How's it handle? Measure candidates the same way as cars — figure out if they go off road

America's Network, Oct 1, 2000 by Art Brothers

When George Bush gets the nod on November 6, good things for rural telcos will -- in time -- happen. Why? Well, cause VP candidate Cheney is from Wyoming. He understands how we have been picked on, kicked around and otherwise badly treated by the Clinton Administration's Bureau of Land Management (BLM), National Parks Service (NPS) and Forest Service.

Utah's senior congressman is Jim Hansen. He has enough time in grade to get his pick of being chairman of committees that decide budgets for those agencies who prevent us from improving rural telephone service. The classic examples are mandates to survey, plus historical studies, even when we parallel plow a new cable alongside an old one in the borrow pit of roads that are graded annually by county, state or private owners of the property.

Every fall, rural telcos from Idaho, Wyoming and Utah have a golf game somewhere, followed by a couple days of smoozing about telephone topics. The last was at the Snow King Lodge in Jackson Hole. One of the more interesting sessions saw three companies recounting horror stories of years of delay to upgrade service along existing buried cables.

Wyoming's US Representative, Barbara Cubin, proved she is working the political machine for us. That state is so rural, they only have one person in the House of Representatives and she is solidly working against the nationally stacked deck. But Utah's Jim Hansen says Cheney could be the best thing for the West in his 20 years in the House. So Cheney's comments that Jim Hansen is the junior congressman from Wyoming is sort of -- neat.

With 20 years of seniority, look for Jim to chair a committee that the aforesaid bureaucrats will salute: Yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir. And don't forget Bush picks the next secretary of the interior. I doubt he will condone locking up land that makes for neat forest fires.

HOW DO YOU SHIFT?

We thought to try some of the popular 4x4 wagons. SUVs were rejected: too high center of gravity, lousy gas mileage and they obstruct the view of other drivers behind. The Subaru and VW Passat were examined. Both go good in snow. Off road the low center is the only hindrance and we've been up some gawd awful jeep trails.

Our method of driving is -- when waiting for lights, to move the shifter to neutral, which is a lot less effort than sitting with foot on the brake. As done in many foreign countries, on a hill, the hand brake is pulled on to keep from rolling. On green, the shifter is pulled to drive and then the hand brake released. Both got about 25 mpg. The rooftop tie downs on both are quite handy.

Hands down, the VW has the most horses and is the quietest inside. And noisy outside. At 3000 rpm it's going 80. The Subaru is about maxed out at 80 mph. Two things caused us to reject the VW over the Subaru. The German engineers did a crummy job on the hand brake. It is very difficult to engage and more so to disengage. When the VW hand brake is engaged while the engine is running, the motor wants to rise up due to idle torque. Sort of scary. The major reject is from the VW shifter not being possible to move from neutral to drive without pushing both on the foot brake -- and the release button on the shifter.

The Subaru did not suffer from these problems. The Subaru shifter goes from drive to neutral simply by moving the shifter with your fingers. The Subaru hand brake can be fully applied and released with little effort. And lastly, the headlights on the VW are always automatically on with no option to extinguish. The Subaru is optional. Lights are not desired if doing surveillance, or if you just don't want attention when sitting with the engine at idle but not going anywhere. So we have two Subarus. If VW starts to option its computer chip functions -- I'll let you know.

PSC WISDOM

US West, before it switched to Qwest, agreed to dump a passel of its fully depreciated exchanges in Utah for a reported $2600 per subscriber. The due diligence was pretty much a pile of records stacked on a conference table. A pair of clerks that didn't know more than the two consulting firms -- GV&W analysts watched as they said to hell with it. Just divide the lump dollar sum by the number of subs and that will be what each company would pay.

It's pretty well agreed that additional millions are going to be spent to bring these areas up to comparable quality of service that the independents already provide in their other Utah areas. The Utah PSC really didn't ask about this. The only thing before them was the petition to sell to the US West "approved" buyers. And, pleaded the independents, "Art, please don't upset the apple cart!" You see, years ago, in a fit of anger, USW refused to sell under 100 lines to an adjacent independent. USW first wanted a quarter mil, then a half, and then a mil. Not at that price. Afterward, the PSC required the BOC to spend another quarter mil to upgrade those 100 subs.

Hanksville is now going for the same quarter mil rejected six years ago. Except now the switch and its toll will again be replaced. Should a PSC inquire as to comparative costs of upgrades by different buyers in such sales? Should PSC ask for comparative analysis of which company would best "assimilate" undesired BOC exchanges sold in secret back-room deals that excluded companies that could assimilate those properties at less cost to subsidy payments and the public economics?