The Libes Libation

Cut CCM

2009-10-23T04:53:00.007-04:00

On the Maryland Politics Watch blog, Adam Pagnucco has posted an essay in response to our elected leaders asking what can be cut from the Montgomery County budget. Adam's suggestion: Cut County Cable Montgomery.

According to viewership numbers, very few people watch CCM. Since so few people watch it, I have to assume most readers of this blog don't even know what it is I will provide an explanation. In a nutshell, CCM is the C-SPAN of Montgomery County. CCM provides live coverage of council sessions, press conferences, and public affairs programming. CCM is delivered as a cable channel and many shows are available from the county website or youtube.

Adam observes that the CCM budget has grown substantially: 16.9% in FY07, 13.9% in FY08, and an amazing 22.9% in FY09. That is breathtaking, especially considering the cuts that have taken place elsewhere in the budget.

Adam's explanation about the CCM program and its budget growth? Incumbent protection. Adam explains:

All too many of these programs seem to have a common primary purpose: making the incumbent office holders look good. Over and over again, politicians are shown prancing at press conferences, smiling to their adoring admirers and explaining why Montgomery County is such a wonderful place to live – under their leadership, of course. County Report, CCM’s flagship weekly program, is little more than a parade of such political frolicking.

I won't repeat Adam's other observations but I encourage you to read his essay. I agree with most of his points. However ...

It is important to understand that the CCM is not funded out of the county's general revenues. Rather, CCM is part of a separate budget (the "cable communications plan") that is funded primarily by franchise fees which are paid by everyone subscribing to cable TV. Pull out your bill and take a look. It may seem small on your bill (well, maybe not) but it adds up. The current budget calls for franchise fees of roughly $10.6 million. Revenues from some smaller sources bring the total income to $15.8 million for all things cable.

The cable revenues are not to be used for items outside the cable budget (although the county has been known to borrow from it occasionally). But the bottom line is that cutting CCM is not a useful response when our elected leaders ask what we would sacrifice to help balance the budget.

That said, cutting CCM might be useful for a number of other reasons. For example, our political leaders have better things to do with their time than do interviews that are watched by almost no one. The FY09 CCM budget is roughly $2.5 million. Of that, the Public Information Office (the source of the most pointless of such shows) is $720 thousand, about 29% of the CCM budget. (Would it be too much to ask that some of that be used to make CCM work on Apple Macs?)

In my opinion, many of the other shows produced by or distributed on CCM are also of little value. Most of them are just filler between county council sessions. What is missing is more valuable video such as council work sessions and committee and commission meetings. These videos would provide citizens with a much more useful understanding of what the county government does than pablum produced by a public information office. (Note that the county has an even larger budget for "public information" that does come from general revenues. And which should also be cut.)

In the past, I have recommended that we give up the channel entirely (presumably getting something valuable in return) and instead provide streams and archives over the web for the videos that are truly vital to informing the citizenry of their government. I recommend that for most of the channels in the PEG network.

As I write this, I have turned on CCM to see what is being broadcast. It's Councilmember Nancy Floreen holding her dog and talking about her family ("Lady is a rescue schnoodle ...") and showing family photos of her travels around the world. Very entertaining. But how is this a justifiable use of taxpayer funds?

Note: The county will deny that franchise fees are a tax. Call them what you will.

Strange Sense of Security

2009-08-20T02:34:00.007-04:00

MCPS recently announced it wants a security system for the elementary schools. RFP (Request for Proposals) 4248.1 "Elementary Schools Access Control Systems" is publicly available at the Parents Coalition web site in an article by Louis Wilen.

http://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2009/08/mcps-releases-rfp-for-super-security.html

I decided I'd have a look. What I found was astonishing.

The RFP starts out reasonably. The request sketches out the idea of doors that use access-control cards. As a past elementary-school parent myself, I could see this makes sense for school staff who are regularly going in and out. The kids themselves don't need access cards because they're only using the doors during brief periods (i.e., school day begins, recess, etc.) when an adult is stationed at the door.

But after hours, I would regularly encounter doors propped open with a rock or chair so that parents could enter. And sometimes I would encounter a locked door and a crowd of angry parents banging on the door, unsuccessfully trying to raise the attention of a school staffer.

The MCPS proposal provides for cameras so conceivably a parent could get the attention of someone in the office to have the door opened remotely. Indeed, the cameras could be viewed offsite so it wouldn't even be necessary to have someone watching them in the school itself. They could be viewed at MCPS HQ or anywhere on the internet.

Sounds good so far. So what's the problem?

The Problem

For starters, there's a lot in the RFP that's unnecessary. Consider this section:

2.2.4.m The EAC/SMS System shall have a fully integrated Environment Security Module (ESM) with the capability of detection and identification of toxic gases, Chemical Warfare Agents including Soman, Sarin, VX, Mustard, and Lewisite. The Environmental Security Module shall include a suite of sensors integrated with the EAC/SMS System capable of detecting over 1,000 chemical and gas compounds with ...

Is this for real? Since when do we need chemical warfare detection systems in our elementary schools? (Answer: We don't.)

I'm thinking that this RFP was written with the idea of applying for grant support from some federal security program. That seems to be the way half of these new security policies are justified these days - because there's money waiting for them. (The other half? Hyperbole-driven paranoia.)

Speaking of paranoia, how come there are no metal detectors? How is the system supposed to stop people entering with guns? Knives? (Atomic weapons?) How are we supposed to sleep at night? Seriously - why such a weird focus?

Next Problem

Another class of problem is that the specs are a hodgepodge. Plenty of the requirements have no thought to functionality but dwell obsessively on irrelevant technical detail. For example:

3.6 ... shall incorporate a 32-bit 100 MHz RISC processor ...

Besides the unnecessary use of the vague term RISC, why would someone specify a maximum speed? Normally, if you have a specific processor in mind, you'd say 100 MHz or faster but this spec means faster chips aren't acceptable. That's absurd. But realistically, so is the idea of even giving processor speeds for a security system. Function is what counts, not processor speed. An example of a functional spec: System must recognize a face 95% of the time within 2 seconds. Who cares how fast the underlying processor is?

So why might someone write specs this way? Answer: When they have a prior arrangement with someone looking to dump a bunch of obsolete equipment on some sucker.

The circle was closed once I reached section 5.2 which referenced James Gompers as the consultant to the project. Gompers has been a security consultant for MCPS before. Writing in the Parents Coalition Blog, Louis Wilen says (May 1 2009):

[MCPS] Security Director Hellmuth was so impressed by Gompers that he hired him to select millions of dollars of video cameras and computer-based visitor tracking systems for our schools. Hellmuth had so much confidence in Gompers that he even disregarded the MCPS procurement procedures and state laws that require that competitive bids must be solicited for large purchases. Even the selection of Gompers, Inc. as the security consulting firm was made on a "no-bid" basis by Hellmuth.

The PC Blog raises a number of concerns regarding Gompers, his business practices, his relationship to MCPS and the disregard for their own policies that MCPS appears to be taking in this relationship. I encourage you to read their blog for more details.

More Problems?

Building on the Gompers relationship, I'll mention just one more peculiar technical aspect of this spec. First note that one of Gompers' achievements was selecting a particular line as the standard for MCPS security cameras. According to the press release of the company (IQinVision) whose products (IQeye cameras) were selected, Bob Helmuth (Directory of School Safety and Security for MCPS) said:

For what we wanted to accomplish at MCPS, the IQeye cameras was the best choice for us. We would go with nothing less than megapixel cameras both for image quality and for coverage.

Sure enough, the RFP does specify IQeye cameras just as MCPS standardized on. However, the RFP says:

8.3.14 The video will be 640x480 resolution
8.3.15 The video will be at up to 2 images/second

But 640x480 is much less (roughly 70% less) than the "megapixel" cameras that MCPS Security Directory Helmuth said are now required. (Remember: "We could go with nothing less than megapixel cameras.") And the particular model IQeye732) isn't even listed in the IQeye website product line-up. (Nor could I find it anywhere on the web with google.) Presuming it's an unannounced upcoming model, if it follows the IQeye naming conventions, the 732 will be a 2-megapixel model. But because of the way the RFP is written, it's a waste of money because the video will be at 640x480. No more, no less.

Oh, and the video will be at "up to 2 images/second." Again, a really strange way of phrasing because it specifies a maximum rather than a minimum. And again, that's a fraction of the camera's ability. So once more, it's wasted money to buy such a camera. And frankly, 2 images/second really sucks. Even the cheapest IQeye cameras can do 30 images/second. (And the Gompers-specified cameras are far from the cheapest.)

And that MCPS standard (for which MCPS paid Gompers) for IQeye cameras and their megapixel cameras? That was a waste of money too. I don't know how much MCPS paid Gompers but it wouldn't surprise me if it was in the range of $50K - $100K.

By the way, according to MCPS Superintendent Jerry Weast, " All of our technology partners know they are not permitted to use MCPS testimonials in advertising." This is a quote from a January 2009 memo of his (see answer #9). This is otherwise known as MCPS Policy BBB. As can be seen with the press release from IQeye, this policy is clearly being ignored. Writing in the Parents Coalition Blog, Janis Sartucci described this in detail along with several other failures of the policy. It is an eye-opening read.

Bottom Line

Although I've picked out just a few examples, the entire proposal has more. Some of them are harder to explain but equally laughable. Browsing the proposal is not for the faint-of-heart but if have a bit of technical expertise, give it a read. Post a comment describing the absurdities that you find. (Here's one to get you started: Search for Linux and Windows.)

So what's this going to cost? Because it sounds incredibly expensive. Add up all paraphenalia in the RFP (chemical warefare detectors?!), new software (that we get to debug), labor costs (one-time, maintenance, training), etc., and we're talking millions of dollars. And that's for a system that has no functional guarantees that it will actually stop anyone from entering the school and, for that matter, even detect a knife or gun.

At my own workplace, we have card-based entry systems that are regularly bypassed. Two people approach the door at the same time, the first swipes the card. The second walks through while the door is still open. So much for million-dollar security. We could spend less (and lower the unemployment rate) by employing people to stand at the doors all day. Better yet, let's pay these people to stay home. It would be an equally effective system and a whole lot cheaper.

FIOS schedule for Rockville and Gaithersburg

2009-08-09T10:51:00.006-04:00

Verizon's construction schedule has expanded significantly from the last time I checked it. Their Maryland FIOS schedule suggests that Verizon is cruising through Rockville. Gaithersburg, too. Gaithersburg approved its franchise this past May and predicting complete coverage by the end of 2009. Bets, anyone?

Both Rockville and Gaithersburg have information pages on their individual websites for cable TV and telecommunications (Rockville, Gaithersburg) but they are pretty skimpy - and in the case of schedules, just referring the reader back to the companies. Don't hesitate to contact your local officials if you have questions.

Email Ownership

2009-03-24T01:12:00.002-04:00

I've written previously about ISP-provided email addresses and how risky they are. To recap, you're at the mercy of your ISP when you use an address such as don@comcast.net or don@verizon.net. Numerous people at broadbandreports.com have reported problems with their Comcast email. The only common factor seems to be that Comcast's system is too complex. Because your email address is tied to your account which is tied to every other service Comcast offers, people have found their emails locked due to anything from late payments to installation of phone service.

Previously, I mentioned another concern: Switch providers and you must leave your address behind. Few ISPs providers let you keep your address or offer to forward your email.

As if to prove me wrong, one of my friends found himself in this very situation when he switched from Comcast to Verizon a year ago. He had long been using a comcast.net address, had given it out to many people, and had subscribed to various mailing lists with it. And he figured the address would stop working when he left Comcast.

But the comcast.net address continued working. So he continued using it.

Curiously, Comcast didn't turn it off or ask for it back. Until...

About a year later, he decided he didn't like Verizon and wanted to go back to Comcast. Even I couldn't have guessed what would happen next: As soon as he opened a new account with Comcast, his old Comcast email address stopped working!

After calls to the local office proved unhelpful, he called Comcast's corporate headquarters in Philadelphia, each time being referred to an Executive Response Team member who would vow to fix the problem. After weeks of getting nowhere, he tracked down a technician who seemed to understand - but lacked the immediate access to make the needed changes. But enough badgering and finally someone got through and my friend got his email account back. It only took my friend hours of time on the phone spread over 60 days - for a fix that shouldn't have taken more than 10 minutes.

