PITTSBURGH – Your recent article, Telecom Reform in Michigan Could Save Consumers Money, Create Jobs, repeated a number of claims made by Bell telephone companies and their friends in their effort to get special favors from legislators. While they claim to support lower prices for consumers, what they really want is a leg-up over their competitors.
The 1996 Telecommunications Act, which the Bells spent millions of dollars lobbying to support, expressly allows telephone companies to enter the video market. But rather than invest in upgrading their networks, the Bells have chosen to milk their old phone monopolies, while cable companies – like the small operators I represent, some with only several hundred customers – have invested over $100 billion in private dollars upgrading their networks for high-speed Internet. As a result, 91 percent (and counting) of the homes cable serves nationwide have access to our broadband offering.
Instead of supporting Bell-backed state or national video franchising legislation that would give telephone companies an advantage over their competitors, let’s agree to several principles:
First, there should be a level playing field among competitors. Cable and telephone companies should be required to abide by the same rules and obligations in the spirit of fair play. Second, cable companies have agreed to anti-discrimination obligations for decades. Failing to prevent telephone companies from discriminating based on income or race would undermine core American values. Thirdly, local governments have a significant role to play in ensuring the well-being of their neighborhoods.
These should be principles with which we can all agree will bring telecommunications competition to all, not just a few.
To read the article, click on Telecom Reform in Michigan Could Save Consumers Money, Create Jobs
This column was written by Matthew Polka, President & CEO, American Cable Association, and Board Member, Broadband Everywhere.
