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from: Bloomberg News

Verizon may lobby states on TV service rules

By Bloomberg News | October 5, 2006

NEW YORK -- Verizon Communications Inc.'s lead lobbyist said the company is likely to abandon efforts to pursue federal rules to ease the sale of television service if pending legislation fails this year.

Excellent overview and response to local media coverage of video franchises

from: Sentry

Vigue: Letter writer uses ‘inaccuracies’ to make case

Editor:

I read with interest the response by Annie Kerry to an interview that I gave to the Sentry two weeks ago regarding the current Federal Telecommunications legislation, HR 5252 [also known as the Advanced Telecommunications Opportunity Reform (ATOR) bill]. The arguments given by Annie Kerry are remarkably similar to those given by telecom industry lobbying groups and public relations firms in other parts of the country. They complain that cities and towns across the country are somehow preventing Verizon, AT&T, SBC and other Telecommunications companies from providing low cost, competitive video service to residents. Let’s take a look at the facts:

A review of Verizon's recent update for analysts and investors. You can download the PowerPoint presentation and learn about "Driving Growth and increasing wallet share.

from: Broadband Reports

Fee Fi Fo Fios
Verizon's plan to dominate broadband going swimmingly

There is more discussion of this at: Broadband Reports. It should be noted that cable companies have often attempted this ploy when negotiating local franchises.

from: Telephony Online

Verizon planning local content unit

from: Philadelphia Inquirer

Verizon's push into TV to cost $18 billion
The second-largest U.S. telephone company wants to compete with Comcast and other cable providers.

By Christopher Stern and Rebecca Barr
Bloomberg News

Verizon Communications Inc., the second-largest U.S. telephone company, said yesterday that it planned to spend $22.9 billion expanding its fiber-optic Internet and television network through 2010, placing a price tag on its effort to compete with the cable-TV business for the first time.

from: Digital Destiny

Telco’s Plot New Challenges to Localism and Cable Broadband

September 22nd, 2006

The telephone broadband giants—AT&T and Verizon—say they are stepping up efforts to scuttle the local cable franchising process. According to Light Reading, they “are working hard at the state level to push statewide franchises into law…” While the phone lobby hopes that Congress will pass the Stevens/Barton/Rush telecom give-away bill this session, they acknowledge that they were blind sighted by the fierce support for network neutrality. “For many of us it’s just been really frustrating,” says Jeff Brueggeman, AT&T VP of regulatory planning and policy in Washington.” As noted in Light Reading, Brueggeman told a conference that he and his colleagues didn’t see the net neutrality log-jam coming. So that’s why they plan to continue state-by-state, to secure laws that preempt the ability of local governments—and their citizens/residents—to ensure broadband services really benefit the public.

from: Huffington Post

Glover Park, Rip-off Strategists and Unethical Behavior in the Polling Community

Matt Stoller

Sorry to bring up net neutrality again, but we're really in the final stages of putting the nail in the coffin for the Stevens legislation. Senator Sununu is predicting that it will be delayed into 2007, which means a rewrite of the bill and the possibility of getting an affirmative net neutrality regulation into the bill.

from: Internetnews.scom

September 21, 2006
Telecom Reform Hopes Fading
By Roy Mark

WASHINGTON -- Telecom reform is dead in the U.S. Senate -- until at least a November lame duck session, U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) said today.

Blame it on network neutrality, he added.

With the Senate planning a Sept. 29 adjournment for the fall elections, Stevens told a packed luncheon sponsored by the Progress and Freedom Foundation (PFF), "It [telecom reform] obviously can't be done before the recess."

from: Market Watch

Senate commerce chairman still pushing for telecom bill

By Siobhan Hughes
Last Update: 4:32 PM ET Sep 21, 2006

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, on Thursday said that he won't alter a major telecommunications bill in order to increase the chances of passage before the November elections.

from: Light Reading

Lawyers: Video Franchise Law Won't Make It

SEPTEMBER 21, 2006

Attorneys representing Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO - message board), Vonage Holdings Corp. (NYSE: VG - message board), AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T - message board), and the Center for Democracy and Technology say the issue of network neutrality has all but spiked a new telecom bill -- and the likelihood that we'll see a national video franchise system rolled out this year.