Most of the folks who spoke on Friday were opposed to the new bill – so you might find their comments interesting. I suspect that the debate will be more balanced on April 13, when they are going to continue the discussion.

While this bill doesn’t give competitors access to the cable company’s infrastructure, it does provide for competition which can only help the consumer. Even if they only went in to skim the cream, in other word compete in high density areas (which is what the competitors did when they entered the telecom market), it would still create saving for a great number of people in those areas. That’s not, however, what the bill proposes.

Cable companies have benefitted from the competitors that came in and took large chunks of ILEC’s business. They have grown fat and happy as a result and have a monopoly market in video. Particularly Comcast who owns more than 45% of the nations Cable market… Outdated laws around how franchises are granted can be changed and that’s what this legislation provides.

I think as Qwest’s Stanoch put it, the legislation is modeled after how Cable was allowed to enter the telephony market. I have seen cable commissions state that it is not the same because the other decision was made by the PUC. Whatever the regulatory body is, what’s fair is fair and if it opens up the market to competition the one who benefits is the consumer. Regulatory bodies stifling competition because they don’t want to lose control of their authority do nothing for the consumer.

Move it on I say.

All of these comments and updates get me excited for the next meeting. I don’t know if that a good thing or a scary testament on how I spend my time.

Jodi mentioned this above but with a fairly generic address. Very specifically, this bill and testimony can be viewed at:

http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/htv/programa.asp?ls_year=85&event_id=1260

I agree with you. I believe that this competition can only benefit the consumer and hope they move it forward.

Up to 5% of gross revenues s a standard language, as I understand it. In other areas of the country it can be 3% etc. The most recent franchise agreements done in Grand Rapids area communities do not have any subtraction for services etc. in the franchise lanugage. Grantees are required to connect to public access, cooperate with the incumbent provider to save money or bear the cost themselves.

Thank you! You highlight a couple of important issues that I think Mike Wassenaar brought up that morning too. I have to admit that the one I really didn’t get was the ability to subtract costs from the 5% franchise fees. Is that how it works currently with the cable companies? To the untrained eye it seemed unusual – unless of course that is how it works for everyone.

At Itasca Community Television, Grand Rapids, I caught the last half of the hearing (I got my two year old to daycare first but the issue Friay was boots) at our studios and missed most of the corporate presentation. However, were up to date having been provided an early copy of the legislation. ICTV is quite concerned about the impact this could have on public access funding in the future.

Just a couple examples: The proposed legislation puts the responsibility for connecting telecos to local programming in a way that the telecos need it. That in itself is costly for municipalities and access centers. It also requires the telecos to use “good faith” and “reasonable” judgement in connecting to access stations. It is difficult to legislate or regulate faith and individual or corporate interpretations of judgement.

Also, while the 5% franchise fee is in the language, it also gives the telecos the right to subtract a wealth of their costs from the 5%, diluting what is available to the municipalities and/or public access.

The legislation, combined with the FCC’s newest orders, could also mean that telecos could possibly choose to serve areas of density and wealth easily and ignore other sectors of our state. Local franchising puts all players on an even playing field and preserves public access funding.