Brian Moura
Chairman
SAMCAT
c/o City of San Carlos
600 Elm Street
San Carlos, CA 94070
Phone: (650) 802-4210
Fax: (650) 595-6710

News Release

SAMCAT JOINS THE FIGHT TO PRESERVE NET NEUTRALITY

Silicon Valley Cities and Counties Endorse Move to Retain the Open Internet

SAN CARLOS , CA - June 29, 2006 - The San Mateo County Telecommunications Authority (SAMCAT), a Joint Powers Authority (JPA) of 17 cities and the county in San Mateo County representing over 580,000 residents in Silicon Valley have announced that they are joining the fight to preserve Net Neutrality on the Internet.

The first step in this process occurred earlier this year when the SAMCAT Board of Directors, made up of representatives of all 18 cities and county officials, unanimously voted to support the principles of Net Neutrality and State and Federal Legislation designed to achieve this goal. Since that time, group members have met with and corresponded with members of the Silicon Valley congressional delegation and are on record supporting legislation in this area including the Dorgan/Snowe Amendment to S. 2686 proposed in the U.S. Senate.

SAMCAT Chairman Brian Moura noted that "We were very excited about the initial response to our support of Net Neutrality at the Federal level. Local Congress Members Anna Eshoo and Zoe Lofgren as well as U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer have co-sponsored legislation in Congress to insure that the principles of Net Neutrality continue and that the Internet continues to be an open network, accessible an equal basis and at equal performance to and for everyone. Area Congress Members Tom Lantos and Mike Honda as well as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have also endorsed the principles of Net Neutrality as well as federal legislation on this subject as well. It is very gratifying to be in a region with such enlightened Federal leadership."

In explaining the group's interest in the preservation of Net Neutrality, Moura cited the early 1990s when online providers like America On Line (AOL) did not initially provide full Internet but instead only offered information from companies and organizations that paid for access. "In the City of San Carlos, AOL told us in the early 1990s that they were uninterested in so called "local content" and refused to allow the posting of information for our residents on America On Line - even if we purchased a paid forum. The only way around this was to begin a City Web Site and hope that AOL and others would eventually have to offer full access to the Internet as the Web grew in popularity."

Moura added "Recent phone company announcements that top performance service - or even access at all - would require the payment of added fees to these phone companies for their video and internet services would put access to local City and Schools information once again out of reach to the public. We remember being blocked in the early 1990s and we don't want to go back to the dark ages of citizen access to information again by losing the Net Neutrality that is inherent in today's Internet. That's why SAMCAT's endorsement of legislation to preserve Net Neutrality is so important in today's world."

About SAMCAT

Established in 1988, the San Mateo County Telecommunications Authority or "SAMCAT" is a Joint Powers Authority (JPA) formed under California law. It includes 17 of the 20 cities in San Mateo County as well as San Mateo County among its membership.

SAMCAT was originally formed to assist five member agencies in developing a model Cable TV franchise agreement with TCI. In 1996, its JPA was amended to include work in all forms of telecommunications which stimulated a rapid growth in membership to today's level of 18 agencies.

SAMCAT has developed several model telecommunications agreements over the years involving Cable TV, wireless agreements, fiber optic cable projects and other technologies. The group was responsible for recruiting RCN of Boston to the State of California and 8 of its member agencies approved RCN's first competitive Cable TV agreements in the State. SAMCAT also manages the Emmy Award Winning Peninsula Television (Pen TV) Government Channel (http:// www.pentv.tv ) and the RCN Multi-jurisdictional Fiber Network (MJN) in Silicon Valley.

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Article 1 - AT&T's "Home Zone" to Offer Limited Internet Access

Homezone's Walled Garden
Users will only be able to surf AT&T partner content sites?

Posted June 19, 2006 at 10:18:01 a.m.

Written by Karl Bode , Broadband Reports.Com

The Wall Street Journal print edition today reports that AT&T's Homezone, a hybrid satellite receiver, DVR, and broadband driven media-center (using this 2wire box) will be launched next month. AT&T hopes to have the device available in 80% of its broadband market by year's end. This will be AT&T's "stopgap" measure as they deploy "Project Lightspeed."

"After Lightspeed is fully deployed and U-verse is fully deployed, there will be areas that are just not economic to offer fiber everywhere," recently stated AT&T's Homezone managing director Ken Tysell. "Homezone gives us a great product to make available to residential customers in all of the other areas, too. So we are going to coordinate the offer strategy and the rollout strategy between the two."

The service is currently being trialed by some 230 users, mostly AT&T employees. Coming in high-definition and standard-definition versions, the boxes will offer users media sharing, on-demand content (see our Akimbo report ), remote DVR programming, and possibly place-shifting Slingbox functionality - if the legal issues can be worked out.

AT&T however won't allow users to browse to just any content, according to the Wall Street Journal:

"While the Homezone set top-box will be connected to the Internet, users won't be able to surf to any Web Site. They will only be able to download content from providers who have made deals with AT&T. In that sense, the service will be like the so-called "walled garden" that America Online tried to create with its Internet service in the 1990s before it was pressured to give its customers access to the open Internet."

Dave Burstein, who discusses this via his newsletter, says Verizon's CEO Ivan Seidenberg is a little more friendly to the idea of open content. "We want to get cable out of the house. Telephony and data are our moneymakers, not video, and we're willing to discuss opening our network," the CEO recently told Burstein.

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/75513

Article 2 - AT&T CEO Talks About Access to AT&T's Broadband "Pipes"

At SBC, It's All About "Scale and Scope"

Business Week Interview - November 7, 2005

CEO Edward Whitacre talks about the AT&T Wireless acquisition and how he's moving to keep abreast of cable competitors

Q. Is it a possibility that SBC would acquire BellSouth?

A. It sure would be nice, but it doesn't have much chance of happening because of market power, size, etc. I think it would be real hard to do. I don't think the regulators would let that happen, in my judgment.

Q. Have you made an overture?

A. I wouldn't say we haven't done that in the past, but I'm not going to do it now. I've certainly thought about it a few times, and I'm sure Bell South has thought about it too.

Q. How concerned are you about Internet upstarts like Google ( GOOG ), MSN, Vonage, and others?

A. How do you think they're going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?

The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! ( YHOO ) or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_45/b3958092.htm