Does it seem strange to anyone else that Philadelphia has more leverage over their ISP than one of America's top cities for technology? What could be the difference? Are our council members just getting more donations from Comcast?

Wow, way to hold Comcast's feet to the fire Mr. Mayor and minion. Along with Bruce Harrell, it's a veritable clown-car of rubes...

The corrupt mayor who took at least $10,000 from Comcast the last election cycle passes a corrupt new 10 year EXCLUSIVE deal with Comcrap and he realizes after the fact that he got a poor deal? Bull fucking shit. This is entirely bullshit from the mayor. He should be ashamed of himself, but he probably doesn't have time with the courting more bribes and all. I knew it was going to go down like this. Seattle doesn't want good internet. Seattle wants monopolies, and continues to elect people who want monopolies, even if they attempt to claim their support of monopolies was a mistake.

Comcast corporate is located in downtown Philadelphia - would be shocked if this did not factor in the deal. That said, Comcast needs to be forced to allow independent last-mile access to competitors. The current extortionist pricing, world's worst customer service and other monopolistic abuse has to go. Fucking banana republic we live in.

Here's Harrell shilling for Comcast's now-subpar "slower internet for the poors" program back in 2012. p.s. he also used to be a lawyer for CenturyLink
https://youtu.be/dhXvvZA0uVk

Man, fuck Ed Murray SO HARD. I can't to vote that piece of shit out of office.

The only agreement that should be made with Comcast is one which strips their corporate charter, seizes all their assets and jails their executives for life.

Kickbacks is a better word than takebacks.

Every longtime Comcast customer knows that Comcast doesn't budge an inch until you utter the magic phrase "cancel my service," after which all manner of miracles happen. So has anyone advised the city council to threaten to walk away from the table?

Aside from the fact that it is illegal, I wonder how much it would cost to condemn Comcast's assets and have the city purchase them? That's what City Light did in 1952, and even though PSE's stuff was pretty much junk by that time (they had seen the writing on the wall for quite some time) it costs a few million in 1952 dollars.

I should clarify - it wouldn't be illegal to condemn and purchase their stuff. It would be illegal for a city to operate it.

@5

Holy shit, that was legal? All because he slapped a PSA label on?

This reminds me of the time when Ed Murray and all but one of the Seattle Council Members were so happy with Jorge Carrasco's performance they were poised to give him a big, fat raise.

Mud Baby dear, for the salary they were paying, Jorge Carrasco is about what you can expect to get (yes, it's one of the the highest paid positions in the city, but most cities don't own and operate vertically integrated electric utilities). Despite all the crowing of what a "victory" it was, they did actually raise the wage for that position. They just didn't give it to him. His replacement will undoubtedly make more.

"Does it seem strange to anyone else that Philadelphia has more leverage over their ISP than one of America's top cities for technology? What could be the difference? Are our council members just getting more donations from Comcast?"

The difference is that our Mayor and most of the CMs are corporate Muppets. Take Bruce Harrell, for example. He's the go-to guy for telecom, and also just happens to be a well-connected former corporate attorney for U.S. West, which became Qwest, which became CenturyLink. Earlier this year Harrell spearheaded elimination of franchise districts that forced telecom and TV providers to serve all households in specific geographic areas. Harrell pitched deregulation as a way to promote competition, but the main effect will be to cut costs for the CLink-Comcast duopoly, and Wave, which only serves neighborhoods that pencil for it.

Right now, the only way to get get GB speeds from CLink is to sign up for CLink's exgtremely expensive premium TV service. Increasing numbers of people are cord-cutters who don't even watch TV anymore, so this option doesn't make sense for lots of people. GB speeds are flat out unavailable from Comcast, but they will charge you $150 per month for speeds up to 0.25 GB.

The ever garrulous Harrell characterizes Seattle's recent broadband/TV deregulation as "a
relentless pursuit of competition," whatever the fuck that means given that Seattle residents have NEVER seen their telecom bills decrease during past franchise periods. Moreover, almost 100,000 households can't afford entry level broadband. 0.25 GB speeds would be regarded as mediocre in London, Bangkok and Seoul. In fact, Korea, which has a national system is rolling out GB speeds for $20 per month! Comcast boasts about its recent speed increase, but it is totally imperceptible to customers. The reality is we pay 40% more than people in the UK for speeds that are one hundredth as fast.

