IP Democracy: Cable Recruits Minorities in Fight Over Legislation

Taking a cue from the phone companies’ so-far successful efforts to craft favorable telecom reform legislation, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association has formed a group called “Broadband Everywhere,” which is a minority-oriented “interest group” that is opposed to national video franchising.

Ostensibly headed by former Congresswoman Susan Molinari and Lillian Rodríguez-López, President of the Hispanic Federation, Broadband Everywhere looks like the kind of “astroturf” initiative that phone companies have embraced — and that cable has vociferously criticized. Cable claims the moral high-ground, however, because it is clearly stating the industry funding sources of Broadband Everywhere.

During a call to announce the launch of Broadband Everywhere, Molinari said “ACA [American Cable Association] and NCTA will be actively supporting this organization…We’re going to disclose it in all activities and we are going to challenge others to do the same thing.”

The basic argument of the new group: phone companies are sticking it to low-income and minority areas by focusing on high-income areas as their initial markets for deployment of video services. “My concern is that it seems not every community will benefit from this competition,” Rodriguez-Lopez said. “Low-income and minority communities are being kept out of the first phases of these rollouts.”

Broadband Everywhere’s goal is to steer legislation toward franchising regulations that apply equally to cable and phone companies. “All providers of broadband and video services, regardless of technology, should play by the same rules for the same services on a level regulatory playing field,” according to Broadband Everywhere’s “mission” statement.

The cable industry is clearly coming out swinging with these kinds of initiatives following last week’s discovery that House telecom reform legislation would allow phone companies to gain easy national video franchises — with no build-out requirements — while barring cable operators from competing on price in areas where phone companies have launched video services.

Cable is also trying to position the legislative battle as a fight between giant phone companies and small cable operators. The only cable representative on the call was Mike Polka, head of the American Cable Association, the trade association for small cable companies.

Polka kept referring to the telcos as “monster Bell companies,” and painted a picture of tiny cable companies going up against corporate behemoths. “How absurd would it be to exempt them [a combined AT&T-BellSouth with a market cap of $150 billion] from the same non-discrimination rules that apply to one of our local businesses with a few hundred subscribers,” Polka asked, referring to the disparity in franchise obligations between cable and phone companies if current legislative proposals become law.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on March 15, 2006 11:22 AM to IP Democracy