| AT&T/Verizon Influence Over $B California Stimulus |
| Monday, 30 March 2009 22:19 |
|
CETF, entirely funded by AT&T and Verizon with $60M, is playing a crucial leading role in California's $B request for broadband stimulus. One of their first actions was to declare none of the money will go to providers competing with AT&T & Verizon. They've urged pulling money away from reaching the "unserved" and gutting the open access provisions of the stimulus bill. A CETF statement is below, and a correction incorporated above with the changes underlined. This is the second billion dollar scandal I've discovered in the stimulus. The first was a $billion earmark for Verizon in the Senate bill, payable even if they didn't increase broadband spending by a penny. The New York Times reported the story, and it disappeared in the conference committee. This one will be harder to fight, because Schwarznegger's PUC Chairman Mike Peevey and other highly connected people are involved. Strickling, Adelstein, Copps and Genachowski are dedicated and honorable, but as things go by so fast they are not catching all the abuses. The three people on the CETF executive committee are a 34 year AT&T executive, a Verizon appointed "expert" with close ties to Sam Simon and APT (the most notorious astroturfer in D.C.) as well as direct connections with both AT&T and Verizon, and a former utility executive who has approved $billions in rate increases for V & T (Peevey.) One of the "independents" is General Counsel of Trimble Navigation, where Verizon Wireless is a major partner. Another is a political operative with close ties to Arnold's Chief of Staff.CETF has a statement below as well.There's lots more I found in just a couple of hours, but I'll stop here and let California reporters find the rest of the story. I'd rather report how to bring affordable broadband to all Americans. Some details: CALIFORNIA EMERGING TECHNOLOGY FUND "define NTIA BDP “underserved” as an area that contains 1 or 2 ISPs offering Basic Broadband, Advanced Broadband, Advanced Wireless Broadband services or broadband access where the highest rate in either direction does not exceed 1 Mbps but is not less than 200 Note: Since Verizon, AT&T and all the cablecos offer more than 1 megabit in every area they offer broadband, no one who competes with them would be eligible for NTIA money as "underserved" or "unserved." "Within USDA RUS DLTBD, specific to rural areas, define “sufficient access to high-speed broadband” as having 1 or 2 ISPs offering Basic Broadband, Advance Broadband, Advanced Wireless Broadband services or broadband access where the highest rate in either direction Note: Areas having “sufficient access to high-speed broadband” are not targets of RUS funds. All areas of V & T broadband as well as the cablecos have at least 1 ISP offering "broadband access where the highest rate in either direction exceeds 1 Mbps." "USDA RUS top priority for awarding funds should be “projects that cost effectively expand or augment existing ISP infrastructure” because such projects are typically less expensive than new build outs and can be immediately implemented as opposed to initiating extended planning, engineering and deployment programs." Note: In other words, only give money to incumbents. "CETF recommends the following definition for “open access” in order to ensure ISP competition Note: 95+% of U.S. broadband is provided directly by incumbents, i.e. the current "competitively priced" wholesale offers do not attractive enough competition to affect the market. In other words, no effective open access is required. A little later: CETF cc'd to me a note, apparently accidently, that claimed "This "article" seems totally off-base." So I've gone back to my files and am adding sources. On whether the amount they expect is $B From CPUC Commissioner Rachel Chong "Susan Walters expressed CETF's view that California's fair share of the ARRA money relating to broadband is $1 billion. (California has 13% of the population of the U.S. and I believe this figure represents 13% of all the the broadband related ARRA programs, not just the NTIA and RUS programs.) CETF is focused on California speaking with one unified voice as to our broadband requests, consistent with the Governor's direction." On where the appointees originated "Commissioner Reports CETF members—utility appointees At our last meeting, I identified our four appointments to the California Emerging Technology Fund. As a reminder we named State Senator Martha Escutia, Mike Volpi from Cisco, and Carol Whiteside of the Great Valley Center, and me. I want to inform the audience of the four appointments to the board as named by the utilities. AT&T is appointing the following three people:
Verizon is naming
On the executive committee, I wrote "The three people on the CETF executive committee are a 34 year AT&T executive." From the CETF website "Richard Motta - CETF Treasurer and Founding CFO Vice President AT&T (retired) Rich retired in 2004 after a 34 year management career with Pacific Telephone/AT&T, Pacific Bell/Telesis, and SBC." I moved on to a second member of the executive committee, writing "a Verizon appointed "expert" with close ties to Sam Simon and APT (the most notorious astroturfer in D.C.) as well as direct connections with both AT&T and Verizon," Barbara O'Connor's Verizon appointment is above. Her connection to APT, Verizon, and AT&T from the CETF website "Her numerous appointments, boards and chairs, include the: ...Washington, DC based Alliance for Public Technology; ... ATT’s Consumer Advisory Panel; Verizon’s Consumer Collaborative Council;" From her own site "Dr. O'Connor has served as an expert consultant to ... Pacific Bell, NYNEX, Ameritech, Bell Atlantic, G.T.E., Verizon, ... She continues to teach a full load and direct the programs of the Institute which currently include administering a research grant from Verizon," http://www.csus.edu/indiv/o/oconnorb/ . The APT/Sam Simon and "astroturf" comments I'll justify if anyone asks. Incidentally, I'm told Dr. O'Connor is a delightful person and from her bio I see she has worked for candidates I also support. The third and last member of the executive committee I noted is "a former utility executive who has approved $billions in rate increases for V & T (Peevey.)" From the CETF web site "Peevey ... Prior to Mr. Peevey was President of Edison International and Southern California Edison Company, and a senior executive there beginning in 1984." I'll document the rate increases if anyone asks.
