Momentum for Franchise Reform in Congress

If the recent activity and hearing on Capitol Hill is any indication, I think Congress is finally getting the message that consumers want real video choice. A bipartisan group of six Senators (Smith-OR, DeMint-SC, Ensign-NV, McCain-AZ, Rockefeller-WV, Kerry-MA) endorsed a strikingly sensible set of video competition principles to streamline the video franchise process. Yesterday, the Senate Commerce committee (Techliberation has a good summary, Red Herring covers it too) held a hearing with corporate executives and consumer advocates basically saying the same thing – consumers deserve cable choices and franchise reform has to happen to make video choice a reality.

Earlier this week, Consumers for Cable Choice and dozens of other consumer focused organizations filed comments at the Federal Communcations Commission supporting franchise reform. The FCC also held a rare field hearing in Keller, TX where Verizon is going head-to-head with the local cable company with their FiOS video product

We can’t sit back and wait though. The anti-competition types are poised to halt the current momentum to protect their business interests at the expense of the consumer interest. Take action and remind your member of Congress how important video choice is to you.

Comments

[Richard Thomas]

I just purchased a little app called "MobiTV" for my Palm TX. It's pretty neat to have TV content wherever I can find a hotspot but the channel selection is very limited, apparently because of regulations about who can broadcast what and where.

I am happy to spend the money for more channels, the mobiTV people would be happy to provide them to me and no doubt the content producers would have no worries about selling their content through MobiTV yet this transaction is prevented from ocurring. Let's have a bit of free market here and let this kind of technology flourish. Welcome to the 21st century.

Rich

[Conner]

I am so frustrated with my cable provider I could SCREAM!!!!!!!!!! In America of all places I have no choice of cable provider and it drives everyone in our community crazy. How did a few of these poorly run outfits get a virtual monopoly on our TV choices????? This simple isn't right and I will support all efforts to get competition back into the cable franchise business.

[Robert L. Walton]

We need choices. I thought there were laws against monopolies! In my area, we have cable choice and one land phone choice and their rates are sky-high. We need competition to drive down these over-priced services driven by "greed"! Soon, our utilities will be as ridiculous as the gasoline prices -- all contrived to get the rich - richer!

[Technophobe]

Why do we still have this monopoly of cable and video? I could maybe understand it back in the beginning as a way to provide incentive to string the lesser-populated areas, but now?

I believe it is past time for true competition to be introduced into this market and frankly I don't care who the competition is as long as they can break up the cable franchise monopolies as they currently exist. HELP!!!!!!!!