You may want to put that in the "just asking for trouble" category. After all, my friend did continue using a Comcast service (an email address) despite no longer being a customer. But I think you're at significant risk even if you are a Comcast customer in good standing. Case in point: A poster (userid: baffled) on dslreports.com described that an email address he had used for 4 1/2 years recently stopped working. When he called, Comcast told him that that another customer with the same name in Texas closed his Comcast account and the email address was "owned" by the Texan. (Clearly Comcast's idea of "ownership" is pretty weak if you can "own" it one day and "not own" it the next.) Anyway, since Mr. Texas was the "legal owner" of the email address, Comcast said there was nothing they could do.

In addition, baffled found that his sub-account email addresses were inoperative as well including one that he used as a business address. Fortunately, Comcast was able to resolve his problem in just 24 hours. It was just an accident! Our bad!

Ultimately, he got his accounts back along with his emails. But I would've bet against it. It is apparent from these and other stories that Comcast is not concerned with the way they handle email addresses.

If anyone can show me an ISP that provides any kind of guarantees on their mail service, I'd love to see it. Until then, I restate my earlier advice: Using ISP-provided email addresses is just too risky. And using them for business is insane.

Can We Call

2009-02-23T01:19:00.003-05:00

Is it too much to hope that I could get through a year without loss of service? Made it to February anyway. I guess that's something.

Thursday, Feb 20, 2009

I woke to find my internet service wasn't working. I confirmed it wasn't my equipment. The lights on the cable modem acknowledged the problem to be at the modem or beyond it. So I called Comcast.

Ricardo answered. I explained the problem and said it showed the same symptoms as the previous outage I had back in July. I mentioned this because the tech who visited me then promised that someone would come back and complete the fix or else the problem would recur.

Me: (paraphrase) That was in July. And no one ever came back.
Ricardo: (paraphrase) According to my records, someone did come out and fix it.
Me: They may have fixed something but it wasn't the right thing. The splitter on the pole wasn't touched and it was supposed to be removed. Could you send someone who can do the right job?
Ricardo: I can give you an appointment for a technician to come to your home on Saturday between 8-11am.
Me: Thank you.
Ricardo: Do you have a phone number for the technician to call before he comes over?
Me: I have VOIP, so without internet service, he won't be able to reach me.
Ricardo: How about a cell phone number?
Me: Cell service is unreliable. Just have the tech come without calling. I'll be here.
Ricardo: Ok, I'll write that on the ticket. He'll come without calling. But I have to warn you that if he's running late, he'll have no way to contact you.
Me: I understand.

Here's a picture of the splitter in question - installed by Comcast.

Friday

Late Friday, I found the internet connection was active. But I still wanted the tech to come out and fix the connectors so I looked forward to Saturday morning.

Saturday

8-11am. No one showed. When 11am came, I assumed the tech was running late so I didn't worry.

At 3pm, I figured there's no way a tech could be running this far behind but I had to leave the house to run an errand so I called Comcast just to make sure the tech wouldn't waste his time trying to visit me even this late.

Me: It's 3pm. What happened to the technician?
Anika: The appointment was cancelled because there was no phone number to call.
Me: Are you sure? I specifically told Ricardo that I had no working phone and just to come over. Ricardo said he was writing down that there was no phone and the tech should come over without calling. Are you sure there are no notes to that effect?
Anika: There is no such note.

Me: Can we get Ricardo on the phone? Let's clear this up right now.
Anika: Ok, just tell me his extension.
Me: You want me to tell you his extension?
Anika: Yes, that's the only way I can get in touch with other people here.
Me: He gave me his name. That's not enough?
Anika: The call center is very large, sir. I cannot do anything with just his name.
Me: Can I speak to a supervisor? I'd like to formally complain about Ricardo or find out what's going on.
Anika: There are no supervisors here on Saturday. Call back during the week.

Anika offered to credit me $20 for the missed appointment and offered to reschedule the appointment.

Anika: Can I reschedule you now? I might be able to send someone there later today.
Me: No thank you. I can't wait here any longer.

We ended the phone call and I left the house at that point.

7pm. I returned later that evening and found a note from a Comcast technician on my front door. The technician noted that the "Scheduled Work Date and Time" for the job was 2-5pm. He noted that he arrived at 4:38pm.

A couple of observations can be drawn from this episode. The first is that either someone is lying or Comcast's system for taking notes isn't working. In fact, this isn't the first time I've encountered this problem.

Second, there's no explanation for how a technician would summarily cancel an appointment on his own. Just because there's no phone number isn't a useful reason. (Even a non-answering number isn't a good reason as I explained in a previous posting.)

Third, there's no explanation for the 2-5pm appointment. Where did it come from? It couldn't have been Anika because I told her I couldn't wait at the house any longer. I specifically told her not to send a technician later in the day. Could the technician just have decided on his own? Without even contacting the customer? What kind of communication is there between the people answering the phone and the techs in the field? Or rather why is it so bad? Here's a more detailed reminder.

Lastly, I have now learned that just because a Comcast representative gives me a name, I should also ask for a phone number. I've never heard of this nonsense before but ok, I'll play along if that's what it takes.

I will file a formal complaint with Montgomery County. Not only is something seriously broken with Comcast's customer support but my connection is still problematic - and it's been this way for 8 months.

Transparency Not Either

2009-02-19T14:12:00.005-05:00

I recently described a state bill to create a website that would enable the public to see MCPS purchases - and my testimony at Annapolis requesting to remove the $10K threshold. To recap, the legislators didn't seem interested in the removal idea. I have since found out that they did exactly the opposite! Yes, they raised the threshold to $25K.

My only thought: We must vote these people out of office at the next opportunity. Let me know if you have better suggestions.

Montgomery County's Turn

Now Montgomery County is considering a similar bill for county purchases, Council Bill 1-09. Curiously, it has the same problem - the bill only requires transparency for purchases $25K or higher. What is with these people that they cannot think of amounts less than $25K?

The county council is scheduled to take action on this bill next week (Feb 24 2009) so you still have several days to weigh in. I submitted essentially the same letter that I did to the state but this time focusing more clearly on the limit, even going so far as to put my thrust in the subtitle in English that even a 5th grader would understand. Here it is:

Comments On Bill 1-09 Finance - Spending Disclosure

Summary: Good bill but would be better if the $25,000 limit was removed.

Don Libes
February 5, 2009
I strongly support the intent of Bill 1-09 - to provide transparency of county purchases. But while thousand dollar purchases need disclosure, so do smaller ones. Many inappropriate purchases are less than a thousand dollars or even a hundred dollars - exorbitant lunches and gifts, unjustifiable travel, and so on. Limits, whether $25,000 or $10,000, are easy to avoid. It’s not hard to break up a million-dollar purchase of electronic whiteboards or computers in to groups of purchases that fall below the limit. It requires little effort to do - a few more clicks of the mouse.

So pass the bill but without dollar limits and without qualifying words such as “aggregate” that could delay disclosure. Rather, the website should report any purchase that the county tracks using its existing financial management system. The cost of this change would be negligible given that the purchases are already in an existing database. And disk space is cheap. $100 buys enough space to hold decades worth of purchase information.

We should take a cue from our new president. On his first day of office, President Obama issued a memorandum indicating that, unless there is a justifiable reason to withhold information, records must be public by default. If there is a justifiable reason for the $25K limit, I have yet to hear it. Disclosure should not have to wait for specific requests from the public.

I close with the following words from Obama's memorandum. Accountability is in the interest of the government as well as the citizenry. As Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.”

Transparency? Not.

2009-02-05T03:21:00.010-05:00

Transparency is sweeping the land. Or is it?

The federal government has established a website to let you see what the government is spending your money on (www.USASpending.gov) and Maryland has created a similar spending website for state purchases (www.spending.dbm.maryland.gov).

Council Bill 1-09 has been drafted to create a similar website at the county level, sponsored by Councilmembers Andrews and Berliner.

Unfortunately, the school system (MCPS) has fallen through the cracks. County lawyers assert that MCPS does not have to yield its data to the state or the country websites. So another bill has been drafted to force the creation of a website specifically for MCPS. This bill is MC 930-09, sponsored by Delegate Alfred Carr. (Carr's connection to telecomm issues? He succeeded Jane Lawton, the past MC Cable Administrator whose untimely passing left the seat available. Carr's previous job? A manager at Verizon!)

Unfortunately, all of these bills share one common problem. The reporting levels are too high. The state website and proposed county website only require reporting of purchases $25K or higher. Carr's MCPS bill has a level of $10K or higher.

I believe the level should be much less. The bill's author explained to me that the $10K limit was simply chosen as a reflection of the smaller budget of MCPS compared to the state. The state's $25K limit was based on a figure used to require additional signatures during purchasing. But just because purchases require less oversight doesn't mean they shouldn't be public. To the contrary, the smallest purchases are made with the least oversight. Obviously, they need public disclosure as much as big purchases, just for a different reason.

And it should be easy extend the proposed website to smaller purchases. (How hard is it to remove the limit from an SQL query? Sigh.) And what would it cost? At 1TB for $100, we could fit the entire MCPS purchase history on a single disk. It is my understanding that the data is already tracked internally by MCPS in a single database. Periodic copies to an external mirror should be trivial. And since the website would be read-only, security risks are minimal.

With that in mind, I encourage you to contact your county councilmembers and state delegates and request that they lower the dollar limits on these bills.

Here is the text of my own testimony that I presented at Annapolis at a public hearing on the measure. (Yes, it is short! Individuals are limited to two minutes.)

Testimony on MC 930-09
Funding Accountability and Transparency Act
Don Libes
January 30, 2009

My name is Don Libes. I’m representing myself, a typical taxpayer and parent with a child in public school. I thank you for the opportunity to testify on this legislation.

I strongly support its intent - to provide transparency in the purchases by my public school system. I have been repeatedly dismayed at purchases that surely would not have occurred had the purchasers known that the public would immediately see such inappropriate expenditures.

But many inappropriate purchases are less than a thousand dollars or even a hundred dollars - exorbitant lunches and gifts, unjustifiable travel, and so on. Such limits, whether $10,000 or $25,000, are easy to avoid. It’s not hard to break up a million-dollar purchase of electronic whiteboards or computers in to individual purchases that fall below the limit. It requires little
effort to do - a few more clicks of the mouse.

So pass the bill but without limits and without qualifying words such as "aggregate" that could delay disclosure. The cost of this project is negligible given that the purchases are already in an existing database. And to remove the $10,000 limit requires no additional labor costs.

We should take a cue from our new president. On his first day of office, President Obama issued a memorandum indicating that, unless there is a justifiable reason to withhold information, records must be public by default. Disclosure should not have to wait for specific requests from the public.

I close with the following words from Obama's memorandum. Accountability is in the interest of the government as well as the citizenry. As Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, "Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants."

Lest this sound like it ought to have been enough, it wasn't. After delivering my testimony to the MC Delegation, they continued discussion of the merits of the bill with the limit at $10K. Not a single delegate supported lowering the limit.

Two other citizens testified as well. Louis Willen (testimony), representing the Parents Coalition, addressed the technical merits of the website and explained why it would cost much less than MCPS claims. More like $5K. As I mentioned, MCPS already has the data collected. It's just a matter of regularly copying it to a public repository with a query page exposed to the public. However MCPS started out saying that it would cost $200K and then lowered its estimate to "$40 to 50K". But it is apparent that they haven't done their homework and have no real idea of what's involved.

Janis Sartucci also testified, providing real-world examples of purchases that needed the kind of public airing such a website would provide. It's my understanding that when Janis has asked MCPS for data in the past, data that should be public in the first place, MCPS has told her that she must pay the cost of MCPS preparing the data for release. This is an idea right out of the dark ages.

In the end, it may not matter much anyway. MCPS doesn't want to build it unless they are specifically offered new money. And the delegates are unlikely to give the county money for the purpose, instead just saying build it on your own. So if the bill passes without money attached, it's a useless result.