I also wrote "a political operative with close ties to Arnold's Chief of Staff." From the CETF website "Ross LaJeunesse ... served as Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. He developed and executed the Governor's ambitious policy agenda, overseeing a broad range of issues from infrastructure investment to education reform and economic development, as well as numerous environmental initiatives. He authored the Governor's anti-gang policy, subsequently enacted into law, which was widely applauded by law enforcement, educators, violence prevention experts and local government leaders as the first comprehensive, balanced approach to combating gang violence in the nation. He was also responsible for advising the Governor on key personnel decisions, including the appointment of California's first cabinet-level Chief Information Officer." From the Bay Area Reporter http://www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=1446 "He is working once again with the governor's chief of staff, Susan Kennedy, whom he served as chief of staff when Kennedy was a California Public Utilities commissioner." Note that the "Chief Information Officer" he advised the governor to hire is now the official nominally in charge of California's work on the stimulus. --------------------- None of these conflicts of interest imply that any of the people mentioned are not competent and honorable; two in fact I'm sure are quite competent. But they shouldn't be judging money going to AT&T and Verizon.
Here's the entire document from http://cetfund.org/files/2009_Federal_Stimulus_Definitions.pdf CALIFORNIA EMERGING TECHNOLOGY FUND From CETF in response to this article
California Emerging Technology Fund Response Statement to Set the Record Straight to Dave Burstein, DSL Prime April 3, 2009 The statements in your commentary posted on March 31, 2009 do not accurately reflect the values nor the position of the California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF). And, they ignore the nature of California’s challenges in facilitating the deployment and adoption of broadband. CETF is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with a mission to close the Digital Divide in California. CETF is focused on three consumer communities: rural and remote areas (1.4 million residents and 500,000 households totally unserved covering 44,000 square miles); urban disadvantaged neighborhoods non-adopters to date (15.6 million residents); and people with disabilities (2.4 million not online with broadband). CETF is technology and provider neutral with an explicit strategy to encourage competition among broadband providers and foster market-based solutions that will serve the consumer interests. We work with public agencies, civic leadership organizations, community-based organizations and other stakeholders throughout California to gather input in formulating recommendations for ARRA investments. We have recommended definitions (based on that broad input from the public) of unserved and underserved to the federal government that will most effectively encourage cost-effective deployment of broadband into totally unserved communities (which is likely to be a combination of wireline and wireless solutions with improved backhaul) as well as upgrade the speeds in underserved communities to support increasing demand for applications such as telehealth-telemedicine. The recommendations are intended to allow incumbents and new market entrants alike to compete to connect unserved communities although we realize that in the rural limited-size markets there is not a high likelihood of multiple providers; instead it may take joint ventures or other innovative cooperative approaches to achieve broadband service for the most remote California residents. CETF is actively working with all of our grantee partners and stakeholders to encourage applications for ARRA funding from California. It is the analysis done by CETF that identified California’s fair share of ARRA to be $1 billion in funding for broadband and related applications. And, CETF will be working with applicants for ARRA broadband funding to provide a modest amount of match funding for cost-effective projects. However, the DSL Prime absurd assertion that CETF is “being given control of California’s requested $B share of the broadband stimulus” couldn’t be farther from the truth. However, were that the case, let me assure you that the taxpayers would get their money’s worth in return on investment in closing the Digital Divide and increasing America’s and California’s global competitiveness. CETF encourages all technologies and all providers—RBOC, IOC, WISP, CableCo and ISP broadband—to participate in build-out for unserved and underserved markets and individuals. California’s ILEC distribution (“footprint”) is a system that may not be familiar to you. As per the CPUC online data resources and repository at http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/ Contrary to your commentary, in the February CETF comments on the Senate economic stimulus bill (now outdated) CETF recommended defining unserved, underserved and served in such a manner as to encourage funding the communities and individuals that need it most. RBOC-specific footprint had absolutely no consideration in those definitions. CETF supports many Rural Regional Consortia across the state, and actively endorses participation by WISPs, IOCs, CableCos, ISPs and RBOCs.
Additionally, CETF has not urged pulling money away from reaching “unserved” areas; in fact, it has done the exact opposite. In the February comments CETF defined unserved as any location with 200 Kbps or less broadband Internet access. This meant that the greatest focus should be on communities and individuals without access to at least 200 Kbps. Underserved was defined as service ranging from 200 Kbps to 1 Mbps. This language was intended to focus investments in unserved and underserved locations as opposed to upgrading existing 10 Mbps broadband service to 25 Mbps service. DSL Prime was provided on March 31, 2009 a copy of the most recently submitted CETF comments to the federal government on ARRA as it was signed into law. It is the CETF comments on the actual ARRA law that should be your reference materials for future articles. For more information about CETF please visit our website at www.cetfund.org. ------------- Quick clarification: I didn't imply Verizon and AT&T offer DSL everywhere (across their footprint") as this suggests, but rather that where Verizon and AT&T offer DSL, the speed over an area (not each home) is over the 1 megabit threshold they set for supporting others to come in. Ms. McPeak is correct that they have taken different positions at a later date. Her comment " DSL Prime was provided on March 31, 2009 a copy of the most recently submitted CETF comments to the federal government on ARRA as it was signed into law. It is the CETF comments on the actual ARRA law that should be your reference materials for future articles" if what I am reporting is the CETF position, which is not the case here. This was an example of the CETF taking positions that favored their funders but became irrelevant after the law was passed and were dropped from later CETF statements.
|