FCC Hearing in Cambridge on Future of the Internet

Colin — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:38:29 -0500

The Federal Communications Commission is coming to Cambridge on Monday, February 28th to hold a public hearing on the future of the internet.

WHAT: A Public Hearing on the Future of the Internet
WHEN: Monday, Feb 25, 2008
TIME: 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
WHERE: Harvard Law School, Ames Courtroom, Austin Hall
1515 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
Directions: http://www.law.harvard.edu/about/contact/directions.php/

Visit Save the Internet.com to learn more.

Come to make your voice heard or submit comments directly to the agency. Take action today to protect the Internet for tomorrow: http://www.savetheinternet.com/comcast.php.

Media Reform Group of Eastern MA

Congressional Hearing on PEG Access TV in the Digital Age

Colin — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 20:07:20 -0500

Tomorrow at 1pm, the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet will hold a hearing on Public, Educational, and Governmental (PEG) Services in the Digital TV Age.

The Free Press Action Network will be blogging the hearing live at their website, which writes:

"On Tuesday, Jan. 29, the Free Press Action Network will hold a live-blogging session during the congressional hearing on Public, Educational, and Governmental (PEG) services in the digital TV age. Activists and community leaders will be discussing the hearing as it unfolds.

What: Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet Hearing
When: Tuesday, Jan. 29 at 1:00 p.m

Leading the conversation are expert media activists including Lauren-Glenn Davitian, Executive Director, CCTV; Michael Eisenmenger, saveaccess.org; and Sean McLaughlin, Executive Director, Access Humboldt” read more...

Media Reform Group of Eastern MA

Why Community Media Still Matters in the YouTube Age

john — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 17:37:54 -0500

In this 11-minute NPR-style feature story, reporter John Donovan visits CCTV to find out why community media still matters in an age when so many people are uploading video directly to the Internet through video portals like YouTube. John Donovan submitted this piece as his final audio project for a Graduate Audio Production course at Emerson College in the Fall of 2007.

Direct CCTV broadcasts from your chair!

