House subcommittee to grill FCC on local franchising

[Note: As noted in the comments, the hearing was postponed. Still time to get your calls, letters and emails in.]

The House Commerce & Telecommunications Subcommittee is scheduled to hold a hearing today, Thursday, Feb. 15th, to review the FCC. Among the many issues of concern is the FCCs December 20th FCC Ruling on Video Franchising. The ruling:

(1) imposes a 90-day shot clock for new entrants with existing rights of
way;
(2) requires the grant of a new entrant’s franchise after 90-days;
(3) limits the scope of a new entrant's build-out obligation;
(4) authorizes a new entrant to withhold payment of fees that its deems to be in excess of the 5 percent cap;
(5) undermines support for public, educational and government (PEG) access channels PEG and local, institutional networks (INET);
(6) authorizes a new entrant to refrain from obtaining a franchise when it is upgrading mixed use facilities that will be used for the delivery of video content.

FCC Commissioner Adelstein offered these dissenting comments:

“The policy goals of this Order, to promote competitive video offerings and broadband deployment, are laudable. But while I support these goals, today’s item goes out on a limb in asserting federal authority to preempt local governments, and then saws the limb off with a highly dubious legal and policy scheme that substitutes our judgment as to what is reasonable for that of local officials – all in violation of the franchising framework established in the Communications Act.”

Commissioner Copps dissented and wrote:

"My goal was to encourage an item that preserves a local authority’s statutory right to seek specific and far-reaching build-out requirements, protects each community’s ability to negotiate for PEG and I-NET facilities, and maintains truly meaningful local ability to deal with the huge companies that are coming into our cities and towns toPublish build important infrastructure."

Save Access.org has a online letter writing tool you can use to voice your opinion with the key house members of the subcommittee.

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