Last year Big Cable and Big Telephone interests teamed up to propose national cable franchise laws that would have killed network neutrality, privatized the Internet and allowed providers a free hand to redline broadband deployment in black, poor, rural and urban neighborhoods nationwide. Stopped in the U.S. Senate last fall, they have resurfaced in more than two dozen state legislatures from coast to coast. Prominent among supporters of Big Cable and Big Telephone are the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, thanks to tens of thousands in donations from AT&T, Verizon and Comcast.
http://www.blackagendareport.com/ One of our local lawmakers, Rep. Trey Traviesa, R-Tampa, is leading the charge. He has a bill, House Bill 529, to take away local cable regulation and give it to the state.
Traviesa says this is a "pro-consumer" idea to open up competition. (Everybody in this fight claims to be "pro-consumer," by the way.)
The sudden and complete deregulation Traviesa's bill proposes will give video companies too much power with no recourse by the public:
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The bill allows video companies to pick and choose which areas and neighborhoods they will serve, instead of serving an entire community. In theory, the bill prohibits discrimination, but there's no teeth for enforcing that.
- The bill transfers the handling of customer complaints to Tallahassee, yet gives the state little power and provides for no consequences.
- Local communities would lose some control of their own destiny. This matters to you a great deal if a right of way is running through your yard or neighborhood.
Really, the net effect is to leave new companies totally unregulated. Companies would simply pay $10,000 and be licensed almost automatically. Afterward they could transfer their certificate to any other entity, no questions.
03-22-2007
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Asani Jengo
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