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Farm Bureau backs AT&T rewrite

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Illinois

* From a press release…

The Illinois Partnership for the New Economy & Jobs today announced the state’s leading voice for agriculture and farmers, the Illinois Farm Bureau (IFB), joined the coalition calling to update Illinois communications policies to create jobs and promote opportunity in rural areas of the state.

“Broadband brings economic opportunity to rural areas of Illinois. For farming and agri-buisiness in Illinois, wireless and broadband infrastructure opens new markets for products and provides access to technologies and information to operate farms and businesses more efficiently. We need more access to broadband for families and businesses in rural Illinois, and that’s why the Illinois Farm Bureau supports updating the state’s communications policy in 2013,” said Philip Nelson, President, Illinois Farm Bureau.

The Illinois Farm Bureau represents two out of three Illinois farmers.

The partnership is basically just a front for AT&T and other large phone companies. From the Citizens Utility Board…

The big phone companies in Illinois, including AT&T and Frontier, want to rewrite the state’s Telecom Act to:

-Eliminate the “Obligation to Serve” requirement. That means Illinois would be one of the only states to allow phone companies to potentially abandon areas they deem “unprofitable.” More than 2 million Illinois households—including seniors, the disabled, and those on fixed incomes—still rely on a landline to stay connected with friends, relatives, job opportunities, and emergency services.

-Eliminate “Safe Harbor” local calling plans, such as the Consumer’s Choice offers that CUB helped create. CUB estimates these plans have potentially saved consumers some $9 million a year.

-Eliminate service quality protections for people on standard rates or the Consumer’s Choice plans. Among the protections now threatened is a requirement that AT&T provide customers with a bill credit when their phone is out of service for an extended period of time.

Eliminating the “obligation to serve” could really impact farmers, so this is surprising. But AT&T is promising more broadband, so maybe there was some sort of deal. From an earlier press release…

AT&T recently launched Project Velocity IP (VIP), a three-year investment initiative to expand and enhance its wireless and wired IP broadband networks. As part of Project VIP, AT&T plans to increase the density of its wireless network by deploying more than 10,000 macro sites, more than 1,000 distributed antenna systems, and more than 40,000 small cells. Through this initiative, we also plan to:

Expand 4G LTE to cover more than 300 million people by year-end 2014
Expand the AT&T wired IP broadband network to cover approximately 75 percent of customer locations in our wired service area by year-end 2015
Expand the AT&T fiber network to reach 1 million additional business locations by year-end 2015

All I know is that I can’t get any AT&T service at all when I visit my grandma at her nursing home in Sheldon. And I don’t get anything but that painfully slow “Edge” network when I visit my uncle in Iroquois County just south of Kankakee. It’s like using a 2400 baud modem. And if you don’t know what that is, trust me, it’s slow. Veeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyy sssssssssssssllllllllllllllllllooooooooooooowwwwwwwww.

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, May 7, 13 @ 10:49 am

Comments

AT&T’s biggest and almost only success is in lobbying.

Comment by walkinfool Tuesday, May 7, 13 @ 10:57 am
Rich, the law in Illinois defines broadband as 200 kbps, just slightly faster than the EDGE network. Unless that changes, don’t expect there to be much investment in true broadband.

Comment by Small Town Liberal Tuesday, May 7, 13 @ 11:05 am
I’d be very wary of this.

I have no doubt that the phone companies would like to get out of the business of sending trucks and technicians to maintain those land lines out on the gravel roads.

Heck, the utilities never wanted to be in the business of serving rural America to begin with — it was forced on them by those bad old New Dealers.

I think I’ll wait until that broadband is up and humming before I let guaranteed-profitable utilities get out of doing their job.

Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, May 7, 13 @ 11:06 am
- before I let guaranteed-profitable utilities get out of doing their job. -

Obviously AT&T isn’t donating enough to your cause, word.

Another interesting point, the Smart Grid legislation prevents that infrastructure from being used to deliver telecommunications service to the home. AT&T seems to like acting like a monopoly without being treated like one.

