Thank you, President Obama. Don’t think this is the kind of “change” I was “hoping” for.

Obama is about to nominate Mignon Clyburn to the FCC, and for those of you who want the internet to turn into a low-rent version of cable TV, dominated by Rupert Murdoch and a few other right-wing billionaires, this is very good news.

For the rest of us, it sucks.

Mignon Clyburn is a member of some obscure utilities boards in South Carolina… AND…Jim Clyburn’s daughter, and it isn’t because of those obscure utilities commissions way down in Dixie that Obama is about to put Mignon Clyburn in a position of tremendous influence over the future of the internet.

Her resume is a joke.

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This is an interesting story posted by Broadband DSLReports.com about an FCC meeting from last year.

“No matter who you are, or where you live, or how much money you make… you will need, and you are entitled to have these tools (broadband) available to you, I think, as a civil right,” said FCC commissioner Michael Copps during yesterday’s broadband hearing in Pittsburgh. Users around here enjoy fighting over whether broadband is a luxury or necessary utility, but suggesting it’s a civil right is a new wrinkle.

I knew I liked Michael Copps, and no only do I hope he stays on at the FCC, but am disappointed with Obama for not appointing him chairman of it. He poses a core question which, from the numerous comments posted by readers, seems to strike many as irrelevant or illegitimate (and may be a ‘new wrinkle’ to some as a concept, but is actually directly related to ongoing efforts in the global democratic communication movement to establish communication rights).

Some comments from readers strike closer to the heart of understanding regarding this primordially important issue….

As one reader commented, “Mankind has made 99.99999999% of its most important discoveries without broadband. Its not a right or a necessity but a luxury. If you can afford it great. If not and it’s important, then time to evaluate your financial situation.”

Mankind may have made 99% of the most imporant discoveries without broadband, but without communication 0% would have occured or mattered.

I believe that access to the primary methods of communication in any age is a fundamental right. From gestures and grunts, we moved to a spoken language. Then from a spoken language we invented cuneiform script. The alphabets followed and were followed by signaling techniques, then electromagnetic transmissions. Those EM signals are being improved through compression allowing even more data to be passed. At one time, letters were good enough for anyone, telephones were a luxury. Then, data service was a luxury for only the largest of companies and banks.

As you can see, the future technology is always the luxury, but the prevalent form of communication IS a necessity and access to it is a bona fide civil right.

The question shouldn’t be if broadband should be a right or not, but rather, is broadband internet access now the predominant form of communication? Once that answer is ‘yes’ then the idea that it is a right should be automatic.

If it is not the ’standard’ yet, it will be very very shortly.

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Re: “Civil Right? Not yet…” Nice reply!

Also consider the Middle Ages when the State and the Church tried to limit Books and The Bible to only the State and the Church thus keeping the people and peasants just that - people and peasants. The world didn’t begin to grow until everyone was being educated to
read and write. I suspect that you will find that in education today that the kids who do better are the one that have access to a computer and internet in the home.

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UnCommon Sense TV - “Interview With Phil Donahue” An exclusive interview with Phil Donahue, the founding pioneer of the television talk show. Phil joins UnCommon Sense TV producer and host Andy Valeri for a lengthy discussion on the state of America’s media system today and the changes it has undergone over the years. Amongst various topics touched on are the growing domination of corporations over our media system, an increasingly uninformed and misinformed electorate, the war in Iraq, the importance of and need for dissent in our politics, and more. A uniquely informal, candid and challenging conversation with one of America’s preeminent media figures.

From the folks at Free Press via internetnews.com…

The Internet is changing our country by changing how we interact with our media and government, said speakers here at the Freedom To Connect conference on Tuesday.

“We’re talking about more than technology and politics here,” said Timothy Karr, campaign director for Free Press. “We’re talking about a movement.”

Karr defined three movements that are working together: the movements for media reform, free culture and open government. Each has coalesced around a specific crisis and has survived to influence future policy decisions.

Karr said that the media reform movement was forged in the public battles over spectrum and then over battles on public access to private cable networks. The free culture movement is growing out of copyright battles in social media such as Facebook and YouTube.

It will become a truly full-fledged “movement” when it moves beyond organizing for the “freedom to connect” to that of insisting upon the “right to connect”.

Movements that struggle for real transition and transformation, the kinds that are devoted to investing in and creating systemic and lasting change, the kind that cannot nor will not be ‘repealed’, are the ones that fight for defining rights, not regulatory policy.

As Rutgers law professor James Pope once said…

“A real rights movement conducts the struggle over a long-term time frame, and it fights over issues of basic principle.”

It was, after all the civil rights movement, not the civil regulatory movement.

The recent FCC docket on public access provisions provides the Federal Government in general and the FCC in particular a choice as to whether it will safeguard our electronic democracy consistent with Federal Communications Law or whether it will ignore the fact that the airwaves and public rights of way belong to the people. If it does the latter, it will continue the erosion of our democracy by abdicating the means and manner of mass communication to entirely commercial interests who have no marketplace incentive to serve the public good.