Delegate Carr pointed out that MCPS should be happy to pay for it themselves. After all, it's likely that disclosure of MCPS purchases to the public would ultimately result in thousands of dollars of savings. And it would also reduce the cost of responding to information requests by parents for the purchasing data. Currently, it's all done manually. A parent makes a request and some MCPS staffer has to track down the data, explain how much it will cost to print it, send the estimate back to the parent (or deny the data exists), handle the reply (likely an argument), and so on.

Bottom line: The bill is unlikely to have a useful impact even if passed. But with some simple changes, it has a future. However, the delegates and MCPS need to hear this from the voters.

Final note: As the hearing began, the delegate chair noticed two people operating a professional videocamera. Delegate Brian Feldman, chair of the delegates, asked whether the people were recording audio and video or just taking still photos. After establishing that they were indeed recording both video and audio, the chair insisted they stop recording. None of the other delegates protested again the sad irony - that their own process of making transparency law itself would not be transparent to the public.

Your Mission, Should You Decide To Accept It

2009-01-30T21:22:00.005-05:00

Interested in serving on the county's Cable and Communications Advisory Committee? The CCAC has four vacancies. Here is the
official announcement.

I've described the committee many times in the past but here is a link to perhaps the most in-depth description. I wrote it several years ago so it's no longer entirely accurate but it's still pretty close.

Here is a link to the current members of the committee. These are your representatives. Feel free to contact them to ask what their experience serving on the committee is like. Or ask them about communication-related issues of concern to you. Oh, you can't figure out how to contact them? Their names aren't linked to an email address? There's no phone number? How about that!

You're got your first task then: Get on the committee and set about making the members more accessible to the citizens who they are supposed to represent!

Adventures in Billing

2008-09-05T13:06:00.002-04:00

Followup to last week's report on the Film Fest aka My Latest Comcastic Adventure: Looking at my statement, I found that Comcast credited me $36 for the incident. But I had expected a credit of $47.86, composed of two $20 credits for the two failures of technicians to arrive within the promised windows and then another $7.86 for the pro-rated outage. The billing department representative said there was no explanation for the $36 in the notes. (How many times have I heard this?)

I asked if she could correct the credit but the billing representative could not get her head around the issue. "The tech didn't come to your house because he called but no one answered, so no one was home, so it's your fault no one showed." It didn't matter to her that my phone service didn't work so there was no way that technician could've called me. Nor did it matter that I had made sure the original service request included that my phone service didn't work and I had specifically instructed the tech not to call before coming. "There is no explanation in the notes of that, sir."

After a half hour on the phone, she gave up trying to understand and just gave me another $40 credit. I asked her if she could remove the $36 credit (now an over-credit) and lower it to $7.86 but she said, sorry no, "I cannot remove the credit."

I also discovered that Comcast put me on a different plan. The new plan lowered my monthly internet fee from $57.95 to $33.00 for 12 months. But I found this out only when I saw my statement, whereupon I immediately called Comcast to find out the details of the plan that had a 57% cut in price. Would there be a corresponding cut in speed? At first, the Comcast rep insisted my bill was wrong and there was no such plan was available. However, after some research, he came back on the phone and sheepishly admitted that, yes indeed, my plan existed and what's more, it had a higher speed than I was getting before at $57.95.

So was I overpaying before, I asked. Without directly answering my question, he explained that the $33 plan is usually only provided by the marketing department or the retention department.

Retention

I've been through this before. The retention department, like other parts of Comcast, appears to be unreliable. They get involved when you call to cancel your service. Sometimes Comcast will ask why you're cancelling. Sometimes they won't. If they do ask, presumably the answer is that you're switching to Verizon for faster, cheaper, and more reliable service.

But, cheapskate that I am, I have stuck with Comcast due to their willingness to compete with Verizon purely on the basis of the price. I would really appreciate competition on speed and reliability too but I guess that's too much to ask for. And, clearly in my case, reliability - or lack thereof - doesn't seem to be a showstopper. I must enjoy being mistreated or having an unreliable connection. Why else would I stay? Laziness? Masochism?

In contrast, my neighbors have switched to Verizon. My community surveyed everyone last year and again this year - everyone who responded asserted they had switched. If there are any Comcast subscribers left in the neighborhood besides me, I'm not aware of them.

One neighbor did complain about problems with Verizon's billing, a problem I have seen with regularity at broadbandreports.com. But Comcast's billing department has a history of problems too and, if my experience is any indicator, it appears as if nothing has changed.

One more thing that hasn't changed: The telephone pole in front of my house still has that malignant splitter in my connection, more than a month after Comcast promised it would be removed.

Comcast Film Fest

2008-08-17T12:10:00.006-04:00

The Comcast Film Fest started this weekend and runs through August 24, 2008. I am not going this year although I have in the past. It's quite enjoyable as long as too many people don't show up. Otherwise it can be a mob scene. (Avoid Friday and Saturday!)

I also wouldn't recommend going to a movie at the Fest unless you've seen that particular movie before. The sound is just a bit too iffy. But the atmosphere is nice. Seeing a movie under the stars with family and friends is quite pleasant.

The festival is also a benefit for the NIH - a worthy cause. But why should Comcast donate a portion of their customer's payments to charity? Wouldn't it make more sense to just lower the rates - and let their customers decide for themselves, to whom and how much to donate? By Comcast making the decision to donate, customers not only lose the decision-making power but customers lose the credit as well. That's just wrong.

Personally, I want to donate a portion of my income; but here Comcast is using my hard-earned money to send two messages: 1) they don't need the money and 2) they care. I don't believe either is true. Don't get me wrong - I believe the employees themselves care; but the company? It's a business answerable to shareholders. And like the customers, the shareholders themselves are perfectly capable of donating themselves.

As for whether Comcast needs the money they are donating, that's a more difficult question. But the impression I get is that they might benefit by spending more money in hopes of improving their service. After all, Comcast continues to have one of the worst reputations in the industry.

As if to drive the point home, my service went out recently. It began on a Thursday. The Comcast representative asked if I could be home on Sunday from 2-5pm. "Yes, but I'm pretty sure I need an outdoor technician, not an indoor tech. Can you please send someone who can climb the pole?"

"No, we need to send an indoor tech first. If he determines an outdoor tech is needed, we'll schedule one at that time." I explained in detail why I felt it was likely outside but the rep insisted I be scheduled for an indoor tech and that I had to be home.

Sunday 2-5pm - You can probably already guess - the technician didn't show.

At 5:05pm, I called Comcast. The message I heard was (paraphrase) "We're sorry but the office is closed. Please call back during business hours." Turns out their business hours end at 5! Grrr.

At that point, I called Comcast's national support number. (It's not advertised for local use but I use it as a backup for situations like this.) The rep who answered put me on hold while he checked why no one showed. Finally, I heard: "Dispatch cannot get a hold of him. He's probably running late; just wait another hour." I waited two more hours and then called again. "He was there - twice - and found no one home." The tech obviously never visited my house - I had my car in the driveway and garage doors wide open the entire time. The Comcast representative on the phone with me said "I don't believe him either."

So he rescheduled me for two days later. He also recommended I call Monday and said that Comcast holds back a few appointments for emergencies or gets same-day appointments as people cancel. I called on Monday - no appointments.

I asked if I could pick up a replacement modem just to confirm that it wasn't a modem issue. So on my way home from work, I stopped by the local office and swapped modems. I asked if the new modem has been tested. "Yes." Do I have to call you once I plug it in? "Sir, it will work. Just take it home and plug it in."

Plugged in directly to where the line entered my house, the new modem didn't work, confirming to myself that it was an outside problem.

On Tuesday, I waited during my 11-2pm time slot. At 1pm, I decided I'd better make sure the tech was coming and so I called Comcast. "We can't reach the technician but I'm sure he'll show." I explained that he didn't show the last time so I'd like some confirmation. I didn't get it.

Tuesday 2:00pm - At the end of the time slot, I called Comcast. "We cannot reach the technician - just give him another hour and a half." Huh? The rep gave me her extension so I could call her back directly if necessary and then assured me she'll be on duty until 6pm.

Tuesday 3:30pm - The tech still hadn't shown but I saw the modem go online. No connectivity however. I called up and asked 1) where the tech was and 2) if the modem was in the walled garden. It took her 10 minutes to confirm the walled garden. In other words, Comcast gave me a modem that their own service didn't recognize. Back from listening to Comcast's once-jazzy but now-disturbing hold music yet again, I heard her say "Let me put you on hold again while I fix it." After 20 minutes, I gave up waiting and hung up.

Tuesday 5:00pm - The modem still wasn't working. The technician still hadn't shown. Three hours had passed since the time slot ended. Using the number given to me by the previous rep, I called her back. Got her voice mail.

At this point, I called the regular local support line and spoke to yet another rep. He assured me he'd look into the problem and call me back. While we were speaking I suddenly saw connectivity. I must have been out of my mind at this point because I suggested canceling the appointment for the tech. I should have realized there was still a problem but I suppose I was thinking out loud why I should continue waiting for a tech who would never show. The rep cancelled the appointment.

Tuesday 6:43pm - The modem went offline. So I called Comcast again. While on the phone, the technician arrived. I told him I was amazed he showed up given that the appointment was cancelled. He said no one told him it was cancelled. (There's clearly a serious communication problem between techs in the field and their dispatcher.)

Turns out that he was a contractor so it was critically important that he not be told. According to him, he wouldn't get paid if he was informed the appointment was cancelled.

I asked him why he was so late - almost 5 hours past the window! He said that Comcast overschedules him - all the time. I could see why. He spent about an hour checking the connections and signal levels inside and outside the house. Finally, he narrowed it down to an outside problem. Someone had added a splitter 5' up the pole. Not only was that the problem but it was amateurishly done. He said he'd phone it in and someone would come out within 24 hours and give me a direct connection. He put on new connectors and, using electrical tape, rewrapped the splitter little better than the way he found it and left.

It's now been three weeks since my 6-day outage and the splitter is still hanging on the pole just the way he left it. I figure it won't be long before my connection goes out again. But if it does, I guess I can go watch movies for free at the Comcast Film Fest.

Rockville Gets FIOS TV

2008-08-07T16:16:00.002-04:00

The City of Rockville has agreed to adopt the Verizon cable franchise held by Montgomery County. This means that Rockville inhabitants will be able to get TV service as well as internet and phone service. Briana Gowing, Verizon VP of External Affairs said that Verizon hopes "to begin construction in mid to late September, possibly selling FiOS bundles in limited areas before the end of the year." Verizon's full press release covers more detail about the new service.

I imagine that Verizon will push service into Rockville very quickly. Verizon says that roughly 23,000 households will be eligible. The downside is that residents in other parts of MC may have to wait even longer to get FIOS. Here is Verizon's list of roads where they're working during August 2008.

Rockville residents will soon enjoy the same thing that I enjoy - namely, advertisements many times a month for Verizon service bundles. As a reminder, service bundles (TV, internet, and phone) sound attractive. However, I feel obliged to remind you that bundles have their downsides. Here's a discussion from dslreports as well as an earlier analysis that I made specifically about Comcast's bundles.

To be fair, there are people for whom bundles make sense. I just don't think any of them would be reading my blog.

Rockville Goes FiOS

2008-06-08T22:34:00.007-04:00

It appears that the Rockville Council will put an agreement to bed with Verizon, allowing FiOS service to provided to residents of the City of Rockville. The Council is set to approve the agreement this Monday, June 9, 2008. If you're interested in attending, the meeting is at 7pm, although the Verizon items are slated for 8:35pm.

Reading between the lines of the documentation that Rockville has made available, it appears that Rockville backed down on their demands for Verizon to pay Rockville's standard utility permit fees. It looks like Rockville has saved face by outsourcing much of their work, thereby cutting down on their own bills. At the same time, Verizon got a much better deal that it originally faced; however, it is taking a certain gamble that Rockville's new contractors are more efficient and won't leave Verizon with problems. We'll know in a year or so if this made sense.

The documentation is quite vague about when service can be expected. Rockville residents might see service as early as this year. And some will receive service no earlier than next year. King Farm is specifically mentioned because it is served out of Verizon's Gaithersburg central office and Verizon does not even expect approval from Gaithersburg before next year.

