The Kankakee County Farm Bureau wants to stop net neutrality. So does the Erie Neighborhood House, along with Downtown Springfield Inc, Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Will and Grundy Counties, and the mayor of North Chicago.

The organizations all share several things: they are located in Illinois, they want the FCC to focus on broadband adoption rather than net neutrality, and... they all have connections to AT&T.

Everyone has an opinion



Thursday was the last day to file comments with the FCC about network neutrality, and the docket is now stuffed with more than 13,000 responses.

Both sides in the net neutrality debate have rounded up various civil rights groups for their position, but those opposing network neutrality seem far more likely to have taken money from the major players. That's no surprise; infrastructure companies like Comcast and AT&T have representatives in every town in the country, along with a footprint on the ground. They employ local workers just about everywhere, and they know how to spread the cash around. Internet and computer companies tend not to have this sort of local presence across the US.

It's not necessarily a question of buying opinions, either. AT&T reps sit on the local Chamber of Commerce, they sponsor local service agencies. That money does good things in many towns. When the AT&T reps describe the "danger" they are under from regulators run amok in Washington, it all sounds reasonable—and it's coming from someone in your community. When groups are then told they can weigh in at the FCC on some issue, and given dates and docket numbers, many of them do so and make remarkably similar arguments.

To see this in action, we gathered FCC net neutrality comments from organizations in the state of Illinois that were made over the last two days. Then we looked up those groups and tried to figure out why they might have an interest in the issue. Here's what we found.

Kankakee County Farm Bureau. Comment: "If the government is to be involved, it should be promoting broadband access and adoption. It should not be imposing mandates that will raise prices and slow expansion."

A local farm bureau would not seem to be interested in network neutrality proceedings at the FCC, but reps from the Farm Bureau, AT&T, and Comcast sit together on the local Chamber of Commerce Government Affairs Committee. It's not hard to imagine why a farm bureau might develop an opinion on the issue, and why that opinion might be that net neutrality will "raise prices and slow expansion."

Erie Neighborhood House. This local Chicago social services organization does plenty of good work, enough that it is funded to the tune of millions of dollars a year by various government entities. It also received $10,000-$25,000 from Comcast in 2009, along with $5,000-$10,000 from AT&T Illinois, according to its annual report.

Mayor of North Chicago. This suburban mayor weighed in on the side of AT&T. Not mentioned: the fact that, according to press reports, he worked for AT&T for several decades before entering politics, opened his city to U-Verse back when AT&T was refusing to sign local franchise agreements, and has been willing to offer quotes for AT&T press releases praising U-Verse.

Downtown Springfield, Inc. This local group of business boosters doesn't quite have a handle on the issues. Comment: "Such a regulatory overreach also has further consequences the Commission must consider—will there be salary neutrality enforced on carriers? Economic development or jobs neutrality? Will search engines and web developers be forced to be neutral in their content and services? To become so involved in a singular function of the carriers' business, the FCC must be able to define why content delivery is separate from all other facets of the Internet business."

Actually, that definition is pretty obvious: ISPs are a choke point to everything else on the Internet in a way that no one else is. And we're not sure what "salary neutrality" even means.

Not surprisingly, AT&T is a member of the group.

Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Will and Grundy Counties. Comment: "The ability to utilize this technology in a cost-effective manner did not happen by accident or by government policy. It happened because of a competitive marketplace that rewarded the companies who invested in the latest networks and products. I believe that the development of new federal rules and regulations will only inhibit these types of investments."

The Big Brothers/Big Sisters, especially at the local level, aren't known for having opinions of the innovation effects of government policies in the telecommunications sector... but they do take money from AT&T, as the picture below reminds us.

AT&T is a major corporate donor

Ministerial Alliance Against the Digital Divide. This group is a bit odder. Formed early in the decade, it was initially an opponent of AT&T's Lightspeed (now U-Verse) precisely because AT&T wouldn't sign local franchise agreements and commit to serving most residents of a city. "Digital redlining," the group called it.

Then came a change of heart, and the group's near-total effort seemed devoted to praising U-Verse as a needed competitor to the evil cable companies. The group's leader, from Chicago, even made a point of traveling out to wealthy western suburbs of the city to testify at numerous city councils on the issue.

The group now says that "we strongly discourage the FCC from setting any rules that would upset this progress towards achieving 100% broadband access and the elimination of the Digital Divide."

Schaumburg Business Association. Comment: "We urge you to adopt a plan that encourages investment by the private sector and promotes 100 percent broadband adoption as the top priority of your Broadband Plan."

Who sits on the group's Legislative Committee? AT&T, of course.

It's all local

When you're trying to drum up broad national support from grassroots groups, you need a local presence. AT&T has one, and it knows how to use that presence to get its message out. That's a big advantage in politics, and it doesn't require dark tales of obvious kickbacks under the table to suggest how and why AT&T is able to influence local groups to write letters on issues far out of their comfort zone.

If you like AT&T's rep on the local Chamber of Commerce, and you golf with him once in a while, and he tells you how new rules threaten his business, wouldn't you want to help him out and keep the meddling bureaucrats away?

A final note: nearly all of the small, local groups that weighed in on net neutrality stressed that 100 percent broadband access was more important. This also suggests why the major ISPs all seem to love the FCC's National Broadband Plan—it's relatively tame, it focuses on expensive or hard-to-reach customers, and none of its proposals threaten things the ISPs want to do.

By supporting the NBP, ISPs don't have to look like bad guys when they trash net neutrality; see, they do support the FCC in its most important work!