[opendtv] News: Cable and Broadcast Oppose House Telecom Draft
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 10:40:13 -0500
http://www.tvtechnology.com/dailynews/one.php?id=3438
Date posted: 2005-11-11
Cable and Broadcast Oppose House Telecom Draft
Every once in a while, broadcasters and cable operators end up on the
same side, as they have on the latest telecom bill circulating in the
House of Representatives. Both factions opposed the draft bill's
provisions allowing telcos to sail into the video business under
rules the cable industry can only dream about.
The 70-page discussion draft on Internet and broadband regulation
would let telcos forego the type of local video franchise agreements
that cable operators have bemoaned since they started stringing
wires. Telcos would simply have to register with the FCC to enter a
market. The draft also leaves must-carry, retransmission and other
video provider rules up to the FCC, which can be petitioned to issue
waivers. For cable, must-carry and retrans are the stuff of
Congressional edict, and can only be waived by Congressionally
wielded writing instruments.
At a House Telecom Subcommittee hearing on the draft, Jim Yager, CEO
of Barrington Broadcasting, said telcoTV should play by the same
rules as cable.
"Absent retransmission consent, a video distributor would simply take
a broadcaster's signal and profit from it," he testified. "Meanwhile,
the government would set the rate by which the broadcaster is
compensated, and the station would never even have the opportunity to
negotiate its carriage terms."
The draft calls for the FCC to review the telcoTV rules every four
years, and "eliminate any regulations ... to the extent that the
commission determines that such regulations are no longer necessary
as the result of meaningful economic competition."
"Why do laws like must-carry, that Congress enacted in 1992, that
have been reaffirmed not once, but twice by the Supreme Court...
suddenly need to be defended every four years?" Yager said.
Representing cable at the hearing, Mike Willner, president and CEO of
Insight Communications, also said telcoTV should play by the same
rules as cable. Willner specifically criticized the way the bill
addressed video, data, voice and the combination of all three
differently, and how it singled out Internet Protocol video
technology for regulation.
"A technology-based approach creates a perverse incentive for
providers to select the technologies they use based on a particular
regulatory result, even if they do not necessarily respond to
consumer demand most effectively and efficiently, and it may lock
them into particular technologies long after those technologies have
outlived their usefulness," Willner said.
Fred Upton (R-Mich.) chairman of the subcommittee, said completing
the telecom bill was one of his highest priorities, and that he
intended to work with Joe Barton (R-Texas) chairman of the House
Commerce Committee, to move it. The Democrats in the room begged to
differ. Barton and Upton were the chief architects of the current
draft, unlike the original version released in September, which
included input from Democrats. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said the latest
draft represented a "significant step backward."
The majority of the 15 witnesses at the hearing were underwhelmed by
both drafts. When asked by Barton which bill they preferred, most
said neither.
©2005 IMAS Publishing Group. All rights reserved.
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