We've long covered how the phone companies, eager to get into the TV business, convinced dozens of states to pass "franchise reform" laws over the last few years that placed all franchise responsibilities at the state level. While lauded by carriers (whose lobbyists wrote most of these laws) as a panacea for TV competition and lumbering and/or demanding local bureaucracies, many of the laws are absolutely horrible -- eroding consumer protections, freeing carriers from any and all build out obligations, and in some cases even eroding local eminent domain rights.

Just how bad many of these laws are is one of the more under-reported telecom stories of the decade.

Slashdot directs our attention to the fact that Detroit has now sued Comcast, insisting that the cable giant still has to adhere to a 1985 franchise agreement despite the fact that Michigan now has a statewide agreement forged in 2006. Under the statewide agreement (given it was written by carriers) Comcast of course no longer has to do much of anything to help the local community -- and Detroit's obviously annoyed, given they're one of many U.S. communities that can obviously use all the help they can get. This entire fracas sets up an interesting showdown between state and local interests:Many of these states didn't realize how awful these laws were until they were passed, thanks to phone company astroturf groups like TVUS -- who demonized the dysfunction of the very local franchises that without which -- most cable users wouldn't have service today. While local franchise rules certainly could have used "reform" and some localities certainly are greedy in negotiations -- the actual reform enacted was often little more than wishlists written by Verizon, AT&T and Comcast lobbyists that did absolutely nothing for either TV prices or competition -- and in many cases made matters much worse for the end users.

This Detroit fight would appear to be one to watch and is the first of its kind that we've seen.