Minutes from 2/22/07 Meeting

john — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 12:59:51 -0500

Boston Area Media Reform Group
2/22/07 Minutes
In Attendance:
John Donovan, Matthew Landry, Eric Bourassa, Bill August, David I. Frenkel, Lee
Mintz, Jessica Jones, Rebecca Tabasky, John Kasbohm
Moderator: John Donovan
Minutes: Matthew Landry
John started the meeting by asking the group to introduce themselves. We all talk a little
bit about who we are and what we are interested in learning/doing.
John asked us to state what we would need or like from this meeting. Bill started the
conversation by saying he was interested in media ownership diversity issues, FCC
issues, local cable franchising issues and we began a longer conversation about why local
franchising is currently at risk. Bill gave some history to what franchising agreements
are and why the Massachusetts state model is quite good. The federal legal framework
provides that a certain percentage of gross revenue, not to exceed 5%, goes back to the
municipality. Massachusetts legal framework requires that franchise fee goes too cable
and I-net related programs.
Lee asked about the 1996 telecommunications act and we talked about how while that
basically preserved the local franchising model of the 1984 Cable Act, it did introduce a
seemingly innocuous clause prohibiting cities from unreasonable denials of new
franchises which Verizon and other phone companies are now using to challenge the
cable franchising process.
Lee noted that, based on his discussions with the Menino Administration in Boston,
municipalities like Boston and existing franchise owners like Comcast have taken this
seemingly small statutory change to represent nothing short of an absolute termination of
any plausible possibility of denying renewal to an existing franchise holder. The
Comcast franchise in Boston is up for renewal, but the Menino Administration has thus
far (informally) taken the position that absolutely nothing that might be said or done by
anyone could in any way call into question the otherwise inevitable Comcast renewal.
Bill mentioned that the FCC has voted new regulations in December but they haven't
been released to the public. We should all be keeping an eye on those regulations when
they are released. They may in fact remove local control from municipalities in terms of
negotiating franchise agreements.
Eric talked about the federal level briefly in terms of what the FCC is doing and the
Congressional legislation that failed in 2006. At the State level, Both Eric and Bill
seemed to agree that we have a definite chance to defeat this proposed legislation in
committee but that we are fighting supporters of the legislation that are working hard to
line up endorsements in the media and State House. They have already gotten
endorsements from newspapers in Lowell, Lawrence, and ???
Verizon is spending huge amounts of money on advertising and lobbying, but they
consider this preferable to going community-by-community under the present regime.
Someone pointed out that Verizon could simply (and quickly!) get into any community
they wanted to by simply copying the existing cable franchise, and whiting out the cable
company’s name and substituting Verizon in its place. But in many communities this
would require them to terms that they seem very opposed to accepting, such as:
(1) meeting full build-out terms, and not simply cherry-picking affluent areas;
(2) meeting existing PEG channel allocations and interconnection terms;
(3) providing up to 5% of gross revenues for PEG operating costs and/or other cablerelated
expenses, plus additional monies for I-Nets and other capital expenses.
(4) Other community-specific requirements as determined by each municipality.
The timeline for this bill is sometime this year, not sure when.
Bill August explains how many Verizon bills do not eliminate license fees but modify
them so that 5% goes to the municipality and no more than 1% goes to PEG. Bill talks
about the reasons why this bill is bad for Massachusetts, and shows the synopsis that is
available at www.massaccess.org
The group then talked about what we can do, what we should do. Many good ideas were
suggested, including:
• Bill August urged everyone to meet with his or her state representative and
senator. Eric supports this idea saying that meetings are the most valuable,
followed by phone calls, followed by letters. Verizon has people patrolling the
halls 24/7, and we need to counteract their face-time with real voters talking about
real impacts.
• Collecting the data which disproves Verizon’s argument that competition will
lead to lower rates. We can do this with Massachusetts communities which have
2 or 3 wireline competitors (Comcast, RCN, and/or Verizon), but we should also
look to states like Texas and Florida that have already passed statewide
franchising. What has happened to rates in those communities?
• Talk to folks that have developed good models for state-level franchising and/or
Network Neutrality, such as PennPIRG, NYPIRG, California
• Get your city or town government to pass resolutions opposing state franchising.
Quincy has done this.
• Conduct local educational forums and cablecast them, as Stoneham did in early
February.
• Write op-eds to your local newspapers, or better yet, work with the staff of your
access center to arrange a meeting with the local editors and get them to publicly
oppose the legislation.
• Create and bicycle public service announcements that oppose the legislation
• Support the Public Policy fund of MassAccess. John handed out some
information from MassAccess.org.
• Make sure that the Governor will veto a bill if it ever reaches him. Bill talks about
his friend, David Siemus (sp?) who might be a connection to Governor Patrick.
• Lee talks about his strategic location in having both the Senate President and the
Speaker of the House representing him.
• We need to create a sheet that explains, in plain-English, the before-the-bill, afterthe-
bill picture, so that people can actually see what is it stake.
John then prompted the group to talk specifically about what they were willing to commit
to do before our next meeting on March 29th.
• David and Jessica will be writing Op-ED letters and organizing through their
public access facility and other organizations they know.
• Lee will begin thinking about a focus group to create long-term strategies, and set
up a meeting at the State House with Speaker DiMasi’s chief legislative assistant.
• Matt has a blog and will try to connect with colleges
• Matt will try to obtain information about the impacts and rates from Texas and
Florida
• We should all be contacting the members of the committee this bill has been sent
to - especially the chair, and setting up meetings with our State House reps.
• John said he would try to coordinate efforts with MassAccess, and circulate their
talking points to the whole group.
Next meeting is Thursday, March 29 at 7:30 p.m. at CCTV.
who should we invite? MassAccess, MMA, MassPIRG, ACME, NECTA, Colleges?
Note: [[Lee appends the following note:
As we discussed at the general meeting on February 22nd, our most immediate challenge
is to defeat the Verizon power grab. To that end, our general group obviously needs to
reach out as widely as possible, and focus clearly on handing Verizon a total defeat.
As we also discussed, I'd like to try to pull together a strategy group, (the Boston Area
Media Reform Strategy Group) to attempt to grapple with crucial longer-term
considerations.
Inter alia, we need to examine the prospects for developing effective strategies
-- to make possible an independent progressive news and public affairs television
channel, overtly to challenge the hyper-reactionary Fox ‘News’; and the megacorporate
dominant forces that control and manipulate what presently passes for
‘news’;
-- to consider ways to fight effectively [primarily at the national level] to restore a better
version of the fairness doctrine, and to compel comprehensive free television and
radio time for qualifying candidates for public office, as a condition of licensure for
broadcasters and cable systems; and
-- to defend Net Neutrality unyieldingly and relentlessly!
I’ll be sending out further information about the new Strategy Group.]]

Media Reform Group of Eastern MA

Media Reform Group of Eastern MA

FCC Hearing in Cambridge on Future of the Internet

Congressional Hearing on PEG Access TV in the Digital Age

Why Community Media Still Matters in the YouTube Age

Minutes from 2/22/07 Meeting