Austin

We are in the final month of the Texas legislative session. Midnight this morning was a key date in the legislative calendar. Any House bills that have not had their second reading (this means reported out of committee and brought up for a vote on the House floor) are now dead.

I believe that HB 3179, the bad telecom bill I discussed yesterday (and the subject of all the dueling cable/telco ads we're seeing on Austin TV) may be one of them. If so, that's good news. I'm trying to get confirmation before getting too excited about it.

The bad news is that the bill (along with HB 789 and its muni network ban) lives on as a backdoor amendment to SB 408, which is still alive, albeit bottled up in the Calendars committee.

I hope they won't be in a big rush to get that one to the floor for vote. It deserves the same fate.

Here is the letter I just sent to Texas state Rep. Elliott Naishtat on the bad telecom legislation currently in the Texas house. This legislation would do terrible things like outlaw community Internet and take away local control of cable franchises.

If you care about these telecom issues, please consider contacting your state representatives. This web site makes it easy. For more information, see the Save Muni Wireless and the Free Press action alerts.

Dear Rep. Naishtat,

The House Regulated Industries committee has attached some very controversial telecom legislation (HB 789 and HB 3179) to the PUC sunset bill (SB 408).

HB 789 would prohibit municipalities from offering wireless internet access. HB 3179 takes cable franchises out of local control. These bills are harmful to Texas consumers, and harmful every business in the state but SBC.

Attaching these provisions to SB 408 is a cynical attempt to sidestep public hearings in the Senate. Public input on these matters is crucial. Please help stop these bad telecom bills, in whatever form they may take.

Thank you.

9:26a.m. update: I also called the Governor's Office at 800-252-9600. I sat on hold for a few minutes, but not too long. They took down my name, the list of bills that concerned me, and my position on them. It's easy, you don't have to give a big oratory on your position. In fact, I suspect they'd prefer you didn't.

This weekend, Austin voters went to the polls. A referendum was held to extend the current smoking ban in restaurants to nearly all establishments, including bars and bowling alleys. The measure was passed by a very narrow 52%-48% margin.

I suspect there will be a long period of contention over the ban, eventual grudging acceptance, and, in a few years, we'll have wondered what all the bother was about.

I've heard the claims that the ban will kill the bar and music scene. The data I've seen say in the long run, that won't happen. I do believe in the short term, however, the disruption will pose a challenge to Austin's bars and pubs. I think those of us who supported the ban should work to support these businesses, to help ensure they make it through the transition.

So to help do my part, I've started planning a non-smoking appreciation pub crawl for early September, once the ban goes into effect. The crawl will cover some of funnest-but-smokiest bars I've encountered in the city. Here is my tentative itinerary:

• Carousel Lounge
• Crazy Lady
• Lovejoy's Tap Room
• G&S Lounge

Anybody want to be my designated driver?

Today, the Texas House approved a telecom bill that puts troublesome limits on community Internet. It could, however, have much worse.

Several representatives stood up and championed a bold vision for broadband in Texas. One of those champions was Austin Representative Todd Baxter. Baxter stood up for what's right for Austin-area businesses and citizens. He should be commended for his efforts.

Mar 23 update: Todd Baxter came through!

This week, the Texas legislature will hold committee hearings for the anti-wireless bill. The committee members will determine whether the provisions to outlaw municipal networks will be stricken or preserved.

Representative Todd Baxter from Austin sits on that comittee. It's been reported that Rep. Baxter has not been supportive of the efforts to remove this restriction. We need to get him the information to understand why the anti-wireless provisions are bad for Austin and bad for business.

Here in Austin, the push for public access is spearheaded by private organizations such as Austin Wireless City and Austin Free-Net. The City has not been building significant infrastructure or spending many tax dollars on wireless, just errecting the odd access point here and there. Nonetheless, the city has been deeply involved in the effort to provide public access, and HB 789 will cause significant harm.

The City has been a strong partner with these organizations all along the way. A large part of the credibility and success of Austin Wireless City comes from its partnership with the City. This partnership doesn't harm the incumbent communication providers—the force behind HB 789. This partnership brings them more business.

The anti-wireless provisions of HB 789 jeopardize that partnership, and may even jeopardize the free public wi-fi that has become an integral part of the Austin landscape.

If Todd Baxter is your state representative, it is critical that you let him know that you support public wireless, and ask him to strike the anti-wireless provisions from HB 789.

Please see the Save Muni Wireless action alert for more information.

Gregg Knaupe is running for a seat on the Austin City Council. Gregg Knaupe is also a spammer.

