Cable Pans New House Telecom Blueprint

[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Ted Hearn]
The cable industry has "serious concerns" with House draft legislation designed to overhaul bedrock telecommunications law and to ease phone-company entry into cable markets. In prepared House testimony, Insight Communications CEO Michael Willner said his industry is troubled because the draft "creates different regulatory regimes for like services based on technological distinctions." The House draft -- released late last week as a revision to a September draft -- would allow providers of "broadband-video service" to enter local markets without local approval, eliminating the franchise requirement across the country. Willner complained that evidently, because cable would still be burdened with franchising until MSOs became "broadband-video-service" providers, the House draft would "be in the business of picking winners and losers." Willner also alleged that the draft legislation "appears to impose forced-access obligations on facilities-based Internet-access providers." He added that such a step would negate cable’s victory in the Brand X case handed down by the Supreme Court in June.
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6282676.html?display=Breaking+News
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