Rural Indiana to Get DSL → Re: Franchise Agreement Legislation is good!

is this senate bill 816 which has died, what a shame - why is it that CATV is allowed to enter the phone business with no regulation, but the ILEC's must negotiate with every city, large or small, across the state even though rights of way and easements are already established. I agree rules for public access and competition must be delt with, but certainly that can be done at the state or county level. Most important, if you listen to subscribers, they want more competition for CATV.

I dont think cable phone, is completely unregulated. Plus the outrages cost of local phone shows the motivation of the telco to be just as honest. I would like more phone competition and more catv competition. Local franchising ensures fair and reasonable expectation from the provider.

I also agree with moonpuppy if they remove home rule, peg channels will go away. I think peg is very important to a town. The other thing will be service levels.

senate bill 816 is Missouri's versions and should die. It is biased towards phone companies. MO legislature should look to the KS bill for an example of one that is procompetition and protects consumers.

I still would like to see some independent studies on the different impacts different franchise systems will have.

It seems like right now everyone (media included) is buying the idea that a state or federal level franchise agreement (usually proposed without build-out requirements) result in some deployment, penetration, and new-employment utopian wonderland.

Call me a "telco hater" if you will, but I'm skeptical of the promises I'm hearing out of the telco's mouths, and would enjoy seeing some real data on the issue.

The KS bill requires PEG channels for all cities and allots more based on size of the city. In order to remove that provision a new franchise agreement law would have to be written and passed that repeals the first. That is not likely to happen if the only provision of the bill is to remove PEG channels which everyone agrees is something consumers need.

its because the FCC rulled you can't regulate VoIP. But you can regulate Video.

wow, can I get the bank to loan me a million dollars without having them check my credit/collateral/employment/references??

nope. sure can't.

this is the same thing-they want the farm, but without anything to bind them into doing what they propose.

These bills are generally written by telco attorneys, given to well-paid guys like Barton on the down-low, briefly revised to take off any sharp edges, then passed as law with consumers - the people who are actually supposed to be represented - never so much as having a say in any of it.

And now all I hear is about how state-wide or federal franchise systems result in X,Y and Z, with none of it supported by anything other than telco PR rep rhetoric?

Where is the skepticism? Where are the facts?

Oh, I am full skepticism with any telecom bill. That's why I got directly involved in my state and you should do the same in yours.

Its amazing what you can accomplish on the state level if you send a well crafted email to every state senator and rep. You can work with them to alert them to problems with bell written bills and work with them to add amendments to those bills before they go to a full vote.

If you are concerned, just get involved!

I've been pretty involved locally, but since NY is pretty liberal, a lot of this stuff doesn't get passed here. About to get Eliot Spitzer as the governor too, so I'm not too worried locally about such a bill passing here....

However it may get passed nationally.

My concern remains that people are praising these national & state-level franchise bills, sans mandated deployment requirements, without much skepticism or hard data that I can see.

Excellent questions....one question I've been asking is why this preemption of cities has to be done RIGHT NOW as telcos have had 10 YEARS to offer video, and they haven't done squat.

My fear is that you're going to get an essentially deregulated cable industry, then, as usual, the telcos are going to fall flat on their faces, and you're going to have one provider in an area with little or no oversight.

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Excellent questions....one question I've been asking is why this preemption of cities has to be done RIGHT NOW as telcos have had 10 YEARS to offer video, and they haven't done squat.

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I think the speed of getting the franchises is the smokescreen.

I think the real push is to get laws on the books that protect them from anyone requiring them to deploy to "X" amount of a territory. That, and have a centralized point of lobbying contact on the state or federal level.

Yes, that is very true. I would like to ask all the proponents out there for national/state franchising is how quick your complaint about service, pricing, or the fact your street has been torn up for months for somebody's fiber, is going to be handled by the FCC (or state secretary's office).

I would also argue that local officials would know better what localized improvements are needed. For instance if we put that kind of power in the hands of the NY state lawmakers, all the attention would go toward NYC where their contributors and biggest base lie, while the rest of the state struggled.

Do you work for the an ILEC?