BuckeyeBlog

The Washington Post reports that the Federal Communications Commission has issued rules that seek to increase competition in the cable television market.

The measure requires local regulators to rule on franchise applications within 90 days for companies such as Verizon Communications and AT&T that have wires in place. It also bars local officials from requiring that companies provide TV service to everyone in a jurisdiction and prevents them from demanding fees or in-kind contributions exceeding 5 percent of the television revenues.

This is a move in the right direction. If a company applies for a video franchise to serve an area, it has the right to expect that this application will be acted on in a timely manner. It also has the right to expect that local governments cannot extort goods and services above the 5% franchise fee cap set by law.

Of course, these new rules may not go into effect. They will probably be tied up in lawsuits for a while. However, in Ohio there may be a push next year for state video franchise reform, which would like go further than these rules. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 21st, 2006 at 2:42 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.