A Heartland Institute study challenging the financial viability of municipal broadband networks is rife with “mistakes, misinterpretations, unsupported and insupportable claims, irrelevancies, innuendos, key omissions and obvious untruths,” according to Jim Baller of The Baller Herbst Law Group, the attorney for both of the municipal networks profiled in the study.
Links
Glenn Fleishman unmasks industry “sock puppets”
This is pretty remarkable, but the New Millennium Research Council and Issue Dynamics are defending their paid work on behalf of their incumbent telecom and cable customers directly. No pretense, no hiding. They want their cake and eat it, too.
WiFiNetNews responds to alleged municipal failures
Philadelphia has delayed releasing its detailed plan for a wireless broadband infrastructure from early February to an unknown time. There’s a missing piece in this coverage that I wanted to mention: Dianah Neff keeps saying “broadband” while Comcast and Verizon say “broadband” and they don’t mean the same thing.
Port deal with Google to create jobs
Google, the California-based company that helps people find information on the Internet (identified in the agreement as Design LLC) agreed to pay a total of $1.87 million for 30.19 acres of land that comprise the state-certified industrial site within the port’s Chenoweth Creek Industrial Subdivision.
USA Today editorial supports Lafayette fiber project
Lafayette, a city of 116,000 in southwest Louisiana, has plenty of Cajun spunk. Creativity, too. Just ask telecommunications giant BellSouth, which is trying to block Lafayette’s plan to save its citizens’ money and time by giving them high-speed access to the Internet.
USA Today feature on Lafayette fiber project
To hear BellSouth talk, high-speed fiber lines are the way of the future. So why is it so determined to stop Lafayette, La., a rural community in the heart of Cajun country, from installing its own fiber?
Columnist admits serving as Comcast’s consultant
Post-Election Fallout at ‘Kane County (Ill.) Chronicle’ Over Columnist’s Role In Chicago’s far west suburbs, a prominent newspaper columnist was also doing PR work for Comcast, which was publicly opposing a local ballot measure.
Jim Baller interviews in Broadband Reports
Broadband: The Next Utility
by John W. McCurry, Site Selection magazine
Broadband Internet access is rapidly being perceived by governments and business as an essential utility which will soon be as important as water or electricity to economic development. Cities or regions that embrace this concept and make this new utility widely available are variously described as being “intelligent, smart or wired.”
National Broadband Strategy Act of 2002
To require a report to Congress on a national strategy for the deployment of high speed broadband Internet telecommunications services, and for other purposes.
Wired cities: working-class communities build next frontier of high-speed connectivity
When Mitch Davis needed a high-speed launching pad for his startup Internet company, he ditched high-priced Seattle for its blue-collar neighbor some 35 miles to the south: Tacoma. When John Gorst needed a place to set up his Internet utility company that provides Web hosting of applications for small businesses around the country, he moved to Broadway — that is, 1101 Broadway Plaza in downtown Tacoma. And when e-commerce giant Amazon.com went searching for a site for its next-generation call center, guess where it landed? Tacoma.