The promise and purpose of broadcasting regulation from the get go was to “generate programming that elevates American Democracy and cultivates localized civil engagements with local public deliberation as the highest form of democratic engagement.”

After years of derelict regulation on the part of federal and state governments with respect to meeting the fully local communications needs of citizens, many including the Neville Chamberlains of institutional access, have forgotten this simple promise. This case before you illustrates one of many ways in which industry disregard for this important core value has placed the prospect of an engaged and healthy democratic society in great peril.

“To fully realize the educational and democratic value of PEG [public, educational & government access] programming, PEG channels must be as accessible as commercial basic channels and must not cost more, require different electronics equipment, or be more difficult to view. “And while we are at it, the same paradigm must apply to broadband access as technology advances.

“AT&T and Comcast have been illegally discriminating against PEG channels by creating substantial hurdles for viewers who wish to watch them. The FCC should clarify its existing rules and regulations, and state clearly that PEG channels must be placed on an equal footing with commercial basic channels in cable systems and in broadband applications.”

Even these rules will not go far enough if companies like AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and Time Warner continue to successfully lobby state legislatures and LFAs to diminish, de-fund or destroy PEG stations altogether using a siren song of fast broadband proliferation through deregulation as a carrot and a stick. The record already shows that this is clearly a trojan horse designed to confuse policy makers, short change the public and line the pockets of big telcos, cable companies and corrupt politicians. The deregulatory disaster of the “Chicago school” resulted in unacceptable concentration of media ownership and a paucity of viewpoints available to audiences. This tragedy of the commons threatens a healthy democracy. It is high time to abandon that road and restore the public interest to our national telecommunications policy. Supporting PEG operations is a good place to start.

In many communities, PEGs are the only non commercial local voices left where real public discourse can occur. The FCC and Congress must act quickly to establish a minimum national standard upon which PEG channels and Broadband Access can be made available by law to all citizens with equal access including technical and signal parity with dominant commercial interests.

At a time when local newspapers are failing and local voices are being shut down by special interests influenced by telco and cable dollars, and in venues where access is successful by reactionary and land development dollars, the same first amendment principles and doctrines that apply to public expression that exist on terra firma need to apply to “electronic parkland” known as PEG access and to “digital green space” fora online as well.

- Posted by Jay April, President and CEO of Akaku: Maui Community Television

Some really good points Here from Sascha Meinrath on the essential nature of having open communication systems in a society that wishes to envision itself as one of democratic equal opportunity. As he states in his piece, internet access is more than a commodity – it’s a public good. The US should be seizing the opportunity to invest in broadband internet as part of any economic stimulus. It seems unfortunate that one has to turn to foreign newspapers (in this case the Guardian U.K.) to get this kind of salient analysis on America’s communication infrastructure.

We live in a civil society – a place where primary education is freely available to all, where anyone can enjoy a walk through our public parks or down our sidewalks and freely drive through the streets. Libraries across the country loan out books for free – literature that you can read on a spring day in our parks or beneath the streetlights on main street on a warm summer’s evening. You don’t have to tip the firemen who show up at your house or pay for police protection – in a civil society, public safety is freely available to everyone.

We enjoy myriad services and resources that we don’t pay for each and every time we use them. Yet each of these key facets of contemporary society was part of a new social contract, often adopted only after years of battle and turmoil to overcome a prior status quo (from private fire and educational services to for-fee libraries and parks). Eventually, however, new models are seen to provide such an enormous benefit to the entire population that we’re willing to invest in ideas that lift all boats. We realise that, as a society, each of us is better off when certain basic services are freely available to all.

At the dawn of the digital era, during this first decade of the 21st century, the most important new commodity is internet access. A growing canon of research has documented the enormous benefits that accrue to those with broadband access (and the increasing detriments faced by those without it). Within many civil societies, in much the same way the agrarian revolution helped eliminate famine, the industrial revolution brought manufactured goods into everyone’s lives and the computer era integrated machines (from laptops to PDAs and cell phones to iPods) into our daily regimes, connectivity is the currency of the information age.

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USTV Media Presents “Phil Donahue and Amy Goodman On The Media” A live public forum in Dayton, Ohio featuring television pioneer Phil Donahue and Amy Goodman, independent journalist and host of the news program “Democracy Now!”. Speaking out on the current troubled state of our media system, discussion ranged over a number of topics, including the increasing commercialization of our media system and the threats posed to truly independent journalism and the role it was envisioned to play by our nation’s founders. Also discussed were specific examples of how the mainstream media system is co-opted to be a conduit for government propaganda, and the tragic consequences this can have for the future sustenance of our democratic system. This event was co-produced by UnCommon Sense TV in association with Wake Up Ohio, and with production assistance by Dayton Access Television

Candace Clement of Free Press weighs in on the discrimination against local community programming on cable video systems with this good post regarding the petitioning of the FCC to redress this situation.