The Candidates Speak

2007-11-01T22:23:00.000-04:00

Previously, I mentioned that I would ask each candidate for Mayor or Council of Rockville to provide a statement responding to the question:

Please address why the city has been unable to come to terms with Verizon for FIOS internet and TV service and how your approach would differ.

I am pleased to provide their responses here. Feel free to comment on them. (No mudslinging please!) I also encourage you to visit their websites so you can learn more about them. You may also want to contact the candidates individually for more information. I have provided the websites and email for each candidate below.

I present them in the order that I received them, grouped by mayor and council. Do not stop reading after the first few! They're all worth studying closely.

Some of the statements are a bit casual while others are more formal but in the end I felt that nicely reflected more of each candidate. But for that reason, I feel obliged to show exactly what I sent to each candidate originally.

I write a blog (The Libes Libation) that covers cable and telecommunication issues in Montgomery County and is read by many Rockville voters. I would appreciate if you could provide me with a statement explaining why the city has been unable to come to terms with Verizon for FIOS internet and TV service and whether you believe Rockville's position is correct or how your approach would differ.

I will post your statement on my website along with those of all the other candidates. Please be as detailed as possible. Simply saying "I intend to bring everyone to the table so that we can engage in open and productive negotations" is not compelling. Indeed, there is no easy answer but you should at least be able to explain how you come down on the issues mentioned in this recent statement by the Mayor:
Hopefully, if Verizon were to work with us in good faith, we could bring these matters to a close very soon.

There have been numerous instances across the country of damage done by phone companies (in some instance, Verizon) when laying their new fiber. We also think it would be appropriate for Verizon to pay fees to the city government commensurate with the city government's additional cost of inspecting their work to make sure everything is done properly.

An additional concern that we continue to have, which you need to be aware of, is that Verizon refuses to agree to have all Rockville homes wired within even five years. Even if the city government were to bring these matters to a close with Verizon tomorrow, you could potentially end up waiting another five years or more for Verizon to bring their FIOS service to your street.

We have asked Verizon to agree to have all Rockville homes wired within two to three years, but they have thus far refused to agree to this. We also wanted to make sure that they do not purposefully first wire more affluent neighborhoods, and leave the least affluent for last. Verizon has thus far refused to address this potential concern as well.

Larry
You may also find it useful to browse my blog. Here is the address:
http://www.libes.com/don/blog

I would appreciate a response by November 1. Feel free to email or call if you have any questions.

Thanks
Don Libes

So that was the email that each candidate received. Here are their responses.

Candidates for Rockville City Mayor

Mark Pierzchala, Candidate for Rockville City Mayor
Email: votepierzchala@cs.com
Web: www.votepierzchala.org

Don,

Here is my answer taken directly from my website.

The FiOS technology is superb and would offer numerous benefits to residents for phone, television, and Internet access. However, Verizon has a mixed record of installation elsewhere in Montgomery County including cutting cables and damaging property. In addition, Verizon will not commit to a 2-year schedule for installation everywhere in Rockville (as requested by Mayor and Council), including for example, communities such as King Farm not getting the service for several years. Finally, it appears that Verizon wants a substantial discount on Right Of Way fees published by Rockville in 2003.

I think Mayor and Council are correct to insist on standards for correct installation and to insist on payment of reasonable fees. The City will have numerous costs associated with the installation of the fiber cable including inspection and putting the grid on its GIS system (for maps). These City costs should be covered, otherwise it is a subsidy to a private company. I would not insist on the 2-year installation timeframe; there can be some accommodation here. Mayor and Council recently said that they're waiting for Verizon to come back to Rockville to start talking again. If elected Mayor, I would initiate the discussions and try to come to a reasonable deal.

Drew Powell, Candidate for Rockville City Mayor
Email: drew@votepowell.org
Web: www.votepowell.org

Dear Don,

Thank you for contacting me on this important issue.

As the only mayoral candidate in the telecommunications field, I feel strongly about this issue. It is imperative that Rockville move forward on this initiative with a great sense of urgency.

In the very near future millions homes and businesses throughout the country and the globe will be directly connected to the world’s telecommunications infrastructure (Internet, phone, television, etc.) via high speed fiber optics. Rockville must be a participant in this global telecommunications Renaissance for the following reasons:

Rockville is truly an international city as it is a part of the Greater Metropolitan Washington, D.C. area. More than one third of all Rockville residents were born outside the U.S. and many more have international ties. How can Rockville expect to compete on the world market without the infrastructure necessary to do the job? How can we truly be a “world class” city attempting to “make do” with past centuries’ copper connectivity?

Additionally, as gridlock increases on our roads, telecommuting becomes evermore important as a major component in ameliorating our traffic nightmares. The possibility that many office workers, consultants and entrepreneurs can stay off the roads in home offices is essential if we’re to get a handle on traffic and our environment. Keeping people connected and out of their cars can make a big dent in Rockville’s carbon footprint. With its extreme bandwidth capabilities, fiber optics is the one technology that will allow more telecommuting solutions than any copper-based scheme. Office workers would be able to virtually attend meetings anywhere in the world (real-time teleconferencing) and conduct business via network-based applications, while their families enjoy HD television, ultra-clear telephone conversations and high speed Internet. Eliminating commutes and keeping families together will greatly increase Rockville residents’ quality of life.

Lastly, the U.S.A. was built on competition. Arbitrarily preventing competition has never been good for Wall Street, Main Street or your street. Artificially maintaining the status quo of the cable company’s monopoly for high speed access is not in Rockville’s collective and long term interests. Offering citizens high speed telecommunications options will inherently bring down prices and make even better technology solutions available in the future.

It has been stated by my opponent that the current fiber optic provider (Verizon) has been unwilling to work with the City in the deployment of fiber optic solutions. I find this troubling in that most surrounding jurisdictions have had no such problems. As long as Verizon or any telecommunications provider can do its part in putting things back the way they were prior to the installation of fiber, we can move forward with little or no impact to Rockville’s commuters or taxpayers.

There were many more obstacles in building Rockville’s new Town Center than there are in securing a win-win arrangement for the installation of citywide fiber optics. It takes only the will to get the job done.

As Rockville’s Mayor, I will get the job done.

Very sincerely,
Drew Powell

Susan Hoffmann, Candidate for Rockville City Mayor
Email: susan@susanhoffmann.com
Web: www.susanhoffmann.com

Dear Mr. Libes,

I am on record both in City Council meetings and during our candidate forums to be in strong support of competition for Comcast or any of the cable service providers that may come to Rockville. Regarding Verizon specifically, the City has made every attempt to work with Verizon to be a FIOS provider, as long as they agree to abide by the City's requirements as follows:

1. to pay the same cost for the right to provide fiber in Rockville that others [Comcast] have paid
2. to sign our right-of-way agreement so that they will return any roads, sidewalks or private lawns to the condition in which they were found prior to beginning the installation of fiber or cable
3. that they will provide service in a fair and timely way to all of the residents of Rockville, including King Farm, Fallsgrove and our condominiums and apartments

Verizon does not have the best record when it comes to their standards of work during and after cable installation. The work done in the County was often left uncovered at the end of the day, causing driving hazards and significant access difficulties for residents. Verizon has asked for a reduction of the per foot rate as compared to what Comcast paid. They have yet to provide a justification for this request. They won't have fiber to all of Rockville for at least five to seven years. And finally, they refuse to return to the table to continue the dialogue. This impasse has lasted for over a year.

Two weeks ago, I saw the Verizon government relations representative at the Rockville Chamber of Commerce candidate forum. I asked her if I could count on her to meet with the City after the election. She agreed that she would. I am counting on her to keep her word and get the process moving again. I cannot over-emphasize how strongly I feel about the value of competition on the cost we are charged by Comcast for cable. I hope Verizon will be part of the solution.
Best, Susan Hoffmann

Candidates for Rockville City Council

Brigitta Mullican, Candidate for Rockville City Council
Mail: m4council@verizon.net
Web: www.mullican4council.com

If elected to the Rockville City Council, I will want to get the complete details on why the deal with Verizon is not able to move forward. We should not keep Rockville residents as well as surrounding areas from benefiting from competition like Verizon.

If Rockville creates an unfair situation, it might be better for Montgomery County to negotiate for the entire Rockville area. I am concerned that the all the members of the Rockville Mayor and Council have not been provided the complete details on this request. As a Rockville council member, I will demand accurate information be provided to all council members.

I am a strong proponent of competition and want to know why the same deal is not provided to Verizon that was given Comcast. I will listen to all sides of this issue and expect the entire Rockville City Council to have a vote in this decision, but not before all accurate information is provided.

Thank you for asking for my view on the fiber-optic system being available to Rockville.

Brigitta Mullican

Phyllis Marcuccio, Candidate for Rockville City Council
Mail: marcu@erols.com
Web: www.phyllism.org

Dear Mr. Libes,

Please see below the status of the City's issues with the Verizon wireless proposal. I asked our City Manager to give me the current disposition of our negotiating. You can see by the text that follows, we are trying to come to an agreement. I delayed responding to you until I had the facts. Thank you for your patience.

Sincerely,
Phyllis Marcuccio

Phyllis,
Please see below in response to your call of earlier today. I sent this to Brad Roarke's blog.
Hope this helps.
-Scott

Scott Ullery, City Manager
City of Rockville
111 Maryland Avenue
Rockville, MD 20850-2364
240-314-8102
FAX: 240-314-8130
----- Forwarded by Scott Ullery/RKV on 10/29/2007 01:18 PM -----

Scott Ullery/RKV
10/29/2007 01:20 PM

To: rockvillecentral-owner@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [Rockville Central] Fee, FIOS, Foe, Fum

The City of Rockville is eager for competitive cable and Internet services to be available to its residents. We continue to negotiate with Verizon on an agreement that would allow the company to install and keep its new fiber optic cables in City streets, sidewalks and other rights-of-way. Among other things, this agreement simply requires the company to obtain necessary and routine permits to undertake construction and conduct its business using City streets, sidewalks and other rights-of-way. The permit process is essential to ensuring the public's property and all community interests are protected. Without the City's oversight, construction projects in the City's rights of way would present a very high risk of seriously damaging City assets, other utility infrastructure, and even private property.

The Mayor and Council have directed that the fees associated with these permits cover the city's costs, so that taxpayers are not, in effect, subsidizing a for-profit commercial enterprise. The normal fees that the City charges for work in the rights-of-way are based on a cost study done by an outside financial firm. For a project of the size proposed by Verizon, there is a great demand placed on City government services among them, permit application review, engineering review, traffic plan review, traffic control, review and oversight of plans for repair and restoration of streets, sidewalks, and any utilities that may be damaged; and inspection of the work as it progresses and upon completion. Verizon has declined to pay these fees and has requested substantial reductions in them. The City has offered a number of alternatives that, we believe, would meet both Verizon's and the City's needs. We are continuing to work with Verizon on these alternatives and hope to make progress soon on these negotiations.

The City also wants Verizon to commit to a faster and more reasonable timetable for rolling out the FIOS service to all residents in the City. Based on Verizon's current schedule, it may take five years or more for service to be provided to King Farm, which is not acceptable.

Scott Ullery, City Manager
City of Rockville
111 Maryland Avenue
Rockville, MD 20850-2364
240-314-8102
FAX: 240-314-8130

Anne Robbins, Candidate for Rockville City Council
Mail: anner41@hotmail.com
Web: www.re-electannerobbins.com

Thanks for the opportunity to comment. First, this is a matter that needs to be discussed and hopefully brought to a satisfactory conclusion by negotiations involving all members of the new Mayor and Council. I believe it would be counter productive for me, or any of the incumbants, to give detailed positions on the current areas of disagreement between the City and Verizon. There have been real and substanial differences between the City and Verizon and, in my judgment, the past atmosphere for reaching accords has not been very positive for a number of reasons. I believe we should make a concerted effort, as a new Council, to move ahead, in a more positive context, and I feel that is possible. I have heard from a number of my constituents who are supportive of Verizon and I want to give this an opportunity to succeed. Having said that, I can also say that I am a firm believer in the value of open competition for government contracts and arrangements with businesses and corporations, and, I am concerned about fairness and cost impacts on all residents.

