[Mb-civic] Civil Rights Unplugged - C. Delores Tucker - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

Civil Rights Unplugged

By C. Delores Tucker
Saturday, October 15, 2005; Page A19

(C. Delores Tucker, who was active in numerous civil rights causes for 
many and was co-founder of the National Congress of Black Women, died 
this week at 78. She submitted this column to The Post earlier this month.)

Picture for a minute a major financial institution petitioning Congress 
for special rules to allow it to provide loans only in certain 
communities throughout the country. "The cities are off limits!" says 
this fictional creditor, "and the moderate, middle-income communities . 
. . forget about it! They're not high-end enough."

Were such a corporate actor to step into the political arena, civil 
rights and political leaders would be quick with their denunciations, 
attacking the proposal as the kind of odious bigotry seen in a bygone 
era. Yet this is exactly what the Bell telecommunications monopolies -- 
Verizon and SBC -- are proposing to Congress and to legislators in 
California, New Jersey and other places around the country. They are 
insisting that lawmakers bless their proposal to roll out new digital 
television and advanced broadband services only to the more affluent.

If the pols accede to this special-interest pitch, it will represent a 
sea change in the bipartisan telecommunications policy of the past 20 
years that has required companies that provide video services -- such as 
cable TV -- to serve the entire community through local franchise 
agreements.

To hear the Bells tell it, this non-discrimination requirement is 
standing in the way of their investing in advanced fiber networks that 
will, in turn, enable them to deliver cable television and other 
services over the Internet. Indeed, in making this argument, the Bells 
have shifted the goal posts: Last year they argued that federal 
regulators needed to kill telephone competition rules to allow them to 
make such investments.

According to information it provided to The Post, Verizon's current plan 
in the Washington area excludes almost all of the District of Columbia 
and Prince George's County -- both predominantly African American. In 
New Jersey, the phone goliath promises new services to merely 66 New 
Jersey communities -- nearly every one with an average household income 
well over the state average. The company appears to also be targeting 
only the most affluent communities in Virginia, Maryland, Texas, New 
York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts with its new fiber services.

For its part, SBC admits to Wall Street that 90 percent of its 
"high-value" customers will be beneficiaries of its television service 
but only 5 percent of its "low-value" customers will be wired up. A 
spokesman for the National League of Cities calls this "red-lining." A 
leader in the Urban League said that the policy would cause minority and 
low-income communities to "fall further behind in the deployment of new 
technologies."

 From my vantage point, I have no great love for the cable companies, 
and I believe that some good old-fashioned competition is badly needed 
in the industry. But at the same time, it is worth noting that the cable 
industry -- which built its networks with private capital and not 
through government handouts -- has lived by rules requiring that all 
residents in its service areas get the option of the latest advanced 
digital services. The telephone monopolies, which boasted over $16 
billion in profits last year, and which actually have a significantly 
larger national footprint than do the cable companies, should be held to 
the same standard.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/14/AR2005101401679.html?nav=hcmodule
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