FCC Chairman Wheeler Circulates Effective Competition Order

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler has circulated the FCC's order on effective competition, and it apparently still proposes reversing the presumption that local markets are not competitive when it comes to traditional video. The FCC has a June 2 congressional deadline to produce an order streamlining the effective-competition process for smaller, particularly rural-serving cable operators, but broadened that into the proposal to reverse the presumption given that it has not denied an effective competition request in a couple of years -- due largely to the presence of satellite-TV service nationwide.

A ruling of effective competition means a cable system is no longer subject to basic-tier rate regulation and the requirement to carry retransmission stations in that tier. Broadcasters have been pushing back hard on the proposal, as have a number of high-profile Democratic senators and public interest groups, as well as the local franchising authorities that will lose rate-regulation authority.