A Lesson From Cable Bill’s Death

A BILL THAT COULD HAVE dramatically changed the way cable television companies are regulated is dead in the Tennessee General Assembly, at least for this year. The bill should not be quickly forgotten, though.

The “Competitive Cable and Video Service Act” would have allowed cable companies to be certified to provide service statewide, without negotiating franchise agreements with individual cities and counties, as they must now.

AT&T, the San Antonio-based telecommunications giant, said the legislation would make it easier for more than one cable company to serve a particular market. However, facing fierce opposition from municipal leaders across the state as well as some of AT&T’s potential competitors within the industry, the bill’s sponsors withdrew the legislation last week.

There were lots of reasons the bill could have been bad for consumers.

Cities and counties would have lost control over where and how cable equipment could be installed along their streets and other public property. Cities and counties would have been unable to insist that cable providers dedicate channels to community access or educational programming.

And there would have been no way to stop cable companies from concentrating their efforts on wealthy neighborhoods with the highest profit potential, leaving lower-income residents with jacked- up rates, lower-quality service or without access to any service at all.

Despite its flaws, though, the bill should be a wake-up call for Tennessee’s cities and counties, especially Memphis.

AT&T’s central argument for the bill – that it would encourage more competition – strikes a chord with many cable TV consumers.

There’s a lot of frustration among consumers who have experienced problems with poor TV reception or billing issues, without getting satisfactory responses from their cable providers. For example, when Comcast took over Time Warner Inc.’s 220,000 Memphis customers several months ago, the transition didn’t go smoothly.

There were numerous problems reported with billing. Those were made worse by a customer response system that kept customers on the telephone for average wait times as high as 45 minutes in February.

Since Memphis issues a franchise to Comcast, the city has the power to insist on strict performance standards. If it chooses, the city could penalize Comcast, or any other cable provider, for failing to meet standards included in a franchise agreement.

Memphis and other cities across the state should take their responsibility to protect cable customers seriously. Local governments should actually try to regulate the cable businesses within their jurisdictions, as opposed to just collecting franchise fees and allowing companies to do whatever they want.

If cities and counties don’t use the power they have to effectively regulate the cable business, state legislators in Nashville may eventually decide to take that power away.

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USE IT OR LOSE IT

If cities and counties want to keep the power to regulate the cable TV industry, they should take that responsibility seriously.

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(c) 2007 Commercial Appeal, The. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.