Piotr (Peter) Gajewski , Candidate for Rockville City Council
Mail: candidate@votegajewski.com
Web: www.votegajewski.com

Don,

Competition between service providers is the consumer’s strongest way of ensuring best service at the most competitive price. And so, I do believe that it behooves the City of Rockville to find a way for Verizon to compete with Comcast in Rockville.

I am not privy to the details of the present impasse between Rockville and Verizon but based on what has been reported, I do agree that the City should insist on a firm time frame for Verizon to wire the whole city. What that time frame should be (3 years? 5 years?) remains for me an open question. With respect to what neighborhoods should be wired when, I do not see this as a major issue, as long as there is agreement that all neighborhoods will be wired, and as long as the timeframe to accomplish this is reasonable.

Whether Verizon should pay the full cost of City inspectors is also an open question for me. It is in Verizon’s self interest to do the work in a satisfactory fashion. If it fails in this task (rips up other infrastructure, does not repair roads that it digs up, etc.) it could be subject to legal action. So, to what extent is shadowing Verizon, in order to inspect their work and then charge them for it, really necessary? Again, I am not privy to the details of the present impasse, so it is difficult for me to answer this, but I raise it as a concern.

I would be interested in learning more whether Verizon has a general problem of negotiating deals or whether Rockville is unique (or nearly unique) in their experience. It is a fact that Verizon has managed to enter into agreements with other jurisdictions, so is it possible that Rockville is just a particularly difficult partner? I notice that in recent weeks Rockville came to another negotiating impasse, this time with an artists who was asked to create a piece of art for our new Town Center. Is this just a coincidence, or is it possible that Rockville sometimes takes so principled a stance in negotiations that practical considerations are overshadowed (i.e. we can’t see the forest through the trees)?

If elected, I will want to explore the questions raised above as a road map for returning to the table with Verizon. While certainly no deal is better than a bad deal, in the long run, Rockville residents should not have to accept not having a full scope of services that Verizon can provide and is providing for many of our neighbors. By making Comcast compete with Verizon the services of both companies will be strengthened and Rockville residents will be the real winners.

Peter

John Britton, Candidate for Rockville City Council
Mail: jbritton@schnader.com
Web: www.vote4john.org

Don:

First, I have to say that I DO intend to bring everyone to the table so that we can engage in open and productive negotiations! Having said that, I also submit two other oft-repeated and over-used generalities connected with this issue -- I do not like the monopolistic franchise regime (full disclosure here as I am a disgruntled customer of Comcast) and I would like to see FiOS available to me and everyone else in Rockville as soon as possible.

The discussions, and reasons for delay, are threefold:

1. Infrastructure damage and replacement -- the installation of fiber optic cables necessarily involves the tearing up of City streets, sidewalks and other rights-of-way. The cost of replacement and any other damage as a result of installation should be borne by Verizon. Indeed, I don't think this is an issue as this is the standard operating procedure for any utility's work. I would add that the City and Verizon coordinate such infrastructure work with other utilities as much as possible, so that the same street is not torn up and rebuilt several times in a short time, causing a prolonged disruption in the community. I have seen too many times where one utility performs its work to be followed by another utility in the same right-of-way, where the jurisdiction seemingly could have limited the disruption through permit coordination. This level of coordination may have an impact on the roll-out plan if there is other extensive utility work concurrent with the installation of the fiber optic system.

2. Fees -- I appreciate the City's need to charge a fee that recovers its costs related to the permitting and oversight of the installation of the system. I favor, however, the position that the FiOS system is both a private, for-profit endeavor and a community benefit. After all, we want our City to be a leader, on the cutting edge, in telecommunications. It is good for our City and its residents. Although I need to do more homework on the extent and scope of the fees at issue, I would be more flexible on fees and balance the costs between Verizon and the City on the principle that there are necessary public costs for such a community service. Perhaps this is the essence of the City Manager's recent statement that the City has offered a number of alternatives that may satisfy both Verizon and the City, alternatives that I understand will be discussed in negotiations that will kick in again after the election.

3. Roll-out -- With one condition, I believe leaving it to Verizon and the market for scheduling the roll-out is appropriate. The irony in this instance is that by delaying the implementation to get a better deal on timing for certain customers, we've prolonged significantly the implementation time for all customers. The one condition is to employ all reasonable means to ensure that the rollout is effected equally in affluent and less affluent areas of the City. In the existing politically charged environment concerning equality of services for certain areas of the City, it is prudent to attempt a balanced rollout.

John Britton

Richard Gottfried, Candidate for Rockville City Council
Mail: richgott@erols.com
Web: www.gottfried4council.org

Dear Don,

Thank you for your interest in our opinions as candidates.

With regard to the FIOS issue in Rockville, following the explanations and counter-explanations as presented in the Mayor and Council sessions has been frustrating as complete information does not seem to be available.

Open competition for cable service is something that we need in Rockville, and as your next councilperson I would support engaging in dialogue with Verizon as to how we can bring Verizon service to Rockville. With our continuing focus on making Rockville a high tech, biotech nexus for Maryland businesses, it is imperative that we have the advanced infrastructure and competive service not only for entertainment purposes but to support information technology.

Some issues that will have to be resolved include access to condo and apartment buildings that are contractually obligated to Comcast and the issue of equal access throughout the City. It is troubling to me that alternate reports claim that Verizon FIOS has been installed in other areas of the County at a lesser cost. I don't know yet why that reported cost discrepancy exists.

I would like to bring all the interested parties to negotiation and find out what is the real situation with Verizon. So far, I have heard only one point of view expressed, that of the current Mayor and Council. I would like to hear from Verizon directly as to what is necessary to have a win-win for the citizens of Rockville.

Sincerely,
Richard A. Gottfried

Theo Anderson, Candidate for Rockville City Council
Mail: theo@vote4anderson.com
Web: http://vote4anderson.com/

Don,

I thank you for taking the time to send in your question to me. I do apologize that I did not get back with you earlier, as after work and on the weekends my days and nights are consumed with putting out flyers, going door-to-door and meeting with the residents of Rockville and putting out signs and such. I'm running a grassroots campaign and simply don't have anyone else to do these things for me and don't have a contribution war chest to reach into to send out mailers and such.

While I won't portend to know all the details of the past Mayor and Council's dealing with FIOS, nor all the nuances surround the disagreements and both parties inability to reach an amicable decision that would have benefited the citizens of Rockville, such as myself, who is sick and tired of paying these inflated monthly bills to COMCAST, as a new council member I will definitely have a different strategy in dealing with FIOS.

I can clearly say, competition is good for the consumer and offers choice. Fiber will come to Rockville and WE will have options. I will work with my fellow Council members and the Mayor to bring ALL parties to the table and not let sidebar meetings and single opinions dominate such a serious and far reaching effect decision. I will call upon my mediation skills and coalition building talents to really vett out the issues so that we can get this process moving forward and so relief as soon as possible can be brought to the deserving citizens of Rockville.

I'm for open competition and choice and will be an honest broker for the citizens of Rockville. It's time for a change and I hope that the citizens will honor me with their confidence and trust that I will make that change for them and everyone that has a vested interest in this matter. Thank you for your great question. I encourage you and others who are interested in hearing more about me and my campaign platform issues to visit my web site at www.vote4anderson.com. I would be honored to have your vote on Nov 6, 2007.

Sincerely,
Theo Anderson

Tracy Pakulniewicz-Chidiac, Candidate for Rockville City Council
Mail: electtracy@gmail.com
Web: http://www.tracyforcouncil.org/

Hi Don -

I'm glad you reached out to me to get my opinion on this - it's very important.

I have to say, I personally would love to have a choice in my cable provider and I think bringing Verizon into the City and giving residents choices would be invaluable. However, I would only support that if Verizon can provide assurances that they will not destroy our infrastructure and would compensate for damages and other costs having them install their infrastructure would put on the City. Taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for poor installation of FIOS.

But ultimately, choices are important and I would hope to be able to bring them to Rockville.

Thanks for your question.

Best,
Tracy

Bob Dorsey, Candidate for Rockville City Council
Mail: bob@votedorsey.com
Web: bob dorsey rockville

No statement received.

Eric (Kuohwa) Wang, Candidate for Rockville City Council
Mail: kuohwawang@yahoo.com
Web: None

No statement received.

Rockville Debate

2007-10-24T00:20:00.000-04:00

On Monday, October 22, 2007, I attended a debate among the candidates for mayor and council of Rockville, Maryland. I was curious if fresh blood might be the solution to breaking the logjam presently preventing Rockville citizens from getting Verizon FIOS internet and TV. Given the upcoming November 6 election, this may be an opportunity to effect change by voting.

Before going on, let me clarify that that when I say Rockville, I'm referring to the City of Rockville. It is only in the city limits that residents have been unable to get FIOS. (Outside Rockville, county residents are of course still at the mercy of Verizon's installation schedule but that's a separate issue.)

I don't avidly watch Rockville politics but I have attended council meetings on occasion so I'm familiar with how interesting (to put it politely) their behavior can be. A candidate debate seemed to promise an evening even more entertaining than professional wrestling - with an equal amount of simulated grappling.

Although it was called a debate, it was nothing close. Organized by the Rockville Chamber of Commerce and intended to focus on business interests, 14 candidates stood on stage, each starting with a two-minute position spiel. Questions were then doled out to each candidate round-robin. They had 90 seconds to answer their respective questions. This was repeated again with an additional round of questions. So although questions were solicited from the audience (and I submitted one about Verizon), there was no debate and no opportunity for followup or rebuttal.

My question: Please address why the city has been unable to come to terms with Verizon for FIOS internet and TV service and how your approach would differ.

Although only two candidates got the question on-air, I did also speak to several other candidates afterward and put the question to them as well. All in all, I was disappointed by the responses - only one candidate expressed any grasp of the details of the issue - and even his grasp was tenuous, seemingly accepting of a large portion of the current position held by Larry Giammo, Mayor of Rockville. The best that could be said was that the candidates understood that it was a valid issue.

What I'd like to do at this point is contact all the candidates, give them time to look into the issue and provide their position. We'll then be able to compare them.

For candidates who would like a little background, it will be helpful to read what I wrote earlier about the fee situation.

Besides fees, the other big issue appears to be the provisioning schedule. I have never addressed the schedule before but I understand that the Mayor is still insisting on 100% coverage in 3 years. To be blunt, Rockville is simply wrong to demand this. By comparison, the MC franchise provides staged service areas which factor in density and other issues. That seems much more reasonable.

If Verizon was being granted monopoly status, I would make a different argument but since Verizon is entering the field as a competitor and since Rockville has done little but postured for coming on two years now, Rockville has little basis for its schedule demands. Frankly, if Verizon stuck Rockville at the end of their current schedule, it would be justified. But it's worth looking at Verizon's county-wide schedule that was created during the county-wide negotiation. Notice that Rockville falls in what's termed the Middle Service Area.

According to the MC franchise, the middle service area is provisioned as follows:

3.1.2. Middle Service Area: In the Middle Service Area, the Franchisee shall offer Cable Service to significant numbers of Subscribers in residential areas within three (3) years of the Effective Date of this Franchise, to at least fifty percent (50%) of the residential areas within the Middle Service Area within four (4) years of the Effective Date of this Franchise, and to all residences within the Middle Service Area at which such service is requested within five (5) years ofthe Effective Date of this Franchise, except as specified in Section 3.2. If Franchisee is unable to reach agreement with the City of Rockville to obtain construction permits for the FTTP network under reasonable terms and conditions, as determined by Franchisee, by December 31, 2007, these timeframes shall not apply to Franchisee's provision of Cable Service to residences served by Franchisee's Rockville and Montrose wire centers. Instead, Franchisee shall offer Cable Service to all residences served by the Rockville and Montrose wire centers at which such service is requested within four (4) years of obtaining construction permits for the FTTP network from the City of Rockville, except as specified in Section 3.2.

The referenced section 3.2 deals with density requirements and related issues as I mentioned earlier.

Go ahead and attach a comment to the blog (or email me) if I've overlooked any related issues that the candidates should also address. At the end of the week, I'll contact each candidate for a response.