Greg scraped the City of Austin web site, downloaded the list of city board and commission members, and added all of us to his emailing list without asking. Because of my interest in city affairs, I probably would have tolerated a one-time mailing. This, however, is unacceptable—not to mention a likely violation of the terms of service of his mail sending service.

I cannot imagine supporting somebody for elected office who displays such poor judgment. Could you?

Better enjoy your free wireless access in Austin parks and libraries while it lasts. It might not be around much longer.

Adina Levin has noted that the omnibus telecom regulation bill (HB 789) up before the Texas legislature prohibits municipal networks. All across the country, the incumbent communication providers have been fighting for (and winning) special protections at the state level, so it's no surprise to see this in Texas.

What is a surprise is the shocking breadth of the Texas language. It wouldn't merely block the deployment of for charge municipal networks. It would force a significant rollback of current free services. Wireless access in city hall, city parks, and even city libraries will all be gone if this passes.

No internet access in city libraries??!?! Why not just ban books and magazines from the libraries while we are at it?

Here is the proposed language of the bill:

Sec. 54.202. PROHIBITED MUNICIPAL SERVICES. A municipality or municipally owned utility may not, directly or indirectly, on its own or with another entity, offer to the public:

(1) a service for which a certificate is required;

(2) a service as a network provider; or

(3) any telecommunications or information service, without regard to the technology platform used to provide the service.

The bill is sure to change in committee. Hopefully this provision will disappear entirely. The legislature should refuse anti-competitive protection for special interests.

Austin was one of the first cities in the nation to develop public access channels on the local cable network. The public access channels are granted to the city, as part of the cable franchise agreement, and funded by cable subscribers with a small monthly charge ($0.35). The city, in turn, contracts with an outside agency to manage the channels. ACTV is the non-profit organization that currently operates our public access channels.

The contract with ACTV expires in September of this year. In March, the city will issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) for competitive bids on a new, six-year contract.

The Austin Telecommunications Commission will be holding a public hearing on February 9. We will be asking the citizens to provide input on the Scope of Work that will be included in the RFP. Please consider attending and speaking if you can offer any suggestions on how our public television channels should be managed.

The hearing details are:

Wednesday, February 9, 2005 - 7:00 p.m.
City Hall
Boards & Commissions Room
301 W. 2nd Street

Additional information:

• Information prepared by the city staff on the public access RFP process.
• An article from the Austin Community Technology Initiative web site on Public Access Television in Austin.
• The Cable Television section of the city web site.

I hope the rest of 2005 is as nice as the first day has been. My girlfriend and I just returned from a low key—but nice—day around town. Everybody seemed to be busy either nursing hangovers or watching organized bouts of genetic mutants colliding, so we had the city to ourselves.

Mid-day, we visited the Highland Galaxy movie theater to see Ocean's Twelve. That was fun.

I think Austin is a blessed movie town, with theaters such as the Dobie and the Alamo chain showing interesting movies and doing a variety of interesting things. That's all fine, but sometimes you want to see a Sponge Bob or Incredibles. There, the situation is not so good.

This weekend, I visited the Austin's Collector Expo. There wasn't any kicking or screaming involved, but I didn't much enjoy it.

The Crockett Center was full of tables, with vendors selling action figures and model cars and other geegaws. I may be parading my stuck-up elitism here, but I don't get it. I don't think that accumulating mass-manufactured bits of plastic and steel will provide significant purpose or satisfaction to my life.

I found most of it uninteresting. One table, however, made me very sad. The guy was selling DVDs that were obviously pirated. The discs were completely blank, probably burned on a duplicator, stowed in plastic cases with poorly copied artwork.

The pirated DVDs made me sad for two reasons. First, there was a large number of Russ Meyer movies there. When you are pirating Russ Meyer movies you aren't ripping off some big studio asshole. Until his recent death, Meyer ran his own distribution company. You could—and still can—buy all his films from the RM Films web site.

Second, the next biggest pile of discs was the Bumfights discs. If you haven't heard of them, they are a sort of "Hobos Gone Wild" video. The producers paid homeless people small amounts of money (and maybe got them liquored them up) to engage in fights and perform various harmful stunts. There were criminal charges and a civil lawsuit filed against the producers. It was all sad and ugly, and the discs are no longer distributed.

The vendor had a TV setup in the booth, playing the Bumfights disc. A small crowd had gathered. They were all in stitches over the drunk guys beating each other up. Too bad we didn't have a few Christians to throw to the lions while we were at it.

The producers of the Expo probably envision their event as perfect family-friendly fare. Maybe it's my elitism showing again, but I don't think abuse and theft are acceptable family values.