private companies like AT&T to control what is the equivalent of the digital water supply any longer. We need a national broadband policy that recognizes that the Internet is now just as critical as water, sewer, and electricity and should be regulated as such. AT&T is reminiscent of the Edison Company circa 1905 when electricity was still a corporate rather than public commodity. It wasn't until major metropolitan areas looked like Christmas trees and it was a critical necessity that the government finally stepped in and regulated electricity as a utility. The virtual Christmas Tree is already here. We are almost 20 years into the Internet and it is now time to change our perspective and regulate it before someone "too big to fail" like AT&T is controlling 50+% of its traffic and drives their train off the tracks ala the banking industry.
We desperately need to come up with some type of regulated open network arrangements and shared infrastructure. The only real hope we have now is that Obama doesn't let the FCC get bought out by the carriers.
Tennessee: AT&T effort aided by lobbyists, campaign contributions
The reach of AT&T inside TN state government is frankly - scarey. This spans everything from them winning a 10 year telecom contract (who in their right mind would sign a 10 year telecom contract when the telecom industry changes monthly?) , to the breakup 3 years ago of the state's perfectly fine education network that had a 100% customer approval rating for AT&T - with no real end user benefit gained.
This action was met with an 80%+ defection rate from the state's choice because the schools saw that there was little objectivity or common sense in action and lots of political backend by AT&T. This year DOE tried to push the AT&T choice to school districts by playing the "budget cut" card and cut school district's legislatively mandated funding to make their own choice for an Internet provider. The swap was that you give up your choice and use AT&T instead of the state money - such a deal.
Now the the state is proposing that a chunk of the broadband stimulus funding be spent on building another state network that no one wants or needs and, according to comments at the Broadband Task Force meeting a few weeks ago, apparently will not be open for use by independent ISP's.
In the meantime some cities like Chattanooga are trying to make it happen for their own citizens the right way - treat it as a utility and make it happen.
Thank God for some local sense but there are forces in Nashville that would stop cities from building and operating Internet access networks because they are "anti-competitive" i.e. you might take business away from the incumbents like AT&T. The Shrine of Competition needs to be torn down and the Temple of Consumer Public Interest needs to be erected.
We can't allow private companies like AT&T to control what is the equivalent of the digital water supply any longer. We need a national broadband policy that recognizes that the Internet is now just as critical as water, sewer, and electricity and should be regulated as such. AT&T is reminiscent of the Edison Company circa 1905 when electricity was still a corporate rather than public commodity. It wasn't until major metropolitan areas looked like Christmas trees and it was a critical necessity that the government finally stepped in and regulated electricity as a utility. The virtual Christmas Tree is already here. We are almost 20 years into the Internet and it is now time to change our perspective and regulate it before someone "too big to fail" like AT&T is controlling 50+% of its traffic and drives their train off the tracks ala the banking industry.
We desperately need to come up with some type of regulated open network arrangements and shared infrastructure. The only real hope we have now is that Obama doesn't let the FCC get bought out by the carriers.