Maryland Senators Criticize Verizon-Big Cable Deal

CWAers Rally Outside Baltimore City Hall

U.S. Senators Barbara Mikulski and Benjamin Cardin (D-Maryland) decried Verizon Wireless’s job-killing deal with big cable companies last week in a letter to the Federal Communications Commission and Justice Department.

Activists urge Baltimore’s elected officials to oppose the Verizon-Big Cable deal.

The letter urged the agencies to consider how the proposed agreement could harm communities across Maryland. Verizon is currently pushing to form a monopoly that will result in the end of FiOS, eliminate competition, lead to higher prices and deepen the digital divide between cities and wealthy suburbs. (See CWA’s report, Verizon/Cable Deal: Slamming the Door on Our High-Speed Future.)

“Most significantly, the joint marketing agreements appear to limit Verizon’s incentive to invest in its all-fiber FiOS network, potentially depriving consumers of a competitive alternative to cable’s broadband and video services,” the senators wrote. “People of color and lower-income households in urban and rural parts of Maryland will be disproportionately affected by the decreased incentives to invest in continued ‘build-out’ of the FiOS network.”

CWA Chief of Staff Ron Collins and Baltimore City Council President Jack Young ask, “Where’s the FiOS?”

CWA Chief of Staff Ron Collins and more than 100 CWAers and concerned Baltimore citizens rallied at City Hall last week to urge Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and other city officials to oppose the deal. With regulators expected to make a decision on the deal later this summer, protestors called on city officials to tell the FCC and DOJ that the agreement should not move forward without conditions to promote job growth, protect competition and bring high speed networks to Baltimore City.

Baltimore City Council President Jack Young stood with CWAers at the rally.  In his own letter to the agencies, he warned that “our young people will continue to leave Baltimore for other places that offer them the kind of advanced, 21st century technology that Verizon has refused to deploy in Baltimore.”

Last week, a telephone town hall meeting held by CWA attracted nearly 10,000 Baltimore residents, who wanted to learn more about the proposed deal and how it would affect consumers. Cardin called in to the town hall to speak to residents about his concerns surrounding the deal.

 “We are talking about potentially a significant impact on employment in our region and fairness in our region,” he said.

Dozens of members of Congress have voiced their opposition to the current deal in recent months, along with Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and nine mayors of cities in New York State. Elected leaders cite concerns it would eliminate competition and hamper economic development.