NCTA challenges FCC report

NCTA CHALLENGES FCC REPORT
[SOURCE: Variety, AUTHOR: William Triplett]
The National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. has urged the Federal Communications Commission to "correct a number of inaccuracies" in a recent agency report stating that cable prices have been rising, in some cases dramatically. In a letter sent Thursday to FCC chairman Kevin J. Martin, NCTA chief Kyle McSlarrow maintained that cable prices have actually gone down. Shortly after Christmas, the FCC issued its annual cable price survey, which stated that basic cable prices "increased more than 5% last year and by 93% since the period immediately prior to Congress' enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996." "Expanded basic prices rose more than 6% or twice the rate of inflation last year," survey continued. "The commission's annual cable price survey is a very limited and crude instrument for collecting information, and it is essentially obsolete in today's dynamic marketplace," McSlarrow said.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117956720.html?categoryid=18&cs=1&nid=2567