A group of experienced legislative activists told attendees that in politics, everyone eventually has to work with those they hate the most.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [July 8, 2005]

People were talking politics everywhere at ISPCON, held in Baltimore in May, and so we dropped by one of several policy sessions. "Friend or Foe: Making Allies from Enemies in Today's Converging Services Landscape" featured four great speakers.

There was the relentless Gene Crick, founder and executive director of TISPA; the entrepreneurial and personable Cynthia de Lorenzi, CEO of PatriotNet and co-founder of the Washington Bureau for ISP Advocacy (WBIA); the guru Robert Cannon of Cybertelecom; and the intriguing Harold Feld, senior vice president of the Media Access Project.

Crick spoke first. "We've lost half of our colleagues over the past four years as the number of independent ISPs dropped from about 8,000 to about 4,000. Actually, only about a third have survived the entire four years, but the total has been augmented by new entrants."

He said ISPs need access to the latest technology. "Today, broadband is required. ISPs have been denied fair access to cable and telco broadband and are not considered an important part of federal policy. We're not well represented as a political lobby, and are views are rarely heard in policy debates."

He mentioned the issue of predatory pricing. Larry Summers spoke up from the audience, noting that the FCC decided not to enforce.

Crick asked the audience a key question, but it was a rhetorical question. "So is it time to get up and walk away? You need to be hard headed to stay in this business."

If ISPs are not going to give up, ISPs need a plan. "ISPs need to work together. Many of us are pioneers and entrepreneurs. Community leaders under fire for embracing broadband need your support. Bills are under way across the nation to remove the ability of local entities to govern pole access and franchise terms, and to take away money that now goes to state and local governments."

Make money as well as politics
Many communities expect they will never have service. "The big companies will cherry pick and redline and this will damage many local communities. Municipal governments want to partner with local ISPs, not compete against local business. We're the partners they should be working with."

ISPs also need to find rich customers. "A business services play plays to the strength of a local business. Offerings including regular backup are needed, the demand is real, and the service is best delivered by a competent, popular local company."

Make friends
"We need to know our legislators. We need to be a source of telecom information to our legislators as we build local telecoms alliances."

Crick said that ISPs have obvious allies. Consumer advocates such as the Consumers' Union http are quick to point out big company ripoffs and legislative maneuvers in the telecom space.

"In many areas customers are losing choices and in some places customers have no broadband option at all," said Crick. "Deregulation is not the answer to every problem. Nobody is suggesting that we should deregulate law enforcement to improve it."

The CLEC industry is another obvious allies.

"But," Crick concluded, "the most important allies are ourselves! We need to mobilize the other ISPs. ISPCON is doing a lot, TISPA is doing a lot, but I see hundreds of things we could all do better."

Make frienemies
The next speaker was Cynthia de Lorenzi, who brings Republican political connections in Virginia and Texas to her work at WBIA. "We need to keep our friends close, and our frienemies closer," she said.

Early on in her tenure as CEO of Virginia ISP Patriot.net, she learned a tough lesson. "Today's ally is tomorrow's competitor. COVAD was our DSL provider, but then they began to compete with us."

The municipal broadband issue presents both opportunities and possible peril for ISPs. "We can be anti-monopoly without being in favor of open networks. I'm an optimist. Munis are not being served because of resistance from the huge monopolistic Bells. The Bells believe as part of their business plan that independent ISPs cannot exist, therefore they also believe that the munis cannot exist."

Harold Feld, senior vice president of the Media Access Project and author of the blog Tales of the Sausage Factory, agreed that, in politics, there are no permanent friends and no permanent enemies. "You see, on some issues, we will stand with the Bells, but on other issues, we'll be against them."

For example, ISPs and the Bells have common concerns with regard to CALEA and privacy issues. "Be professional, be willing to work with them on this issues. Don't just hate them because they're Bells."

But don't let the Bells pretend to speak for the industry. "The Bells are part of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the Small Business Administration, the state and local Chambers of Commerce, and where the RBOCs participate, they claim to speak for the ISP industry."

Being an activist is just like running a successful ISP
Building community support is like building a customer base—it takes time. "Cultivate allies and be prepared to spend time doing it and to wait six months or more for a phone call," Feld said.

There are plenty of organizations that support ISP and open access aims. "You have allies you don't know about," said Feld. For example, the National Association of Realtors has started to realize that houses with broadband access sell better, and is looking for skilled broadband ISPs to work with.

"I work with community wireless, soldering on Sundays to unwire my neighborhood for free. It's a community with even fewer resources than yours, but a couple of hundred of them wrote comments. Now the community knows how to read my e-mail and write the comments. We have to take advantage of the internet to collaborate."

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