Comcast used to have fairly decent customer service, but these days, thanks to outsourcing, they hook you up to someone in a foreign country speaking to you through horrendous phone connections who have more expertise in peddling additional services that you don't want than coping with your problem. Without any warning Comcast recently changed the port settings for Outlook, and wiped out thousands of my email messages I had cached on their server over the past few years. When I went to their website to learn how to fix this, the Outlook settings didn't match the actual settings Outlook I saw on my computer. This is Comcast's underhanded way of forcing customers to either use their own slow-loading, ad-strewn, junk news-laden website as an email portal, or simply go away and use Gmail instead.

Seattle loves to brag about being a world class city and a global tech hub, but those who spout this rhetoric--Murray, Harrell, Bagshaw and Burgess--are quietly doing whatever it takes to ensure that the duopoly keeps making a shit ton of money in Seattle while screwing households and businesses with high broadband prices, molluscan speeds and ever degrading service.

Catalina, you are right. Carrasco's replacement, Larry Weis, will start at City Light on February 1, 2016. His starting salary will be $340,000, quite a bit more than the $245,000 Carrasco was making at the end of his checkered career, but a wee bit less than the the $364,000 Carrasco was all set to get bumped up to before Sawant began to demand that he be held accountable for his crappy performance that included the $120,000 cooper con he succumbed to and all the money he authorized City Light spend on a reputation makeover that blew up in his face. Hopefully Larry won't turn out to be such a dumbass.

Catalina, you are right. Carrasco's replacement, Larry Weis, will start at City Light on February 1, 2016. His starting salary will be $340,000, quite a bit more than the $245,000 Carrasco was making at the end of his checkered career, but a wee bit less than the the $364,000 Carrasco was all set to get bumped up to before Sawant began to demand that he be held accountable for his crappy performance that included the $120,000 cooper con he succumbed to and all the money he authorized City Light spend on a reputation makeover that blew up in his face. Hopefully Larry won't turn out to be such a dumbass.

Catalina Vel-RuRay for Seattle City Council? You ought to consider it.

Raindrop, I'm flattered. But I'm just a Beacon Hill Housewife and Municipal Career Gal. My home and husband come first, just like the Bible says.

Catalina, if you ever change your mind I'll doorbell for you. <3

Mud Baby, flattery gets one almost everywhere with me, so I will share with you my route to Municipal Broadband (which I think might almost be legal)

Have the city condem and take possession of all the infrastructure on city-owned property and right-of-way. Contract with a private company to provide all the technical stuff (whatever that is) and have the city provide field infrastructure, service connections, first line customer support and billing. Market the whole thing through the city, and make it so that the city can dump that private company with six month's notice. Guarantee the private vendor 10% profit above fully auditable, publicly accessible cost, and price the whole service on a cost recovery basis, like the other city utilities. Government does what it does best (billing, maintenance) and private industry does what it does best (innovation)

Catalina, I love it, especially the "make it so that the city can dump that private company with six month's notice" part. The 10% profit figure that you cite makes me wonder how much Comcast and CLink from their captive customer base in Seattle.

Comcast wants to get its next 10 year franchise with Seattle all nailed down before bringing on it's next onslaught of fuckery: "usage billing." When it does, let's not forget the names of the corporate politicians who approve our next piss poor deal with Comcast.

https://medium.com/backchannel/big-cable…

I get 12Mbps from CenturyLink.

It's cheap, fast and stable.

Just like most things in the suburbs.

@22: The provision must also be included that the City of Seattle must go through the usual legal channels to obtain a search warrant to get the customer data based on an IP address. They shouldn't be able to just cross-reference.

Private companies should always be preferred. But not when we have a racketeering and extortion going on with Comcast and Century Link.

Meanwhile, the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, Tennessee, is offering symmetric 1Gbps fiber-optic broadband to everyone within its 600-square-mile service district for $70 a month with free installation, no contract, and no cancellation fee... seven years after breaking ground. That's roughly what I'm paying Comcast for nominal 50Mbps downstream / 6Mbps downstream service that, in the real world, has only ever delivered ~4Mbps downstream at most (except for well-known speed-testing sites). Which is in turn more than Parisians are paying for symmetrical 50Mbps service plus free Europe-wide VOIP calling plus 125 TV channels, and twice as much as residents of Seoul are paying for symmetrical 100Mbps service. (The Chattanooga EPB also offers 3, 5, and 10Gbps service.)

