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frpm: Daily News Journal

AT&T cable bill holds no promise for state consumers
By MARGARET MAHERY

NASHVILLE — Like a bad blind date, AT&T's cable and video service legislation fails to live up to the grand promises and high expectations which preceded its introduction.

The municipal leaders of this state believe the proposal offered by AT&T is bad for consumers and, therefore, is not in the best interests of the constituents they serve. For this reason, the Tennessee Municipal League and its member-municipalities oppose the "Competitive Cable and Video Services Act."

AT&T promises this legislation will benefit consumers by assuring all Tennesseans have access to cable or video service and an expanded choice of providers. Yet, the legislation proposes to eliminate the process by which local governments establish and enforce requirements that protect our citizens and ensure that all residents are assured access to cable or video services. In fact, the bill expressly prohibits the state and local governments from enacting any consumer quality and service standards or requiring that all neighborhoods in a municipality are served.

A consumer's access to cable should not be determined by where they live, how much money they make, whether they rent or own their home, or by an individual provider's corporate business plans and strategies.

Our goal should be to ensure every Tennessean, especially those residing in smaller cities and towns and the more rural parts of this state, has access to quality cable or video service at affordable prices. Eliminating the only meaningful process we have in place to address consumers' access increases the likelihood that cable and video providers will cherry pick customers and will make it more difficult to accomplish this goal.

Competition is good for our communities. Municipalities welcome fair and open competition between cable and telephone companies, but competition must come through a process that protects consumers.

If AT&T is sincere in its desire to bring competition to every corner of Tennessee and provide all Tennesseans access to quality cable or video service at affordable prices, then all they have to do is ask. Our cities and towns are eager to work with the company to facilitate competition through the existing local franchise process.

Upon reflection, this legislation leaves me pondering two questions: First, if there are more than 600 cable franchise agreements that have been entered into between cable and telephone companies and local governments under the existing local franchising process, then why is AT&T determined to take such extraordinary measures to avoid a process that works quite well? Second, if AT&T is as committed to bringing video service to all Tennesseans as they claim, then why are they so opposed to system build-out requirements?