After much waiting, the FCC finally released the written order of its December 20th, 2006 Ruling "To Ensure Reasonable Franchising Process for New Video Market Entrants."

From Federal Communications Commission, March 5, 2007

In this Report and Order, we adopt rules and provide guidance to implement`Section 621(a)(1) of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended (the “Communications Act”), which prohibits franchising authorities from unreasonably refusing to award competitive franchises for the provision of cable services.

We find that the current operation of the local franchising process in many jurisdictions constitutes an unreasonable barrier to entry that impedes the achievement of the interrelated federal goals of enhanced cable competition and accelerated broadband deployment.

We further find that Commission action to address this problem is both authorized and necessary. Accordingly, we adopt measures to address a variety of means by which local franchising authorities, i.e., county- or municipal level franchising authorities (“LFAs”), are unreasonably refusing to award competitive franchises.

We anticipate that the rules and guidance we adopt today will facilitate and expedite entry of new cable competitors into the market for the delivery of video programming, and accelerate broadband deployment consistent with our statutory responsibilities.

Download as: Word [1]| Acrobat PDF [2]

Source: http://www.fcc.gov/ [3]