But there are probably some very good technical reasons Seattle City Light can't do what the Chattanooga EPB has done. For example, Seattle is nestled between the Puget Sound and Lake Washington, and we sometimes have a view of Mount Rainier. Also, Seattleites probably drink more coffee than Chattanoogans do. And there are probably some good economic reasons, too. For example, given that Seattle has a computer-illiterate population and almost no high-tech employment, there would probably be no market for affordable high-bandwidth Internet. I'm sure it's all covered in the Mayor's most recent study.

PCM dear, Munis and PUD's are not allowed to offer direct-to-consumer telecom or internet. The "last mile" has to be provided by a private company, which is why you see Click Network and all the rest making you select a provider.

And my idea of condemning existing infrastructure is expressly forbidden as well.....

RCW 54.16.330
Telecommunications facilities—Purposes—Limitations—Provision of wholesale telecommunications services—Eminent domain.

(1) A public utility district in existence on June 8, 2000, may construct, purchase, acquire, develop, finance, lease, license, handle, provide, add to, contract for, interconnect, alter, improve, repair, operate, and maintain any telecommunications facilities within or without the district's limits for the following purposes:
(a) For the district's internal telecommunications needs; and
(b) For the provision of wholesale telecommunications services within the district and by contract with another public utility district.
Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to authorize public utility districts to provide telecommunications services to end users.
(2) A public utility district providing wholesale telecommunications services shall ensure that rates, terms, and conditions for such services are not unduly or unreasonably discriminatory or preferential. Rates, terms, and conditions are discriminatory or preferential when a public utility district offering rates, terms, and conditions to an entity for wholesale telecommunications services does not offer substantially similar rates, terms, and conditions to all other entities seeking substantially similar services.
(3) A public utility district providing wholesale telecommunications services shall not be required to but may establish a separate utility system or function for such purpose. In either case, a public utility district providing wholesale telecommunications services shall separately account for any revenues and expenditures for those services according to standards established by the state auditor pursuant to its authority in chapter 43.09 RCW and consistent with the provisions of this title. Any revenues received from the provision of wholesale telecommunications services must be dedicated to costs incurred to build and maintain any telecommunications facilities constructed, installed, or acquired to provide such services, including payments on debt issued to finance such services, until such time as any bonds or other financing instruments executed after June 8, 2000, and used to finance such telecommunications facilities are discharged or retired.
(4) When a public utility district provides wholesale telecommunications services, all telecommunications services rendered to the district for the district's internal telecommunications needs shall be allocated or charged at its true and full value. A public utility district may not charge its nontelecommunications operations rates that are preferential or discriminatory compared to those it charges entities purchasing wholesale telecommunications services.
(5) A public utility district shall not exercise powers of eminent domain to acquire telecommunications facilities or contractual rights held by any other person or entity to telecommunications facilities.
(6) Except as otherwise specifically provided, a public utility district may exercise any of the powers granted to it under this title and other applicable laws in carrying out the powers authorized under this section. Nothing in chapter 81, Laws of 2000 limits any existing authority of a public utility district under this title.

Catalina Vel-DuRay, dear, lovely recitation of state law, but you're forgetting about federal pre-emption. In February of this year the FCC struck down similar laws bought by private cable and telecoms providers in Tennessee and North Carolina. It could strike down Washington's laws as well were it so petitioned.

What about the idea of simply not renewing any of these franchises. Wouldn't that force these corporate monstrosities to engage in Bruce Harrell's unicornish notion of "relentless pursuit of competition?"

PCM, I'm not forgetting anything. I didn't know that had happened. That's certainly encouraging, but who will do the petitioning? Until that is done, the existing RCW provision is the law of the land.

The PUD movement in Washington State was groundbreaking and innovative in the 1930's-50's. It set this region up for economic prosperity it enjoys today. But it was a hard fought, ugly struggle that required political coalitions (Grange, Democrats, labor, Socialists) to succeed. Very few people realize the enormity of that struggle, and the similarities to today. Who will be the JD Ross or Lillian Spear for WA state public telecom? I honestly can't think of a politician who is up to the struggle. Certainly none of the council members or the mayor.