Most people flip their way through the television dial, pause when something piques their interest, and move on when boredom hits. As media consumers, we click, click, click until we find a program that grabs us. The beauty of television is that we have so many options, including local programming. Or so it seems.

But according to more than 300 organizations, city officials and other individuals who filed comments yesterday with the Federal Communications Commission, companies like Comcast and AT&T have been illegally discriminating against local programming on community television channels.

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That’s a terrible shame because PEG channels are a vital platform for local media in our communities. They are some of the only avenues available to everyday folks who want to try their hand at producing video programming. Many PEG stations are robust community operations that provide media training and youth programs, foster civic journalism, or support the production of documentaries and other videos – some of which have gone on to win Emmy Awards .

But companies like Comcast and AT&T have moved PEG channels off the basic tier, making them difficult to access. These companies also severely limit the many features offered by commercial channels, such as closed captioning and digital video recording (like TiVO).

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Democracy Now! reports on how community media groups are accusing the telecom giant AT&T of discriminating against local public access channels across the nation. The dispute centers around how AT&T delivers public television stations to customers. Instead of putting the stations on individual channels, AT&T has bundled community stations onto a generic channel that can only be navigated through a complex and lengthy process. Public television advocates say AT&T is imposing unfair restrictions that will severely restrict audiences.

Community media groups are accusing the telecom giant AT&T of discriminating against local public access channels across the nation, and the deadline for public comment is midnight tonight. The dispute centers around how AT&T delivers public television stations to customers. Instead of putting the stations on individual channels, AT&T has bundled community stations onto a generic channel that can only be navigated through a complex and lengthy process. Public television advocates say AT&T is imposing unfair restrictions that will severely restrict audiences.

The groups have filed a regulatory challenge against AT&T with the Federal Communications Commission. And a House Appropriations subcommittee has also asked the FCC to look into the allegations.

Read and watch more about this Here

I wonder why rates will not go down. There are many reasons why cable rates cannot go down without congress getting involved and legislating changes, specifically legislating a-la-carte or the dismantling of tiers and bundles (regardless of all the claims of ‘competition’ in the video delivery field). They are:

Most Favored Nations - Most favored nations clauses (MFN’s) are clauses in contracts that in essence say that no one will be given more favorable terms than the terms that are negotiated between the two parties. A large MSO can in essence say to a cable network that no one smaller than them will get better rates on a per subscriber basis than they will get. They also state that no one can get better terms (in basically any way you could define it). Most favored nations clauses are cross platform; MTV Networks deals with DirecTV are governed by the MFN clause it has with Comcast, so DirecTV rates will never be lower than Comcast’s. The same holds true with deals with Verizon’s and AT&T. So with MFN’s, a new player in the market is forced to sign agreements with the same restrictive language as the incumbents, so their programming tiers and rate structures are very similar, and thus their rates are similar. In this way, the contracts that evolved when cable operators were true monopolies now govern the new entrants, so of course, their rates are very similar.

MFN Clauses In Programmer Agreements - An established cable network insists that an MSO signs an agreement that includes language that states in effect that their service must be in the same tier of service as all the other top cable networks. In other words, if ESPN and TNT are in the expanded basic cable package, MTV must be as well. That is why everyone’s expanded basic cable tier looks the same. And since they are cross platform, (Cable, Telco and Satellite) AT&T’s expanded basic package will look just like Comcast’s and also cost the same. That is also why everyone’s expanded basic cable tier is so expensive as these are the highest cost per subscriber cable networks. In order to compete, a provider must carry the most popular networks (imagine Verizon trying to compete without ESPN) and the most popular networks will not sign an agreement allowing them to be put on a specialized tier, or offered a-la-carte, so there is no real possibility for price differentiation.

Retransmission Consent - The communications act allowed broadcasters to choose if they wanted their stations to have “must carry” status, or instead negotiate “retransmission consent” from the cable operators. The network affiliates, secure in the knowledge that a cable operator would never drop them, all chose retransmission consent, and then negotiated their terms of carriage. Cable operators pledged never to pay a broadcaster for their signal as they were simply extending their reach and making the broadcaster more profitable anyway, and instead, what emerged were the broadcasters asking for the carriage of other stations. This is how CNBC was started, and also how MSNBC was created. Networks basically used the leverage of retransmission consent force carriage of new cable channels, which they could charge for.

Consolidation of Ownership - Because an MSO, or Verizon, or DirecTV can not compete with each other without ESPN, Disney says, if you want ESPN, you must carry and pay us for ESPN2 and Classic Sports Network. Five years later when their contract is once again up for renewal, Disney demands carriage of College Sports Television and Soapnet. The same holds true for Viacom with MTV networks. Why else do all those different MTV channels exist? And so now even the digital tier becomes bloated and expensive.

Disclaimer: I have not examined and am not quoting from Comcast, Disney, MTV, or Turner contracts, but this is how the game is played.

- Posted by a ‘Former Cable Network Programmer’ for USTV Media