And speaking of busses, cable competition that never materialized, and threats to community tv, the Evanston StopTheBox campaign is organizing a “Magical Mystery” bus tour of Evanston to show politicians the unsightly, noisy, double refrigerator-sized AT&T VRAD U-Verse boxes cropping up on lawns there. And maybe in your neighborhood too.

According to Evanston organizer Dickelle Fonda, “We met (Thursday Oct. 23rd) with (Illinois State Representative Julie) Hamos' (D-18th) chief of staff to begin planning the bus tour, which is tentatively scheduled for early December between holidays. We have a large committee that has a lot of foot work to do to network with other cities… and residents in order to increase the "noise" from citizens to their representatives in Springfield so they will have incentive to come on this tour in Evanston to see and hear the sounds of the boxes and hear peoples stories.”

The bus tour is but one result of organized citizen action on telecom issues in Evanston in recent weeks. That action has also included two well-attended public forums to address the severe shortcomings of the Illinois Cable and Video Competition Law of 2007, and the Illinois Cable and Video Consumer Protection Law. The first forum featured Evanston government figures and AT&T officials. There, this writer reminded all that I have a deep connection to cable issues in Evanston as an organizer and former resident. I warned the AT&T officials that they have no reason to be in Evanston. Background article: Residents rail against AT&T boxes.

The second forum drew Illinois State Senator Jeff Schoenberg (D-9th) and Illinois State Representative Julie Hamos (D-18th). Amidst the clowning witnessed at the second forum was Schoenberg's claim that “everybody” supported the Illinois state franchise for AT&T. I responded that I rode on a bus to Springfield last year with numerous PEG access advocates to lobby the Illinois House and Senate assistant majority leaders Lou Lang (D-16th) and Ira Silverstein (D-8th) respectively. Rep. Hamos claimed that moving all the PEG access channels to the slow loading channel 99 was good because it “makes them easier to find.” AT&T says the channel arrangement is due to “technical limitations”. As a principal aspirant to the Illinois AG post, Rep. Hamos knows better. Hiding the channels is one of many conscious business decisions by AT&T designed to disappear PEG access. Read more here.

Expand Evanston residents’ boycott of AT&T to your community! Contact StopTheBox for more information.

Read a brief study of the negative impact of state cable franchising.





So what’s so bad about AT&T’s boxes?

* They’re really huge, noisy, and look ugly, and they can appear on your lawn or parkway with no notice.
* They negatively affect property values.
* Earlier models have occasionally exploded.
* AT&T’s strategy virtually eliminates local control over its operations, and opens the door for similar approaches by existing, incumbent providers such as Comcast.
* AT&T cherry picks customers, avoiding lower income and minority communities and neighborhoods like the plague.
* Better technologies exist that do not require eyesores, such as Verizon’s FIOS and wireless technologies such as WiMax.

If all this doesn’t convince you, understand that AT&T is losing money on U-Verse and will continue to do so by most estimates. They rarely obtain more than five or ten percent of the market, if they even build a system at all.

How is AT&T hurting community tv?

* Reduced image quality, credits are often unreadable.
* No closed captioning for the hard of hearing.
* No second audio channel is available for the non-English speaking.
* AT&T PEG channels can’t be recorded by DVR.
* Access channels are given the bum’s rush away from prime lower channel locations way up to channel 99.
* Access channels take over a minute to load under AT&T’s scheme, and that's only if you can find them. This discourages channel surfing, a common way people use to find PEG programs.

Media coverage

Audio from the September forum at Evanston’s Robert Crown community center: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 Flier here. Listen to audio of the second public forum in Evanston here (coming soon). View video clips here (coming soon). StopTheBox co-organizer Mary Beth Kisner-Griffin and this writer were interviewed on WNUR-FM’s Mediageek media issues show, which is broadcast every Thursday at 9PM on 89.3 FM. This Chicago Media Action organizer was quoted in an article in the Daily Northwestern. Evanston cable subscribers should check the schedule of Evanston Community Media Center’s cable tv channel 6 for coverage of this issue. The Evanston Review and the Evanston Roundtable will run stories this week on Wednesday and Thursday.

What’s next?

Never underestimate the power of determined and upset townsfolk carrying torches and heading for Frankenstein’s castle. Especially if some of them are from Evanston. (Or used to live there.)

Beyond the bus tour, additional items on the agenda include:

* Revisions of state franchise and local laws seeking a freeze on further VRAD installations
* Wireless competition to break the current telecom duopoly; and
* Federal legislation to protect and enhance consumer rights and local public, educational and government (PEG) access tv. Read about the Alliance for Community TV’s four point legislative plan for the future of community tv.

There is good reason to stay closely tuned: this writer recently had several lengthy conversations with several staff members and legal experts at Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s Consumer Fraud Division. We talked about future public forums, possible class action, and more. That none of them would go on the record with attribution speaks volumes.

As Bob Dylan (not exactly a fan of big media if you’ve seen the documentary “Don’t Look Back”) once put it: “And you know something is happening here but you don’t know what it is, do you Mr. Jones?”


Posted by Scott Sanders, Chicago Media Action
Read my essay on how we might best bring public broadcasting into the digital age,
from Z magazine's 9/07 issue: "A Litany of Lies and Omissions"
My bio page: About Scott Sanders - Who is this guy? Click here.
Feedback? Information? Email me - themediastructurefailed(at )yahoo.com

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