This month, all eyes are on New York-based AOL Time Warner. The company plans to offer AOL's high-speed Internet access over Time Warner's cable lines. This is of concern to lawmakers and consumers because the provision of this service would consist of a monopoly by the recently merged company. Therefore, Time Warner must open up the use of its cable lines to several competitors before it can offer its own high-speed access service.
High-speed Internet access or broadband is an 'always-on' Internet connection that is much faster than a 56 kilobits per second dial-up modem. 'Always-on' means that there is no connecting and disconnecting the Internet.
Currently, cable and digital subscriber lines (DSL) are the two most common forms of high-speed access. Cable access is normally cheaper because the connection is shared within your neighborhood. Like a dial-up modem, DSL uses your telephone line to connect to the Internet. However, with DSL (unlike a dial-up modem) you can make phone calls while surfing the Web.
According to the conditions of the December 14 merger between AOL and Time Warner, the new company must sign agreements with at least two competing Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in each region before it can provide it's own high-speed access. Opening up one company's cable lines to allow for competition in the provision of Internet access is called 'open access'. For this reason, on July 3rd AOL Time Warner filed a petition with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) stating that they plan to allow cable access to potential competitors Juno Online and High Speed Access Corp. (HSA). Previously, they signed a similar agreement with Earthlink.
The Federal Trade Commission's role in regulating the private sector on the open access issue is important because the Internet has evolved, for the most part, free of government intervention. Instead, the industry has regulated itself on important policy decisions. However, self-regulation does not always lead to well-informed policies that take the social needs of the public into consideration. For example, on-line privacy is one area where consumer needs are not being met.
Currently, telecommunications is a competitive sector with many Internet service providers offering service while the cable industry is monopolistic by region. This is why you get three phone bills i.e. local, long distance and mobile phone but only one cable TV bill. This is also why you can only get cable service from Time Warner in Manhattan and Cablevision in the Bronx. However, cable Internet access could become a monopoly if steps are not taken by lawmakers to encourage competition.
In telecommunications, the company that controls "the last mile" of connection between the local phone or cable provider to your home determines who can offer you Internet service. Open access groups such as the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) are pushing to make sure that independent Internet service providers gain access to Time Warner's cable lines. In a March 2 statement to a Senate Subcommittee, the Center's Executive Director Jerry Berman said that AOL Time Warner's position on open access was "a very positive step."
However, AOL Time Warner's current petition to the Federal Trade Commission has not been well received by open access groups. This is because there may be a common financial interest between AOL Time Warner and High Speed Access Corp., one of the potential competitors named in the petition.
Here is a quick review of the potential competitors. New York-based Juno is a free Internet service provider with 4.1 million subscribers that recently announced a merger with NetZero, another free provider. The new company, if approved, would be the 2nd largest Internet service provider, after AOL Time Warner. Colorado-based High Speed Access is funded by Vulcan Ventures, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's company. A Center for Democracy and Technology expert rejected High Speed Access as a competing Internet service provider citing common financial interests between AOL Time Warner and Paul Allen.
The Federal Trade Commission has 90-days to review and decide whether or not to approve AOL Time Warner's plan. If the plan is approved, it is likely to be implemented in New York first since both AOL Time Warner and Juno are based in New York. During the first 30-days of this time period, the Federal Trade Commission opens a public comment session to evaluate the proposed Internet service providers.
Another popular cable Internet provider in New York is Roadrunner that was formed in 1998 by Time Warner, MediaOne, Microsoft, Compaq and Advance/Newhouse. While the company may be an alternative to AOL Time Warner's future service and it's newly named competitors, there is no escaping the fact that it is owned in part by Time Warner. In light of AOL Time Warner's planned service, Roadrunner's ownership further contributes to the limiting, rather than broadening, of consumer choice in the broadband market.
Is the proposed AOL Time Warner plan a step towards competition and open access or are New Yorkers faced with a case of media monopoly? On one hand, choosing AOL Time Warner as your cable and Internet provider could minimize the number of bills that sit on your dining room table each month. On the other, consumers should be free to choose whichever Internet provider they like.
Clearly, AOL Time Warner is placing their bets on coach potatoes who would rather write one check for cable TV and high-speed Internet service. While the company is obligated to let other players into the marketplace, they have an advantage as the cable provider. This is why the Federal Trade Commission merger conditions require AOL Time Warner to give access to competitors before they offer their own high-speed service.
This is one issue that New Yorkers should watch closely over the next three months. The Federal Trade Commission's decision may mean the difference between trends toward media monopoly or increased competition. In the end, you may need to decide whether to switch to AOL Time Warner or one of its competitors, or stick with your current provider.
In Other News:
This month, New York became the first state to ban cell phone use while driving. Using a hands-free cell phone and emergency calls, on the other hand, are ok. Violators face fines of $100. Unlike many other mobile companies, Verizon Wireless supports this legislation.
