WPCNR MR. & MRS. & MS. WHITE PLAINS VOICE . By James Kenny, Executive Director White Plains Access TV. November 14, 2005: The head of White Plains Public Access Television draws citizens’ attention to a threat to cable television as we know it in a letter to WPCNR:
Dear White Plains Public Access Producers and Viewers:
Legislation has been proposed in Congress that is detrimental to the funding of public access and removes control of rights-of-way (wiring the city for cable) from the local government. Access in White Plains has been a model for the rest of Westchester County. We need to maintain local control of the franchising process and the ability to offer local programming whether through the cable system or a new system being built by Verizon.
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The time to take action is now. We need your help as producers and citizens. Please help by contacting our representatives in Washington to tell them that access TV is important to this community and that control of our rights-of-way should not be legislated away to bureaucrats in Albany or Washington.
Attached is a sample letter which you can use as a starting point. Contact information for our senators and congresswoman is listed below. Thank you in advance for any assistance you can offer at this critical time.
Sincerely James Kenny
Executive Director White Plains Access TV
SAMPLE LETER TO SEND TO CONGRESS
Dear Representative:
Please oppose the Internet Protocol and Broadband Services legislation on which the House Telecommunications Subcommittee is holding hearings starting November 9. And please contact Representatives Upon, Barton and other House leaders to let them know your concerns and opposition. Please do so promptly, as otherwise the bill will be reported out of Committee around Thanksgiving in a rush to judgment before it can be modified to be fair to all municipalities and the public.
This legislation started off as a bipartisan effort to fast track phone company entry into the cable business with all parties at the table — telephone, cable, municipal and consumer groups — with the goal of crating fair competition in cable to benefit consumers. The goals of the process and dialogue were simple.
Phone companies would receive a fast track franchise process, but not be granted franchises on preferable terms or conditions than their cable competitors. Consumers would receive a choice of broadband providers with a guarantee of net neutrality. State and local governments would maintain rights-of-way management control and be kept whole in terms of social obligations and fees they receive from cable and phone companies. All groups provided input on Commerce Committee staff’s initial draft of a bill, released in September.
The new staff draft, released November 3, is a giant step backward: It is no longer bipartisan.
Only the phone companies win. Consumers lose because the phone companies no longer have to provide phone or cable service to all residents, the way phone companies and cable companies do now.
Competition loses because the bill allows phone and cable companies to buy out their competitors (the prior draft banned this). The bill is pro-monopoly, not pro-competition.
Municipalities lose because they are not kept whole financially, as leadership promised. And the bill does this even though under it, construction in the rights of way will increase dramatically, as the phone companies tear up the streets nationwide to build their new networks, increasing municipal costs.
The bill harms municipalities financially in three major ways. First, it cuts cable type franchise fees by around 10% by excluding “non-subscriber” revenues from franchise fee calculations.
Second, it limites the fees traditionally paid by phone companies to use the rights of way — such as Metro Act fees in Michigan and franchise and per access line fees paid in Texas and other states — to costs. This may cost local governments tens or hundreds of millions of dollars per year in rent for use of their streets.
Third, the bill eliminates the grants and in kind support for cable channels used by local governments, schools, and the public. Currently such grants are a user fee, paid by cable subscribers to support programming on these channels, just as subscribers fund the programming provided on all other channels.
Under the bill the funding for such channels is supposed to come from general municipal revenues, which is unfair to residents with satellite dishes or otherwise without cable, who now must support a service they cannot get.
Finally the bill Federalizes musch local control over streets and highways, with lists of what municipalities can and cannot do. This is an affront to states and municipalities across the country. And it misses a major point:
Stereets are there in the first instance for vehicles. Internet commerce for ordering goods on line is not worth much if the streets are so poor the goods break enroute, or don’t arrive on time. This can only be managed locally, not by the Federal Government.
Municipalities support competition in cable and telephone service. The initial process on this bill was a bipartisan effort to provide fast track franchising with the critical interests of all parties protected. The current draft serves only phone company interests.
For these reasons, please oppose the Internet Protocol and Broadband Services legislation and let the House leadership know of your opposition.
Sincerely
FAX NUMBERS of Legislators to Fax this letter to:
The Honorable Joe Barton Fax 202-225-3052
Senator Chuck Schumer Fax 202-228-3027
Senator Hillary Clinton Fax 202-228-0282
Congresswoman Nita Lowey Fax 202-225-0546
