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from: The Tennessean

AT&T's stand against franchising rules is potentially discriminatory

By BISHOP GEORGE PRICE • February 3, 2008

Almost a half-century ago, the battle for civil rights and equal opportunity raged throughout the communities of Tennessee.

Leaders like Maxine Smith, Z. Alexander Looby and NAACP counsel Thurgood Marshall fought to level the legal playing field so that the minority children of the north Nashville neighborhood had merely the chance to compete with the wealthier children of Belle Meade.
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Fifty years later, the challenges to fairness and equality in Tennessee have taken on a new light. For young boys and girls of all groups, having the skills necessary to compete in the 21st-century information age and its rapidly changing economy is today's greatest challenge. Every day, those skills are being delivered through information technology and high-speed Internet.

It is all the more critical that we do everything in our power to ensure that deployment of new broadband technologies is carried out in a fair, equitable and expeditious manner, so that the boys and girls of north Nashville get a chance to compete alongside other young Tennesseans, and the rest of the world, in the ever-expanding global marketplace.

As we speak, the legislature is set to take up a bill aimed at rewriting how new broadband and video technologies offered by cable and telephone companies are deployed.

AT&T and its army of well-paid lobbyists want to eviscerate the local franchising rules that authorize cities and towns to require that, when new video and broadband providers come into town, they commit to offering service to all residents and every neighborhood, without discrimination and within a reasonable and enforceable amount of time.

The rules enable our city leaders to level the playing field and discourage companies from picking and choosing who gets the latest broadband services and who gets left behind. Most consumer groups, civil rights leaders and members of Congress — even cable companies that have operated in this system for years — agree that these rules make sense. They give local officials the ability to promote widespread competition, foster investment and connect communities, rather than divide them.

That is why it is all the more disheartening that AT&T, which has the resources to run most of its phone competitors out of business, refuses to abide by common-sense rules that protect our communities from discrimination.

These rules are the last line of defense against the all-too-common practice in the telecommunications industry known as "redlining," and truly the one means by which we can prevent what the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. described as "a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity." But that is exactly what we risk if we dismantle existing nondiscrimination rules and put these decisions outside the public square and in the corporate boardrooms.

One only need review AT&T's video business plan — clearly stating its intention to roll out new TV and broadband service to only its "high-value" customers that spend $200 a month on communications services — to see what is at stake. They want to serve only the wealthy neighborhoods with the greatest financial reward over low-income neighborhoods. The same can be expected for Tennessee's rural areas if AT&T gets its way.

It is with great care and consideration that we should undertake policy reforms that could mean the difference between relegating young boys and girls of north Nashville to a "lonely island," or ushering in a new "vast ocean" of digital prosperity for all Tennesseans.

Tennesseans should write, call and e-mail their legislators and tell them to oppose any efforts to dismantle broadband anti-discrimination rules.

George Price is the bishop of the Bethesda Original Church of God in Nashville.