Laura Forlano is a doctoral student studying communication technology policy at Columbia University.
The chaos surrounding Florida's presidential election counts and recounts may have cost New Yorkers the president of their choice. But for New York City there is a thin silver lining around this national cloud. The presidential election debacle triggered a scrutiny of the city's election machinery that has forced the city's creaking Board of Elections to take steps -- albeit baby steps -- to run a better election this year. And, if we're lucky, very lucky, this new scrutiny from the press, the politicians, and our perennial watchdog groups will prompt real change in the way elections are run in the city -- starting with scrapping the Tammany-era patronage system that operates our election system.
We have been given a Mayor's task force, a Governor's task force, and, yes, even an ex-Presidents' task force on election reform. They aren't all worrying about New York City's elections, but they are studying election processes, making recommendations, issuing reports. The mayor's belatedly-appointed task force is charged with serving as a kind of intermediary between the Board of Elections and the rest of city and state government in the hope that this fall's elections are not so chaotic that New York gets a "black eye like Florida," as the task force's chairman, former Senate Minority Leader Manfred Ohrenstein, has said. The mayor's task force has been raising important issues that the Board of Elections seemed content to let sit. But even the task force members themselves wonder what can be accomplished by a task force appointed by the mayor only four months before the September 11 primary. Meanwhile, the city's civic groups have been hammering at the issues surrounding the forthcoming election since the new year. The Citywide Coalition for Voter Participation, led by the New York Public Interest Research Group and Common Cause, pressed the City Council and the mayor's office to give the Board of Elections enough money to run this year's election properly -- even while recognizing that the board suffers from serious management problems that should be the focus of long-term reform. Citizens Union has stepped in with a kind of citizen self-help program by recruiting at least 300 voters to serve as new poll workers throughout the City. In addition, the New York Public Interest Research Group and Citizens Union have been closely monitoring the Board of Elections since January, sending observers to every Board meeting.
Prodded by all this scrutiny and even its own fear of a Florida redux, the Board of Elections has lumbered toward some improvements. It is in the process of hiring its first Chinese speaking staff members and is said to be making extra efforts to ensure that ballots are properly translated to avoid a repeat of last year's humiliation when some Chinese ballots listed the Democratic candidates as Republicans and vice versa. The board is also promising to improve its recruitment and training of poll workers, who are mostly patronage hires and are considered by many to be the weakest link in the city's election process. The board is pushing the legislature and the mayor to increase the poll workers' pay, recognizing that $130 for a relentless 16-hour day is a major barrier to recruitment.
There is little question that these improvements should mitigate the chaos at the polls on primary day and result in a better election. But the board's last minute scramble to prepare for the primary reveals the chronic management flaws that hobble every election. For instance, the board, working with the mayor's task force, began only six weeks before the primary to try to figure out how to count the 100,000 paper ballots expected to be cast in the Democratic primary in time for the runoff two weeks later. Because the races this year are historically crowded and competitive, these ballots -- absentee, affidavit, and emergency ballots -- could decide whether there is a runoff and who is in it. How many days after September 11 will two or three candidates -- and the voters -- be waiting to find out who is in the runoff?
Word seeped out recently that the board was considering asking the legislature to postpone the primary runoff because the Board was worried it couldn't count the paper ballots fast enough to identify the winners in time. The board's executive director disputes this report and swears he is doing everything he can to ensure that the paper ballots will be counted promptly. Civic groups and others are pressing the mayor to give the board the $800,000 it has requested to hire enough workers to count the votes quickly.
The money should be allocated -- the city's voters should not be punished further because the board has been sloppy. But why wasn't the board prepared better for this? When everyone has known for months that this year's elections are unusually crowded and competitive, why did the board wait until July to declare this emergency? Indeed, just last year, it took 45 days for the board to count the paper ballots in the Goodman-Krueger state senate race, and a recent report from the State Board of Elections laid the blame for this chaos at the feet of the city Board. And, in 1997, a series of mishaps -- called a "pattern of ineptitude" by a federal judge -- left city voters wondering for 10 crucial days whether there would be a runoff between Ruth Messinger and Al Sharpton. With this history, why wasn't the b board fretting about the paper ballot count in January?
Every election it seems there is some snafu that in a close election could seriously undermine the integrity of the results and in other elections simply wears down voters' confidence. Along with the Goodman-Krueger fiasco, last year's elections were shot through with serious problems. Many voters faced broken machines, seemingly interminable lines, poll workers whose poor training made it harder to vote, inadequate translations, jammed phone lines, and names that had disappeared from the voter registration rolls. In 1988, voters in the city's minority neighborhoods turned out in record numbers to cast votes for Jesse Jackson in the presidential primary. They met with widespread disenfranchisement in the form of broken machines and disappearing registrations.