Hammer This

2007-10-20T01:47:00.000-04:00

Please stop sending me links to the hammer lady! Yes, I know about it. I was even tempted to write about it. But I think there's little to add that hasn't been said already. 450 people posted comments to the Washington Post article about it! How much more is there to say?

For those of you that still haven't heard the story, Mona Shaw, 75, of Manassas VA, a kindly grandmother type right out of central casting, was so mistreated by Comcast - starting with a missed appointment, a botched install, a total loss of service, and finally ending with abuse-in-person at the local Comcast office - that she reached her breaking point and proceeded to go home and return with a hammer to dispense justice, outraged-grandmother style.

Here's a link to the full article by Neely Tucker, Washington Post Staff Writer.

The reporter bent over backward to give equal time to Comcast. In the article, Beth Bacha, a Comcast VP, noted that Comcast has more than 25 million customers, "the overwhelming majority of which are very satistified with their service."

I'd love to see the evidence of that. Their customer base is not that evidence given that many Comcast subscribers live in non-competitive areas. And for customers fortunate enough to live in a competitive area, Comcast may be having a very tough time - especially if my own experience is any guide.

Recently a member of my own community posted a note to our neighborhood mail list. She described how she had been experiencing Comcast outages for two weeks and wanted to know whether other neighbors had been experiencing similar problems.

Ten people replied. (I didn't participate in the discussion - I just watched.) Nine said they had switched to Verizon FIOS and doing so was very easy. Repeatedly, people said FIOS TV and Internet were rock solid using terms like "great", "never a problem", "couldn't be happier" and, from one person, "Switch to FIOS now! Run, run from Comcast."

Oh, the tenth person? He said he was fed up with Comcast and was about to switch. Bottom line: Not one person defended Comcast or admitted to remaining a Comcast customer.

This is remarkable - not just because Comcast has had the market to themselves for so long but because they've had years to work out problems in their operations. And from the statements I hear around the neighborhood and in newspaper articles like the hammer lady, Comcast has done so badly that people are desperate to try anyone else - even at a higher price.

Needless to say, Verizon is finding fertile ground here and, for some people, offering cheaper bottom line prices with faster service to boot. It's hard to see a rosy future for Comcast right now. Or any future.

It all depends on Verizon. While Verizon has already screwed up in the past (poorly trained subcontractors, for example), people appear willing to accept mistakes if they're corrected and if the end result is better.

Verizon has a golden opportunity - a market that already exists and is hungering for an alternative. Why Verizon even bothers to spend money on advertising is beyond me. All Verizon needs to do is have neighbors do its advertising for it. That's certainly what's happening where I live. (PS: Verizon, stop sending me brochures for FIOS!)

As for Comcast, they need to get the message. They've spent a ton of money upgrading their system and making it more robust. But it still doesn't appear to be as robust as Verizon's. And Comcast needs to do something about how they interact with their customers. Donating money to public events and charities isn't what makes customers happy. (Hey, they're great at something, right?)

I hate to write Comcast off entirely. If we've learned anything, we've learned that we need competition in the marketplace. We need both Comcast and Verizon to prosper. Are you listening Comcast?

County Cable Montgomery

2007-08-02T02:47:00.000-04:00

Last week, the Gazette had a curious article about County Cable Montgomery, the PEG channel that televises official county business such as county council hearings.

According to county spokesperson Patrick Lacefield,

"We are wanting to make the cable channel more accessible to folks. ... we’re trying make the programming more interesting and increase its relevance to the public."

According to the Gazette, the county believes that CCM does not "pique the interest of county youngsters" and the county is trying to change this. According to Donna Keating, CCM Program Manager:

"We are trying to be more responsive to our audience. We do not have access to Nielsen ratings, but we know that we have activists that look at the channel because of the number of replays for the council and town hall meetings... We believe that the missing piece is the young people."

All I can say is: Huh?

This is the county's government channel, not Disney or TNT. Why spend money trying to attract a different audience than the one you have? There are dozens of outlets for "young people" already. Actually, there are hundreds. More.

But how many outlets are there for local government functions? Committee meetings? Commissions? Park and Planning hearings? School Board meetings? Community Association Meetings? Court cases?

I would love it if I could see more than the county council meetings. But I can't unless I show up in person. And that's just unrealistic. Frequently, I only find out about something interesting having happened afterward. I can't go to meetings all day just in case something were to happen! Nor can I afford to show up and then wait an hour for the item of interest to me to occur, a frequent issue with council meetings.

But the solution isn't to put all these meetings on the government channel. The solution is to make them all available as podcasts or videocasts.

This would expand the ability to offer more government programming to an unlimited degree. Ten meetings at once? No problem, just generate ten podcasts.

And it would expand accessibility as well. One could argue that TV reaches a broader audience - after all, more people have TV's right? True but misleading. The Cable Office estimates that 230,000 households are capable of receiving the PEG channels. However, Montgomery County's own 2003 census reported that 274,000 households had internet access. And that census is four years old, so it is a sure bet that the number of households with internet access is even higher given the dramatic decrease in computer prices since that time. According to the HDTV Almanac, subscriptions for broadband services increased 21% just this year alone.

And I have to question how many people are even using their TVs to watch the meetings that are currently broadcast. I sure don't use mine. I have never watched the government channel on my TV. Never. But I know plenty of people who watch it at their computers. After all, most of my waking day is spent at work anyway. I don't have a TV on my desk there but I do have a computer. So if I need to watch a government meeting in real-time, it is likely going to be during office hours. I appreciate that some people work from home - indeed, I occasionally telecommute myself but even then, I'm in front of my computer, not my TV.

Without data, we are left to speculate how many people watch the PEGs using their TV. It is accepted wisdom that you can not optimize what you cannot measure. Alas, that doesn't appear to be stopping the county. Indeed, the only statistics cited by Donna are the number of downloads, not the number of TV viewers. Last time I checked, the franchisees do not report PEG viewership. And if the PEG network has any kind of TV viewership statistics, I'd be very surprised because in all the years that I served on the county's cable advisory committee, our requests for this information were repeatedly rebuffed - the claim: Franchisees don't supply the information - and the alternatives (surveys by phone or paper mail) are either too expensive or lack effective response rates.

Besides improved access and a larger selection of material, another advantage to digital distribution is that it is cheaper to the franchisees. And the county pays nothing for the internet feed since it is a benefit of the franchise contracts. But there's no reason to. The packets invariably stay on the local franchise networks since they're delivered only to Montgomery County residents. Thus, the costs to the franchisees are nil.

Back to the issue of the county's concern over the reaching youngsters - I still don't get it. Although demographics are what matter to commercial stations, they should not be of such concern to a government station. Government's job is to release information. Sure, it should also be in a form that is understood. But it doesn't have to be translated into kid-speak. It doesn't have to be dumbed down.

The kids aren't watching anyway. When I was a kid, I used to come home from school and flick on the TV. But I see my own daughter and her friends - all they want is to download videos from YouTube and other content sites. And I can see why. Sure the video quality leaves a lot to be desired but the kids get a much bigger selection to choose from (as well as being able to upload content) and they want that ability. On the whole, it is a much more enjoyable experience and it is the future of video. Not a traditional fixed TV channel.

I do appreciate the TV channel isn't going away. However the county needs to think long and hard about the most effective way to make use of a channel like CCM. According to Patrick, new programming includes more "newsmagazine-ish" material in an attempt to make the programs more interesting. "We have the ability to go live a little more now and be doing more live programming at county events." Don't forget video streaming, Patrick. I've used the County's video streaming capabilities and they're where you should be putting our precious tax dollars. That and digital archives, suitable for podcasts and videocasts. We don't need "newsmagazine-ish" formats. Just give us a high-quality raw feed. Call it CSPAN-Local. If you don't know what I mean, you need to watch CSPAN, Patrick! This is what citizens want, not predigested pablum.

Oh, and about CCM TV? How about leasing it back to the franchisees or sublet it ourselves. Even in the wee hours of the morning, there are bound to be idiotic infomercial producers who are willing to pay good money - money that you could then use to further enhance the podcast/videocasts and video streaming that would truly benefit Montgomery County.

Preserve Your Rights

2007-07-27T01:07:00.000-04:00

Montgomery County officials are warning Comcast customers to study their July bill closely. The July bill contains a notification of an upcoming change to the terms-of-service agreement with an opportunity to refuse within 30 days of receipt of the bill.

In short, Comcast wants you to give up a number of rights you currently have and instead agree to, well, something less.

Specifically, Comcast is changing your terms of service so that you agree to resolve disputes with Comcast through arbitration. In return, you relinquish your "right to pursue any legal remedies against Comcast in court, including claims for negligence, fraud or intentional wrongdoing." Nor can you join in a class-action lawsuit. Plus you accept limits on times in which you may file claims. However, Comcast reserves the right to seek similar remedies in return.

That's fair, right?

Obviously, this is heavily tilted in Comcast's favor. So why would you agree? Because it's in the fine print that no one reads and is structured as an "opt-out" meaning that you agree if you do nothing - which is what most people will do when trying to plow through a stack of bills, each filled with the usual advertising and other extras that are discarded within seconds of slitting open the envelope.

If Comcast really wanted you to know about the change, they would advertise it in the same way that they market all their promotions - using numerous commercials, flyers, and emails.

But their current approach combined with the opt-out technique is unethical. And it appears to violate the franchise agreement as well.

According to the franchise...

Copies of all notices, promotional or special offers sent to Subscribers and any agreements used with Subscribers shall be filed promptly with the County. All forms and notices distributed to customers which describe customer service policies and procedures shall be subject to County approval.

According to the Cable Office, this prior approval was not sought. The county has not stated if it will seek penalties or for Comcast to cancel the change for Montgomery County customers who fail to respond.

I recommend you take no chances and opt-out. To do so online, visit comcast.com/arbitrationoptout and fill out the form. You will need your Comcast account number from your bill. Print a copy of the form before submission and a copy of the acknowledgment after submission.

I'd like to hear if anyone recognized the notification when they were going through their bill. I'm also interested to know if customers on Comcast's automatic bill-pay plan were notified. Anyone? [sound of crickets]

Free WiFi In Rockville

2007-07-01T00:08:00.000-04:00

Free Broadband For Someone

Last week, AEPCO, (Advanced Engineering and Planning Corporation, Inc., of Gaithersburg, MD) agreed to provide free WiFi to the new town center of Rockville. If you haven't visited the location, you must. For a mix of shopping and culture, it's quite pretty. Although it doesn't measure up to the walking districts of towns and cities throughout Europe, it's a huge step up for anything that Rockville has had in the past. And kudos to putting the library right in the center. (But I will add my voice to those against naming it after a politician.)

No map has been made available, but the vague description suggests that the WiFi footprint will be similar to what is already available in Silver Spring. Here is the announcement from the city of Rockville.

Eventually, AEPCO plans to install WiFi service elsewhere in Rockville (perhaps even throughout) but residents will have to pay for the expanded service area. No prices have been made available. The announcement also notes "will allow for paid subscriptions for residents and businesses that want to have a higher bandwidth and a higher quality of service for indoor areas within Town Square." So, it will be a low-bandwidth connection. And users will need to re-authenticate (the announcement mentions an initial splash screen with advertising) periodically, making lengthy connections (e.g., substantial downloads) unlikely with the free service.

But for Rockville residents, this is a good thing. Not only does it make the town center more attractive but it suggests that there will be competition for internet service in Rockville. But before we start celebrating, note the time schedule: AEPCO has indicated that citywide expansion could occur within 24 months after service begins in Town Square. Within? Why does that sound like speeds up to 5Mb!

Free Broadband For Everyone

I live next to Glen Echo, the smallest town in Montgomery County (population: 221). It's a cozy place (how many towns have their own 86-year old carousel and Wurlitzer band organ?) and I frequently bike through it and always enjoy reading their newspaper, the Echo.

The current edition of the Echo has a curious item - the town was recently approached by the Coalition for Free Broadband and asked to write a letter to the FCC supporting the Coalition's proposal - that a nationwide network be established for free wireless internet access. The company behind this, M2Z Networks, claims that with 20MHz of currently-unused spectrum, they can offer "fast, free and family friendly broadband to 95 percent of the US population within ten years and pay 5% of gross revenues from its subscription services [insert lots of handwaving here].

