Barton Gives Bells 10 Years
By Ted Hearn -- Multichannel News, 3/27/2006 6:05:00 PM
Phone companies would be granted 10-year national video franchises with automatic renewal under a House bill released Monday afternoon by Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Joe Barton (R-Texas).
The release of the bill sets the stage for a hearing Thursday and a possible vote next week by the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet.
Reflecting changes sought by the cable industry, the 34-page bill would allow incumbent cable operators to escape local franchising in communities where phone companies are providing pay TV service or when their existing franchises are "no longer in effect."
“The House bill released today represents considerable progress, and we look forward to working with chairman [Barton] and all committee members in the weeks ahead,” National Cable & Telecommunications Association president Kyle McSlarrow said in a prepared statement.
McSlarrow was relieved because Barton originally wanted to deny cable incumbents a national franchise until the phone company had 15% of the local pay TV market. Barton also slapped pricing controls on cable.
"While our policy recommendation would be to reform and streamline the franchising process to ensure speedy entry by new competitors, we are pleased that the national franchising scheme proposed in the House bill seeks to ensure that all providers compete on a level playing field," McSlarrow said.
AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. have been urging Congress to adopt a national franchising approach to expedite their entry into cable markets. Under the Barton bill, the phone companies would have video-entry authorization from the Federal Communications Commission within 30 days.
“Verizon is studying the bill to make sure it meets objectives important to consumers: greater video choice, accelerated broadband deployment and a free and open Internet, unfettered by government regulation,” said Peter Davidson, Verizon’s senior vice president for federal legislative affairs, in a prepared statement.
Although the Barton bill did not include territorial-buildout requirements on phone-company video entrants, it would ban red-lining based on the economic profile of a community. The FCC is allowed to intervene in order to ensure that a neglected community is served.
Barton’s bill includes watered-down language on network neutrality, giving the FCC authority to enforce its consumer-centric broadband principles adopted last August. But the agency would not have the authority to promulgate net-neutrality rules.
The FCC could adjudicate disputes that arise under the principles, which do not directly address whether network owners are banned from establishing fee-based premium services on their high-speed-Internet platforms.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) -- who introduced a bill that would bar cable and phone companies from guaranteeing some Web merchants preferential treatment -- blasted the Barton bill.
“This legislation begins the construction of a multilayered, toll-strewn information superhighway that is out of sync with what has made the Internet work -- access for all. [My bill] ensures that the Internet will truly be free from discrimination, and I plan to continue to fight for that principle,” Wyden said in a prepared statement Monday night.
Public Knowledge, a group that seeks network-neutrality guarantees, complained that Barton’s approach failed to protect against discriminatory conduct by network providers.
“Without stronger legislation, the cable and telephone companies will have the power to change the fundamental nature of the Internet. This bill needs significant improvement before it will preserve the open Internet that consumers and service providers expect and deserve,” Public Knowledge president Gigi Sohn said.
Elsewhere, the Barton bill would require national video franchisees to contribute 1% of gross revenue to provide financial support for public-access channels and institutional networks that link government and educational facilities in a community. In the future, national franchisees would need to provide more channel capacity to public-access programming.
Barton’s bill would allow local government to offer high-speed-Internet access, provided that they do not seek any special advantages over private companies.
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