We are often quick to blame the city's 40-year-old voting machines. Yes, they need to be replaced in time, but they are not the problem. A recent MIT/CalTech study of the presidential elections determined that the old lever machines can be one of the most reliable methods of voting. But not in New York City. According to this study, New York City -- particularly Brooklyn and the Bronx -- had "residual" vote rates that exceeded Florida's and rivaled counties with the infamous punch card ballot. (Residual votes are made up of uncounted, unmarked, and spoiled ballots; the MIT/CalTech team considered this the best measure of a voting system.) New York City's undervote was three times that of the rest of New York State. What's wrong here? We have machines that should be among the most accurate, but for some reason our city's votes are getting thrown away.
The real problem rests with the board and the patronage system that runs it. By law, the board is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. By law, most of its workforce is also bipartisan. What this means is that the board is a patronage system to its core. Everyone -- from administrative assistants to machine technicians to translators -- is hired through contacts with local party bosses. A recent administrative position was listed as "Staten Island Democrat" -- in other words it was to be filled by the Staten Island Democrats. While the bipartisan composition of the board is written into the state's constitution, there is nothing to stop the City Council, which selects the board members, from demanding that the board cease operating as a patronage machine.
This election will be over in November. If there is no disaster, the city's problems with its election systems will likely slip from view until election season rolls around again. But New York City's voters will continue to be disenfranchised as our votes are lost through bad management. The scrutiny that began for this election season must continue until real change is made. The only true way to reform New York City's election process is to scrap the patronage system that runs the board today -- as it has for decades -- and substitute an accountable, nonpartisan agency. Will any of our elected officials take this on?
Susan Reefer is a Republican pollster and media strategist. She is based in New York City.
After each census comes the dance known as redistricting. This time around, New York City and the surrounding suburbs accounted for virtually all the growth in New York State. Much of upstate actually lost population. The result is that, however the new districts are drawn, they will have to benefit New York City, giving the city more representatives in the New York State Senate and New York State Assembly, as well as preserving the city's proportion of the state's dwindling U.S. Congressional delegation. But that doesn't mean the process is going to be pretty. Redistricting, some observers have said, is like sausage; one does not want to watch what goes into making it.
The number of members of the New York State Assembly who represent New York City will increase from 61 to 63, out of a total of 150 seats. The number of members of the New York State Senate must increase from about 25 to about 26 (some State Senators have districts that include only parts of the city), out of a total of 62 seats.
In the United States Congress, it will be more complicated. The total number of members of Congress in New York State must drop from 31 to 29. Much of that loss must come from upstate. But the 14 local members of Congress may see their seat dangerously redrawn for a different reason - the change in ethnic and racial composition.
In the past, Congressional districts were created in very odd shapes in order to carve out a district in which the majority of the population were "minorities." Thanks to recent rulings by the United States Supreme Court, when the 2000 redistricting gets into full swing, strangely shaped districts will be seen as "constitutionally suspect" and may need to be redrawn. These could include Nydia Velazquez's Congressional district, already redrawn for the 1996 election, which includes parts of Brooklyn, Queens and the Lower East Side; Nita Lowey's Congressional district, which swings down from Westchester through the Bronx into parts of Queens; and Elliot Engel's district, which puts together minority populations in several areas of the Bronx with portions of Yonkers, Mount Vernon and New Rochelle.
It is true that race or Hispanic status can no longer be the "predominant" or primary factor in redrawing districts, but a recent Supreme Court ruling indicates race can be considered. Voting rights specialists use the terms "packing" and "cracking" when describing the methods to dilute minority-voting power. "Packing" means corralling the minority voters in as few districts as possible, so that, while a minority candidate might be elected, the white incumbents in the nearby districts will not be threatened.
"Cracking" means splitting the minority vote among several districts so that they will be unable to elect a preferred candidate. Recently, "unpacking" of the state legislature occurred in New Jersey, a process upheld by the federal courts so far. African American Democrats in that state originally backed the plan. But the slate proposed by the Democrats in the mixed race districts, once the plan was accepted, is all white. How will all these factors affect such districts as the one represented for decades by Charlie Rangel, for instance, the dean of the Black Congressional Caucus who now finds himself in the second most heavily Hispanic district in New York State at just over 50 percent?
Redistricting is often an exercise in absurdity done behind closed doors. But there are some signs that this time around, it will at least be more out in the open. Governor George Pataki has budgeted three million dollars so that his office may become involved, and the new computer technology means that regular members of the community can at least theoretically learn what is going on, and make their voices heard.
Andrew A. Beveridge has taught sociology at Queens College since 1981, done demographic analyses for the New York Times since 1993, and provides expert testimony on a range of cases, including housing discrimination. The opinions expressed are his alone.