M2Z has an application for the spectrum pending before the FCC and are looking for support. To my surprise, the Echo article says that "the Montgomery County Council and County Executive have agreed to support the Coalition's proposal."

Anyone know any more about this?

New Committee Representatives

2007-04-25T18:02:00.000-04:00

The following citizens have been nominated by the County Executive to serve on the Cable and Communications Advisory Committee. The terms are three years and unpaid.

LeRoy Oettinger
Benjamin Wu
David Friedman
Mark Berman
Kelly Cameron

I know of David Friedman, as he has provided testimony at communications-related hearings before the county. I don't recall having seen any others at any CCAC-related meetings, so my hopes are not high that they have a serious interest and will make useful contributions. Some past members have served simply for resumé padding or, from all that I can tell, want of something else to do with their evenings.

If you know of any reason why any of them would be inappropriate to represent your interests, contact the County Executive and County Council.

The following two CCAC members have been nominated for another term.

Suzanne Weiss
Kernan Chaisson

Suzanne is presently the CCAC chair. Kernan has been the Rockville representative to the CCAC for over 7 years already. Doesn't anyone else in Rockville have an interest in telecommunications?

The new appointments and the re-appointments are scheduled to be confirmed by the County Council on May 8, 2007.

Waiting For Pepco

2007-04-23T02:09:00.000-04:00

During last week's windstorms, I had some free time on my hands - the power was out and my uninterruptible power supply had long since run out of backup juice. According to the one remaining electro-mechanical clock in my house, I could see the time the power had gone out: 1:50pm

Around the time I got home in the evening, it was already nightfall. But I was pleased to see several crews with bucket trucks on my street. Naturally, I walked over to them and asked what was going on. (I planned to delicately work my way up to the real question: When would power be restored?)

They said "Waiting for Pepco." Shortly, several Pepco trucks showed and surveyed the scene: a tree had fallen across the street bringing down the support arms that had once been at the top of the pole. Everything that had been up there was now down here.

Actually the wires were suspended about 7 feet above the road. The tree itself was near horizontal, resting on the utility lines. Blithely, auto drivers continued to drive underneath it - after passing through yellow Do Not Cross tape as well.

After 10 minutes of discussion, the Pepco guys announced that everyone should go home and return in the morning. They gave several reasons why: 1) they had been working too many hours (16 hours) and needed a break, and 2) it was a huge job, and 3) it would be much safer to do this kind of work during the day. Left unsaid was that 4) it wasn't an emergency - at least not in their eyes.

So the ten or so people got back in their trucks and took off. This was around 10pm.

At this point, I decided I'd enjoy a little night air and see how many other homes were affected. So I walked around my neighborhood. Later, I created a map. You can follow it as I relate the rest of the story.

I walked north on Brickyard and then doubled back on Masters. Rounding a bend, I encountered a Comcast crew on River Falls. They were setting up a generator to power their equipment. I watched as they opened a lawn box and saw that it contained what appeared to be three car batteries. They claimed it was enough to provide power through glitches and short outages ("a few hours"). I asked them what the point of the generator was, given that we were in a sea of blackness - homes with no power -- TVs and computers that couldn't possibly be working even if the signal was there. They pointed out that their equipment served some homes further down Stable that still had power - although when I asked them how they could tell, they admitted they were just guessing. However, they added that customers using phones served by Comcast could use them without power to the home - since they can run for 8 hours on battery backup. I pointed out that the outage had started at least that long ago. So any phones that worked initially would likely not be working now. They shrugged their shoulders and continued hooking the generator up. They said the generator would run about 18 hours before needing refueling.

I continued walking; met a guy on Stable who was doing some late night repair. I was a bit concerned that he wasn't just robbing homes since house alarm batteries were surely dead as well by now and his truck was stuffed to the gills with "stuff". But he said he had just come from Home Depot and couldn't unload his truck because his garage door opener was electric. Eventually he convinced me and while we chatted, he handed me some ice cream sandwiches - they were already melting and probably wouldn't fare too well even inside his dead freezer. Good neighbor!

I walked over to MacArthur looking for more dead homes thinking I'd walk up Brickyard and get to see the tree from the south side. Two more tree crews were there - different ones than before. The guys in the first truck were taking a nap. I knocked on the window of the other truck. They told me there were waiting for Pepco. (At this point, I realized that it rhymes with "Waiting for Godot".) I pointed out that they might be waiting a long time given what the Pepco guys had told me earlier about coming back the following morning. I suggested they call Pepco but the the new guys said they work for the county (contractors, of course) so they don't talk directly to Pepco and we then had a long conversation during which I tried to get them to call their supervisor who surely could call Pepco and .... They didn't seem to be too enthused about getting the situation straightened out: "Hey, we're getting paid even if it's just to sit here." Probably with some overtime, too. (The Comcast guys said they prefer to work nights because they get a pay differential for working night hours.)

I walked over to Darmuid Green at this point but the outage didn't go far in. As I turned back, I saw the tree crew drive off. Perhaps they finally decided to call? As I was about to turn in, I saw another crew at Brickyard and Hackamore. It was 12:15am and I found the same Comcast crew, hooking up another generator. I was pretty surprised because I felt like I had been walking for hours (and I left their first site after they did) and yet according to them, this was the only other generator in the neighborhood that had been deployed.

Total homes without electricity: 116 (my estimate)

The next morning (Friday), I woke to ... no electricity and 5 trucks parked on the street including a Verizon truck. One crew told me they were there to put the wires back up but, sigh, had to wait for (can you guess?) Pepco to ground everything. I found that very surprising as the previous night's Pepco crew had done that - at least that's what they said. And it stands to reason, they wouldn't leave with anything unsafe. However, the morning crews didn't believe me and said they would just wait for Pepco.

While continuing to wait for Pepco, I asked the Verizon technician whether he had installed any temporary generators like Comcast. He said they weren't needed - there's no electrical equipment in their boxes - each home has its own individual fiber running all the way back to their central offices.

I posted some of these same notes to my neighborhood mail list and asked whether residents were able to make phone calls on their Comcast Digital Voice or Verizon FIOS phones after their electricity went out. I got 8 responses. 7 said their Verizon FIOS phones continued working through the entire outage - they all pointed out that they had phones that ran off the power from the phone line. 1 neighbor said her FIOS service went down. She didn't respond when I asked about her phone. I wonder how clearly Verizon explains the customer's own responsibilities in an outage. In any case, I think this is very good news for Verizon, even more so because I understand the batteries in the Verizon's UPS are only rated for 4-8 hours, yet they evidentally powered the customer equipment for much longer. Our outage lasted 25 hours. Of course, longer than that and customers might be wishing for their copper back. (By the way, one of my neighbors somehow convinced Verizon to give him FIOS and let him keep his copper phone lines.)

Comcast on the other hand didn't fare so well. Not because people reported outages. Not because Comcast had to roll a truck to install generators everywhere power was out. And not because Comcast must have to maintain a huge number of generators sitting in a warehouse somewhere. No, the reason Comcast didn't fare so well is because not a single person in that 116 house area reported having Comcast Digital Voice service.

April Fools

2007-04-01T20:41:00.000-04:00

A few tidbits to enjoy in honor of April 1.

An alternative for everyone waiting for FIOS TV ...

http://www.google.com/tisp/install.html

And two behind the scenes views of our favorite call centers ...

http://www.callcentermovie.com
http://www.deadtroll.com/video/helldeskcable.html

Mary Had A Little ... Late Fee

2007-02-18T08:58:00.000-05:00

Hopefully at least one person will benefit from today's story. Maybe more.

Like many retirees, my parents travel for months at a time. When they do, they redirect their US Mail to me. I open it, dial their cell phone and tell them which bills have arrived and for how much. They pay the bills over the web. This system works pretty well.

But not always.

Best Effort

As I was going through my parents redirected mail recently, I found a bill payment to Comcast. That's right - a bill payment TO Comcast. Not from my parents but from one Mary Hagan of Bensalem PA.

Why would Mary Hagan's payment to Comcast end up in my parent's mailbox? Her payment was addressed to Box 3005 in Southeastern, PA - so the payment went in exactly the opposite direction that it should have - northeast instead of southwest - ending roughly 50 miles off.

Could she have made a mistake writing the Comcast address? Nope. She used the Comcast-provided payment coupon with its preprinted address - which showed through the appropriate opening in the Comcast-provided envelope.

Ok, so USPS made a mistake. Mistakes happen. But USPS then forwarded the mail to me in Potomac, Maryland. Huh?

The Post Office uses barcodes to expedite routing. But it wasn't an error in creating the barcode because Comcast preprints their own barcode on their payment coupon. So the Post Office had to misroute the correctly-barcoded envelope twice and maybe even more as it went through several post offices from PA to MD by way of NJ.

So here I was with some Comcast customer's bill payment in hand. My first thought was to put it back in the mail. (As Jon Stewart recently said about George Bush's latest plan for Iraq, "Hey, everyone deserves a seventh chance.")

But then I took a closer look at the due date and saw that it had already passed (USPS forwarding takes time to get wrong) so even if I sent it back the day I received it, late charges would still be due.

I also considered calling Comcast but decided against it. Comcast has never been one to talk with you about other customer's accounts (rightfully so).

Dropping it in the garbage and letting the customer take the hit of the late fee seemed pretty reasonable at that point. Was it worth my time and effort to send it back to Mary so she'd have evidence to tell Comcast that it wasn't her fault it was late? Would Comcast even accept that excuse?

Around here, Comcast's late fee is $4/month. Nope, not worth mailing it back to Mary. I did however call her up - whitepages.com yielded her phone number readily enough. I figured I'd suggest she try to get the late fee waived - perhaps they would if she could only get Comcast to look at my blog! And I also wanted to ask her a few other questions - such as whether it had ever happened before.

So I called her number and ... well, whoever answered the phone gave me a very chilly reception. I guess he figured I was a solicitor or pollster offering "free money" or something that sounded close to it. I don't blame him.

Anyway, I tried. If anyone reads this who knows Mary (unlikely) or lives near Bensalem (a bit less unlikely) - perhaps you could let her know that she should request Comcast waive her late fee (I already know the Post Office won't cover it) since it wasn't her fault - or at worst, find a way to pay it without relying on the Post Office in the future.

No, I'm not suggesting using Comcast's offer to extract funds directly from one's checking account. As I've said before, Comcast isn't trustworthy enough for that. (See Automatic Billing - Convenience That Will Cost You.) But online billpay from a bank or a service like Quicken or Money sounds much more reliable.

Better yet, since I know there are Comcast officials who read this blog, perhaps they could take it upon themselves to waive Mary's late fee - or track down the Comcast official in Mary's region who can do so.

PS: Why did I say earlier that I know the Post Office won't cover it? Because first class mail is a best effort service. Now where have I heard that phrase before?!

Quarterly Review

2007-02-11T23:46:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned earlier, the county's MFP committee was scheduled to review the performance of the cable franchises.

I was unable to attend so I plowed through the packet - 42 pages of the same stuff as usual. I already mentioned in my all-too-verbose report (Rubberstamp This) from last week that Comcast was being fined. Some new statistics were mentioned but in the interest of brevity, I'll merely mention that Comcast failed to turn in all the 4th quarter data so no one can even tell whether or not they're in compliance. However Comcast finally did turn in data (late!) for the 3rd quarter showing it was out of compliance in all customer service areas. Most notable is the requirement to repair within 24 hours - Comcast was below the 95% level required by the franchise.

RCN turned in its 4th quarter data on time and was in compliance. It received a warning for being out of compliance in the 3rd quarter. (In contrast, Comcast has been out of compliance long enough to start being assessed fines. See my earlier report for more detail.)

Some positive news: Complaints about Comcast to the Cable Office were down 44% in the 4th quarter with, ahem, only 282 complaints. In contrast RCN's complaint level nearly doubled in the 4th quarter. Of course, the absolute figures are significant - Comcast had 282 complaints, RCN 16. The largest number of Comcast complaints were service-related. RCN billing-related.

