Ensign, Others Want to Boost Bell TV; Stevens Offers Some Support
Six Senate Commerce Committee members want to boost Bell efforts to sell TV by erasing the need for video franchises in areas where Bells already sell wireline phone service. The proposal appeared in a plan discussed at a Wed. committee hearing on the issue. The “video competition principles” have backing from Sens. DeMint (R-S.C.), Ensign (R-Nev.), Kerry (D-Mass.), McCain (R-Ariz.), Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) and Smith (R-Ore.).
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
The proposed plan would permit “any company that has obtained a network franchise to offer video without getting a video franchise,” Smith told the hearing. Local authorities still would have power to manage rights of way, to ask video providers to carry public access channels and to obtain “reasonable compensation,” the 6 said in a letter to Commerce Chmn. Stevens (R-Alaska) and Co-Chmn. Inouye (D-Hawaii) that lacked further details on the plan. Rockefeller and Smith backed a bill to ease requirements in June (CD July 1 p1).
Stevens offered limited support for the principles. “I support the direction where they're going,” he told us after the hearing, but his office hasn’t signed off. He’s focused on trying to get telecom reform through Congress amid competing proposals from committee members, including one from Ensign and another backed by Inouye and Burns (R- Montana), Stevens said. Inouye isn’t yet “on board” with his proposals, Stevens said. “We have to find some way to protect this bill against holds. This has to move,” he told a media briefing. Stevens cited a 2005 Tex. statewide video franchise law as a model of success. Ensign wants to federalize franchising, taking it entirely out of cities’ hands.
Cable operators find Burns and Inouye’s proposal more palatable, they said. That plan would have local govt. stay heavily involved in a franchising process streamlined to avoid slowing down telcos’ bids for licenses (CD Feb 3 p2). Inouye offers good ideas for franchising reform, said Comcast Exec. VP David Cohen. “That’s the best way to proceed” because it retains local govt.’s role, he told us. Cohen told reporters he supports a Stevens-backed federal-state joint board that would examine franchising issues (CD Feb 15 p1).
The Smith plan is “a bit of a red herring argument,” said Cohen, referring to comments by telcos that they don’t need licenses to sell video where they market phone service. An NCTA spokesman echoed Cohen: “We're more closely aligned with the principles that Burns-Inouye laid out.” A great way to reform the process would be to limit the amount of time video providers must spend negotiating with franchise authorities before getting a go ahead, Cohen said: “The notion of a shot clock on the process is probably the most valuable component.” Verizon has supported such provisions, which appear in Va. video legislation passed but not yet signed into law.
Testimony by AT&T Chmn. Edward Whitacre and Verizon’s Ivan Seidenberg largely reprised their companies’ previous criticisms of franchising. Reform is “an urgent matter… the major obstacle in our path, and the biggest limiting fact to how fast we can offer video… is the existing franchise process that requires us to negotiate separate agreements with thousands of local franchise authorities,” Seidenberg said. Getting a license “takes between 12 and 18 months -- if all things go well,” said Whitacre. He backed the 6 senators’ proposal. Ameritech, since absorbed into AT&T, abandoned attempts to get franchises in 40 areas, he said. Ameritech’s 100-plus licenses prove the process works, NCTA told the FCC as part of the Commission’s franchise review (CD Feb 15 p7). AT&T responded that it took 5 years to get those franchises.
Cablevision COO Thomas Rutledge said franchising works - -- and drew intense questioning from Stevens. Asked if it’s fair for phone companies to get licenses to sell video when cable operators don’t need them for VoIP, Rutledge demurred. “The real issue is cherry picking” of rich customers, he said. Stevens cut him off. He also asked a city official about Verizon comments that municipalities have requested items like stop lights to grant franchises. “I don’t necessarily agree with [Seidenberg’s] comments,” said Lori Panzino-Tillery, a local regulator and pres. of the National Assn. of Telecom Officers & Advisors.
Cable came to municipalities’ defense. Cablevision’s negotiation of 100 plus franchise renewals since 2003 shows the system isn’t broken, said Rutledge. “The franchising system has demonstrated both sufficient flexibility to accommodate” new competitors and local needs, he said: “The only thing slowing down Verizon is Verizon, and the only thing slowing down AT&T is AT&T. The truth is that local franchising works.”