They wrote legislation - and passed it - with an eye toward giving Google fiber a tax break for setting up shop in the Portland area. As usual, the Portland-centric Democratics who dominate Oregon government screwed up.
Comcast has created a new class of hyper-fast Internet service it acknowledges almost nobody needs. And it charges a price few would pay.
What the new "Gigabit Pro" service does accomplish, according to Comcast, is make the company eligible for millions of dollars in state tax breaks. Those exemptions were written last year with Google Fiber in mind, for companies that bring very fast Internet service to Oregon.
Comcast argues it qualifies, too, by virtue of its obscure new service. Oregon cities are crying foul, but the staff of the Oregon Public Utility Commission says Comcast meets the letter of the broadly written law – even if hardly anyone signs up for a service critics say would cost subscribers $4,600 in the first year alone.
Gigabit Pro brings 2 gigabits per second into your home computer network, which is likely far more than your systems can absorb. And of course, being Comcast, that $4600 annual rate is likely promotional, which means that they'll jack it up even higher after the promotional period expires. Anyone who's had a Comcast subscription has gone through the annual period when the bill suddenly jumps up and they then have to call the company and haggle the rate back down; given their history in this regard, there's no reason to believe that things would be any different if you opted to subscribe to their hyperspeed 2 Gig service.
One big difference is that they run it all the way into your home, unlike CenturyLink, which offers "1 Gig fiberoptic" - but only to the telephone box on the outside of your house. I ask the same questions every time one of their reps shows up, trying to sell me on their fiber: "do you run it into the house?" No, just to the telephone box. "What happens to the speed when the fiber bangs into the tiny copper wires that POTS has used for a century?" They never know what to say, and then they go away. Comcast uses fiberoptic lines for their 2 G service, rather than conventional cable - but they go right into the modem at your house, rather than stopping at the POTS box. But speaking of modems...
Of course, to receive Comcast's spiffy 2 Gig service, you'll need a new modem. They're not yet commercially available, but the company will be happy to rent you one....
Lawmakers set no price threshold when they wrote their law last year, however, and didn't put anything in the law about how many customers need to sign up for a service for a company to qualify for the tax break. They did require that companies invest in new technology, but didn't say how much companies must spend.
The Legislature's attempt to create an exemption for Google has already encountered multiple setbacks. Language in the original bill accidentally excluded Google Fiber from the exemption, sending lawmakers racing to correct their error in another bill.
Lawmakers didn't include a definition for broadband in either measure. As a result legislators, telecom companies and regulators sparred last fall over what qualifies, an arcane fight that had very real implications for millions of dollars in tax revenues and the future of Internet speeds in the state.
And therein lies the issue: the Portland Democratics were so jazzed about the idea of getting Google Fiber (another chance to show what a "national model" we are) that they just fell all over one another to produce crappy legislation just for Google. And Comcast stands to gain tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks as a result.
And that was done during the last full session at the legislature; the current one is the short session, which ends in about a week.
Huh. With success like this, let's jam through an energy bill during a short session.
