Consumers save money with more TV choices
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Legislation proposed nationally and in many states takes into consideration advances in the Internet and digital fiber-optic communications, and calls for updating regulatory policy to reform video-franchise rules that have been in effect for 40 years or more.
The current video-franchise rules date back to when cable TV was in its infancy. They were appropriate then, but today they are a relic of that earlier period when the laws served only to protect consumers from cable monopolies. Today, these same old video franchise rules are actually being used to stifle the arrival of new competition to cable, depriving consumers of new choices and lower prices.
In the last 10 years alone, an explosion has occurred in Internet and wireless capabilities and features, with consumer choices proliferating as a result of convergence in communications technologies.
Similarly, telecom providers in Tennessee, including members of the Ben Lomand Telephone Co-Op, are now, in some cases, able to deliver TV services over our lines. But the old rules, which require us to first obtain a local franchise agreement in every town we wish to serve, delays us from making the necessary investments to deliver this new consumer choice to a wider consumer base.
The requirement that would-be competitors to cable television must first negotiate local franchise agreements everywhere they want to offer TV services has been a powerful deterrent to the arrival of true competition with the cable companies.
Some estimates place the length of the negotiating period for each franchise agreement at 18 months or longer. Our members think Tennessee consumers need healthy competition to cable TV sooner than that. Nationally, it?s estimated the franchise-negotiation process could take as long as 15 years if potential competitors have to apply to 33,000 different jurisdictions nationwide, as they do now.
The various legislative proposals address this issue by making the franchise requirement national instead of local.
Our members also believe there is an element of unfairness in imposing outdated local franchise rules on phone companies that stand ready to invest in wider deployment of fiber-optic networks in local communities in Tennessee.
Here?s why: Cable TV companies that today offer telephone services over their connections did not need a separate local franchise agreement before they started offering service. They simply took advantage of their technology to add to the telephone-calling capabilities they could offer their customers over cable connections.
Our members think the same principle should apply to telephone companies. We already hold state franchises for telephone service and don?t believe we should have to negotiate a new franchise agreement simply to deliver a new TV choice to consumers.
We think it?s time to put the telephone companies on the same footing with the cable companies and let both of us take advantage of the technologies we build to offer Tennesseans more choices, improved features and services, and better prices.
In studies over recent years, the federal Government Accountability Office found that people in municipalities with more than one TV choice saw prices that were 15 percent lower than areas with a cable monopoly.
With so much at stake, I truly believe that it?s time to make the call for more choices in video services.
Levoy Knowles is general manager and CEO of Ben Lomand Telephone Co-Op in McMinnville.