As a patriotic American, I find the current political atmosphere where telecom lobbyists set the agenda to be a nightmare. All over the world, high-end fiber is being deployed while powerful monopolies in the United States work to prevent it from coming here. Some of those monopolies are even drafting "model legislation" to protect themselves from both community broadband and commercial competition.

Time Warner Cable subscribers across the country who enjoy CBS programming are out of luck. The two media giants have reached an impasse in their fight over retransmission consent so several major markets are now missing out. CBS has also taken the fight one step farther, blocking TWC broadband subscribers from accessing CBS.com video content.

Public Knowledge as launched a campaign to end this viewer lock-out. From their recent call to action:

It doesn't matter whether CBS or Time Warner Cable is the bad guy here. The only one losing here is you, the viewer.

Some members of Congress are standing up to the media giants. The bipartisan "Television Consumer Freedom Act," [PDF] co-sponsored by Senators John McCain and Richard Blumenthal, takes the first steps at fixing this mess.

But an army of special interest lobbyists likes things the way they are, and they don't care that you are caught in the middle. For this bill to move forward, your members of Congress need to hear from you.

For more detail on how we got here, read Harold Feld's recent Policy Blog on the PK website. PK makes it easy for you to inform your D.C. represenation that you want video reform. 

You can also look up your U.S. Representatives and your U.S. Senators to contact them directly via phone or email.

Victims of Sandy are still recovering from the killer storm that ripped through the east coast last year. Two places hardest hit by the "Frankenstorm" were Fire Island, New York and the Barrier Island in New Jersey. In addition to homes and property, residents lost phone and Internet communications when telephone wires went down. They are still waiting to be reconnected.

Our readers know about the huge fight that has embroiled consumer advocates and the leading telephone providers in the past few years. AT&T and Verizon seek deregulation to escape the "carrier of last resort" obligation that requires maintenance of traditional copper lines for telephone service. AT&T and Verizon want to shed that responsibility in favor of wireless service that is less expensive to maintain, even though it does not support the range of uses today's copper networks do. 

Verizon is the incumbent telephone provider in Fire Island and Barrier Island but decided it will not repair damaged lines. It wants to instead deploy its inferior Voice Link wireless service on the island.

The Voice Link technology basically attaches to your house and uses Verizon's cellular network to connect the telephones in your home. Homeowners can continue to use their home phones, but the quality tends to be worse than on a proper wired telephone network. 

Under federal law,  telephone providers are obligated to replace or repair downed copper lines unless they substitute with a "line improvement," such as fiber-optic lines. Voice Link cannot be described as a "line improvement" - the only benefit it provides is that it costs Verizon less to build and maintain. 

More communities now embrace "dig once" policies to facilitate installation of future and current networks. The idea is to be mindful of trenching for transportation and utility projects and encourage collaboration between agencies. However, this is implemented in a variety of ways, some more effectively than others. By establishing requirements for conduit installation in development codes, communities can save big dollars if they build or expand a network in the future.

Communities such as Sandy, Oregon, and Mount Vernon, Washington, have instituted such policies. Both communities require private developers to install conduit when disturbing existing roads or building roads for new subdivision construction. Conduit itself is inexpensive and the digging is already done, so the added burden is light.

Both of these communities have plans, including maps, that allow them to be strategic in where they require conduit to be placed. They are not simply adding conduit blindly, though that policy may be better than doing nothing at all (experts are divided on the matter).

In Sandy, the code change (see Sec. 17.84.60) was a simple expansion of existing policy. The city added "broadband (fiber)" to the list of public facilities, such as public water, sanitary sewer, and storm drainage. Underground communication lines join a list of other required improvements that are to be installed in new developments at no expense to the city. Other items on that list include drainage facilities, mailbox delivery units, street lights and a underground power lines. (see Sec. 17.100.310).

Anticipated connectivity raises the value of new homes and makes them more attractive to today's buyers. Scott Lazenby, City Manager in Sandy, spoke to us for a recent podcast and told us how a developer in the area is excited about the potential. SandyNet plans to offer 100 Mbps Gbps residential service via the new conduit at an incredibly low $40 per month; the developer sees that as a major selling point.