Comment by Small Town Liberal Tuesday, May 7, 13 @ 11:19 am
Eliminate the “Obligation to Serve” requirement.

Fine, so they replace my landline with … what? I’m already unprofitable, so they’re not going to upgrade me to broadband. I’m unprofitable, so they’re not going to install any new cell towers any time soon. So maybe terrestrial wireless? Great…a tornado is headed toward my house and knocks out the power. How do I call 9-1-1? From a cell phone in my basement? Not likely. I realize I’m in a minority, but this is about more than just whether MTV is available in my neighborhood.

Comment by Skeptic Tuesday, May 7, 13 @ 11:24 am
Anybody buying what ATT is selling, come see me, I have some ocean front property in S Illinois I am looking to sell….

Comment by dang Tuesday, May 7, 13 @ 11:55 am
Rich said,

“And if you don’t know what that is, trust me, it’s slow. Veeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyy sssssssssssssllllllllllllllllllooooooooooooowwwwwwwww.'’

If you need anything looked up on the ‘tubes, let me know…

Comment by Cincinnatus Tuesday, May 7, 13 @ 12:03 pm
Hi! I’m looking for the original URL for the press release you refer to but can’t find it. Could you please post? Thanks so much!

Comment by Roxana Tuesday, May 7, 13 @ 2:00 pm
Does AT&T ever accomplish anything except fleece the State of Illinois?

Ok, here’s how we change the game.

1) Have one (preferably more) of the ‘four tops’ contact Google. Got to be players from our side. Somebody that Google will take seriously. So, keep Pat Quinn out of it.
2) Find out exactly (EXACTLY) what Google wants from both State and local governments (no money, because we don’t have any) in terms of changes/waivers to regs and rules to start extending Google Fiber into IL. Then, just make it happen!
3) Make those same terms (no sweeteners!) available to the other Telecoms/ISP providers, as long as they agree to provide the same level of service as Google Fiber. If they don’t they either forfeit ownership with first rights to acquire the infrastructure going to their competitors.
4) Kick back and watch the fun ensue.

Course, this being Illinois, to paraphrase the late Abba Eban; “The State of Illinois will never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity”.

Comment by Judgment Day (Road Trip) Tuesday, May 7, 13 @ 2:32 pm
y’all remember Bill Daley when he was CEO of Ameritech? raised rates to the sky, then left.

Comment by Damfunny Tuesday, May 7, 13 @ 3:01 pm
I live in Iroquois and ironically my common address is Cable Line Road and no I cannot get DSL.

Comment by Ggal Tuesday, May 7, 13 @ 4:11 pm
So ATT’s broadband upgrades involve LTE? That’s their cell network. Strange that Verizon already provided my very rural home residence with LTE coverage. And I don’t believe they needed legislation to do it.

Comment by mcb Tuesday, May 7, 13 @ 6:33 pm
Sheldon, Illinos is served by Frontier, at least for landlines. For landline service, Frontier serves more square miles than AT&T.

Comment by BobInPeoria Wednesday, May 8, 13 @ 10:43 am
Just a background note…

AT&T serves some of the state’s rural areas. AT&T serves most(but not all) of Illinois’ metros. Frontier serves Bloomington-Normal, and a large portions of Illinois’ rural areas.

Illinois Commerce Commission has a map of the ILECs serving Illinois…The 2012 Telecom Report, Figure A1 ….http://www.icc.illinois.gov/reports/Results.aspx?t=3

Back in the early days of the telephone biz, the Bell companies did not want to serve rural areas. So, independent companies sprouted up in small town Illinois(and the rest of the US). The old GTE(General Telephone) was widespread throughout rural Illinois. GTE was actually a conglomeration of many small phone companies, and was the largest non-Bell phone company, prior to the Bell breakup.

(Note - GTE merged in 2000 with Bell Atlantic, and became Verizon. Verizon sold their Illinois landline business to Frontier in 2010. )

Comment by BobInPeoria Wednesday, May 8, 13 @ 5:36 pm