Winning the PR battle

BellSouth today had to deny a Washington Post report that it had "angrily" withdrawn an offer to give one of its buildings to New Orleans, for use by its police department, after that city announced a municipal Wi-Fi network.

According to the phone company, it is still negotiating with New Orleans on the transfer and is, in fact, waiting to hear from the mayor's office.

The sad fact is, a story like this shouldn't even be credible, but it is, especially in Louisiana.

Large incumbent service providers, or at least most of them, have a reputation for fighting all comers, including municipalities that want to build their own networks, with whatever they've got. In Louisiana, BellSouth and Cox Communications continued to try to put roadblocks in the path of Lafayette's desire to build its own fiber-optic network, even after an overwhelming majority of local citizens voted in favor of the project in a July election with strong turnout.

C'mon guys, get a clue here.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: When it comes to building broadband networks, service providers stand to gain more by partnering with medium-sized and smaller cities than they do by fighting them.

Most of the municipalities that take on the admittedly large burden of owning and operating a network do so out of desperation. Will they succeed in building a successful broadband business? Some will, no doubt, but others will fall victim to the complexities of financing, technology, network operation and customer support that have felled many a competitive carrier.

And when that happens, the service provider that fought the project tooth and nail isn't going to look any better in the eyes of the locals for having been right. But the local service provider--telco or cable--that gets on board early in the broadband development, helps craft a public private partnership and ensures a project's success is going to be the local hero.

It may be that the medium-sized towns and cities that are proposing these networks simply aren't as economically attractive to large incumbent service providers, that consider their money better spent fighting potential competition than investing in a town's future. That is the impression being left in many communities by campaigns to derail municipal networks.

The result is an image that gives BellSouth a black eye in New Orleans that apparently wasn't deserved.

E-mail me at CWilson3@primediabusiness.com.