Construction

In the 4th quarter, county inspectors reported 2298 construction violations in the Comcast cable plant. (Construction violations include such things as improper grounding, missing guy wires, missing pedestal covers, and exposed temporary underground cables in rights-of-way. Note that the entire plant is not inspected in each quarter.) At the end of the year, 1447 remained unfixed. That's an astounding 63%.

RCN: 526 construction violations. For the entire year, 2114 remain unfixed. If Comcast was astounding at 63% remaining unfixed for the year, RCN is super-astounding at 87%. Congratulations you two!

I'll Stick With Analog, Thank You

Earlier, I mocked a Comcast representative for suggesting that pixelation problems in the digital channels were not easily solvable. People are still complaining about these. And although the complaint levels have gone down, the county's outside consultant, Columbia Telecommunications Corp, says that this so-called tiling remains an ongoing problem. CTC asserts that these complaints are issues in the local wiring and have recommended that Comcast replace customer drops as each is converted from analog to digital. If problems remain, CTC recommends Comcast send technicians that are trained to diagnose and fix such problems.

Bottom line: The problems are diagnosable. Are fixable. (But here's the rub...) With trained technicians.

Oh, and if you don't complain, don't expect your problems to clear up.

The New Blogger

2007-02-11T22:55:00.000-05:00

This is a test of Google's new blogging software. That's all it is. This is the last sentence in the test.

Rubberstamp This

2007-01-29T19:09:00.000-05:00

This past Wednesday (Jan 24, 2007), I attended a meeting of the Cable and Communications Advisory Committee (CCAC) for Montgomery County, Maryland. This is a meeting of citizens who volunteer to meet once a month to discuss cable-related issues and advise the County Executive.

As I've said before, it's difficult to tell whether the committee has an impact any more. As long as I've been writing this blog, I've encountered nothing to justify its existence. Despite this, 14 people felt motivated enough to answer the call to fill four open seats on the committee. Their term starts in November of ... 2006. A Cable Office official speculated the seats might be filled by April - in other words, 6 months late.

Note that some citizens apply for many committees simultaneously even though they may only serve on one committee at a time. I guess people figure that it's nice to be on a committee, any committee. So it's unclear which if any applicants are really interested in cable issues and which are merely tired of bitching that Verizon isn't on their street yet. The committee complained about this too and asked the Cable Office if the Executive had standards that could be imposed to winnow down the list of applicants. The Cable Office said no. Ergo, 14 full interviews coming up.

You can tell that applicants don't have a clue when they've never even bothered to attend a meeting before applying. One applicant joined me in attending the meeting (hi Art!) and said he found it worthwhile. I do agree that it's worthwhile to attend as a guest - I learn a fair amount from the briefings given monthly by officials such as the MC Cable Administrator. However, it shouldn't require a committee to receive these briefings. News should be promptly made public via the web.

This very idea - making news available promptly - was made, albeit indirectly, several times during the meeting. For instance, the committee asked if the Cable Office could issue press releases when issuing fines against franchisees. Donna Keating, acting Cable Administrator, said that the Cable Office doesn't issue press releases. Actually, the Cable Office does make a fair amount of information available online - although I'd like to see more. But lacking is any kind of notification mechanism to let citizens know when information has been made available. I've been asking the Cable Office for this for 6 years. Even a simple email list would be better than what we have now (i.e., nothing).

This is all rather sad for a committee with Communications in its name. As far as I know, the committee itself doesn't even have a mail list. Nor are there public archives of the meetings in either video or written form. I went so far as to create a mail list six years ago as a yahoo group, started posting the committee minutes and other documents to it, and the committee used it for a year until the Cable Office decided that they wanted direct control. That was the end of it. The Cable Office assured me that the county's IT department would provide an official mail list and webspace. Over the years, the committee occasionally queried Alisoun Moore, MC CIO, on the status of that request. No response was ever heard. The latest news is that Alisoun has stepped down and the county is in search of a new CIO. Anyone interested? Perhaps someone who knows about mail lists? RSS? Web pages? Videos? Communication? It's not that hard, is it?

Budget

Perhaps the only activity with the potential for real work that regularly faces the committee is the opportunity to weigh in on the cable budget. The cable budget is roughly $15 million. This supports the PEG channels, the Cable Office, the inspectors, the lawyers and the county network ("I-Net" or "institutional network"). The majority of the money for this comes from the franchise fees paid by cable TV customers.

Amy Wilson of the Cable Office gave the briefing on the budget. Briefing is an apt word because it was all too brief. She provided no new numbers but rather the old estimates from last year and asked for comments before they were sent back to Executive Leggett and on to the Council. But her deadline was February 5, meaning 7 business days. The committee has never been able to turn things around so quickly - so after making a show of staring at the spreadsheets for a minute and plaintively asking for guidance from the Cable Office (which refused), the committee agreed to rubberstamp the existing numbers without debate and provide a letter supporting the old figures in the budget - figures which presumably won't be the ones issued by the Executive. (The budget subcommittee nominally left the door open for last minute observations in the remaining few days but I don't see that happening.) Bottom line: Nominal budgetary support without justification. Or in more familiar terms: Taxation without (meaningful) representation.

Amy pointed out that the Executive asked the Cable Office for two budgets: one capable of sustaining existing operations and a version with a 5% cut. The Cable Office didn't share where the 5% might come from nor did the committee ask.

Personnel Changes

Besides a new CIO, there are a few other changes in personnel worth mentioning: Jane Lawton, MC Cable Administrator is off to Annapolis again as a Delegate for District 18. She is expected back mid-April. In her stead as Acting Cable Administrator is Donna Keating who normally takes care of the G (Government) of the PEG channels.

Suzanne Weiss is the new chair of the CCAC. Suzanne appears to be continuing the same procedures created by outgoing chair Shep Bostin. The most unfortunate of these is to restrict public questions until the end of the meeting - when context has been lost, when visiting officials have left, and committee members are half out the door as well. Suzanne officially ended the committee's secretarial position. I suppose it was a formality but one that bears mentioning because the Cable Office is in charge of recording the committee minutes, a practice which I think inappropriate given that the committee sometimes has very different opinions than those of the Cable Office about what is important and what is not.

Comcast has a new VP of government affairs. I don't know the name but this person will be responsible for both Montgomery and Frederick. Is the Frederick cable system (which includes the old Adelphia franchise) in good shape? What's the regulatory environment there - does anyone know?

The new Comcast VP asked to attend the next CCAC meeting. Years ago, it used to be common for Comcast and RCN VPs to attend CCAC meetings and give status reports and take questions. I can only assume that the representatives realized that it didn't matter whether or not they came - reporters didn't come, the committee had no power, and the meetings frequently became ugly venting sessions by the members - so why bother? Anyone want to participate in a pool for the number of meetings the new Comcast VP attends before deciding Wednesday evenings are better spent elsewhere? (PS: RCN reps haven't shown up for a long time. And Verizon reps have yet to show up.)

Finally, Sonya Healey has moved on from her position as the council staffmember responsible for cable matters. I'm sorry to see Sonya leave as she did an excellent job. She prepared the council briefing packets - very thorough and well written. She was happy to talk or email whenever citizens wanted and provide whatever they requested. And she regularly emailed briefing packets and agenda in advance, providing alerts for items of significance that were upcoming. She was the ideal of a county employee. I understand Sonya's new position is chief of staff for Councilmember Ervin. Ervin in turn worked in a similar position herself prior to winning election to the Council so perhaps Sonya is following in her footsteps. Sounds good to me!

Rate Increases

All of the franchisees (Verizon, Comcast, and RCN) have recently announced price hikes in their TV rates. This seemed to surprise committee members: Wasn't competition supposed to hold down rates? However their analysis was superficial. There are all sorts of significant factors that belie the rates themselves. The fact is that despite rate increases that exceed CPI increases and a lack of a la carte channels, there are still good choices out there for the consumer willing to hunt them down. For instance, Verizon's new rates are still significantly below Comcast's. Verizon offers a broader selection of channels and HD programming as well. Satellite is also very competitive. And one poster to the dslreports forum claims that Comcast is offering HBO free for the year. (Send me email or post a note here, if you are also able to get free HBO merely by asking.)

Comcast appears to be resting on its laurels, rotted as they are, and enjoying the slow speed of Verizon's deployment as well as the resistance of consumers to try satellite, and the confusion of the marketplace, particularly with respect to higher tiers such as HD (where providers make a huge profit). A good article about the complexities of the local marketplace appeared in this week's Washington Post in which Howard Bryant and Rob Pegoraro described the difficulties and disappointments of the choices. I mentioned recently how the (ostensibly) technically superior service of Verizon could still be unacceptable - giving my own case as an example.

Apart from complaints about the inability to get Verizon TV (only available to 75000 homes in MC so far), the committee spent more of its time grousing about Comcast. Complaints included poor analog picture quality, poor audio quality, poor HD quality, and so on. Cable Office staffer Marjorie Williams described how disappointed she was in her own Comcast service, specifically pointing out that on some channels, she could detect little difference between digital and analog quality. Verizon TV, on the other hand, seems to be delivering on quality. Everyone to whom I've spoken is quite happy with what they're seeing. Margie went on to say that the early complaints received by the office about Verizon were entirely about billing. No service complaints and no installation complaints. (If you're reading this and have complaints that aren't being resolved by Verizon, please file them with the county.) Complaints are understandable with a brand new service. We won't know the true extent of them until the council's MFP review at the end of Q1. (Note: The Q4 review will be Feb 5, 2007.)

Meanwhile, Comcast is being fined again by the county for violations of the customer service provisions of the franchise related to telephone answering time in the 4th quarter of 2006. The new fine is roughly $12K. As one member observed, this is well below the cost of hiring another person to answer phones so it's not surprising that Comcast would gladly pay the fine rather than avoid it by increasing staff.

Consumer Rights Brochure

I missed the last two committee meetings and so was surprised to see the committee continuing to flagellate itself over the cable consumer rights brochure. To recap, this is a one-page brochure that I drafted years ago and made the mistake of believing the committee could agree to publish with minimal additional work. Since then, the brochure proceeds to come up at each meeting: yet a new draft is shown, members recommend changes, ask what the hell it is or what it means, some condemn it as incomprehensible, and discuss yet again how it should be distributed. And the committee has also been jerked around by the county lawyers who evidentally feel there is something illegal or immoral about the whole thing. This month the committee reported being rebuffed by a representative of the Office of Consumer Protection which publishes a lot of similar brochures and, when asked, declined to help instead suggesting that the committee take responsibility itself.

CCAC Vice-Chair Joy Ragsdale observed that one Don Libes had made a version of the brochure complete with county logo available on a website which would lead to confusion between it and the official one. I doubt that - not only is much of the text different but so is the title! In any case, it's surely a moot point. The latest move by the committee was to turn the whole thing over to the Cable Office - which surely means a final death - because the Cable Office always wanted to kill the brochure. There is no one in the Cable Office who has a burning desired to invest any effort in the brochure.

The committee didn't ask for my opinion on any of these issues - even though I was sitting right there as they continued to throw my name around. Note: Since 2006, members of the public have not been allowed to speak unless specifically called on by the committee. If they had, I would've suggested they drop the whole thing and return to the useful parts of the meeting - the briefings by the Cable Office and other visiting officials.

PEGs

Richard Turner, Executive Director of Montgomery Community Television, gave a status report about the PEG channels. Alas, he did not provide an update on MCT so my understanding of what's going on there is limited to what appeared in the draft minutes of the previous committee minutes. To wit:

Jane met with Richard Turner and Theresa Cameron regarding the MCT volunteers. The situation is still very delicate since MCT Volunteers who have been with MCT for years are attempting a take over by regaining board seats with the intention of remoing the current executive director. An arbitrator is now in place to assist with resolving the issues.

I have no idea what that really means but at the request of committee member Yen-Ju Chen, herself an ex-PEG official, the "delicate" sentence was stripped from the official minutes.

If there is further interest in the PEGs, I'd like to cover what they're doing (and why they need so much money!) to do it. Let me know if you'd like to read more about the PEGs. And tell me which PEG shows you watch. Thanks!