MAADD as hell

In typical Chicago fashion, a local interest group last week stuck its hand out in front of a company's large investment and development project and asked the city's most infamous question: “Where's mine?”

The Ministerial Alliance Against the Digital Divide (MAADD), a group of Chicago-area activist ministers, charged SBC with the d-word (discrimination) and accused it of the r-word (redlining) in its $6 billion Project Lightspeed, which will bring high-speed broadband and video services to the home.

The group's argument is that their communities will miss out on “vital new technology” that will go to more affluent communities. SBC responded by calling MAADD's argument a red herring.

SBC is right. First of all, SBC's Project Lightspeed is primarily about delivering video services, and there isn't much that is vital about 100 more channels of TV Land or A&E. If it's broadband they want so their communities have equal access to the Internet, that's a better, but different, argument. Internet access is not bound to Project Lightspeed. There are other options: dial-up, cable modem and DSL. If their communities are not already served by these options, then their argument should have been made and addressed long ago.

MAADD wants SBC to be bound by the same franchise rules required of cable companies. However, the FCC has already exempted phone companies from franchise regulations through their designation as Open Video Systems. So MAADD's argument should be with the FCC, not with SBC. The last thing this industry needs is more local municipalities affecting regulation.

Arguments such as MAADD's continue to be raised because the phone companies have been stuck in this utility-laden limbo of regulation and non-regulation, where everyone still thinks they have a say in how each business should be run. But if phone companies are to survive the competitive onslaught from cable and wireless providers, they need to be able to conduct business as a business and not as a utility.

A business needs to invest where its bean counters determine it will get the best return, wherever that may be. That's particularly true in a venture as expensive and risky (but vital only to SBC) as Project Lightspeed. SBC should be allowed to proceed unencumbered, to prove out its business case and to develop video into a profitable service.

Only at the end of 2007, after SBC — as promised — has or hasn't reached 50% of its customers, should we hear arguments about discrimination. By then, depending on the quality of the service, those who were so worried about being left out may be thanking their lucky stars that they were.