IP Democracy: Black Caucus Attacks Franchise Red-Lining

In a move no doubt engineered by the cable industry, two leading members of the Congressional Black Caucus have registered their objections to the phone companies’ seeming success in gaining favorable franchising rights in upcoming House telecom reform legislation. Congressmen Bobby Rush (D-IL) and Congressman Ed Towns (D-NY) sent a letter today to Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), ranking member of that committee, saying that any telecom legislation should include anti-discrimination provisions that bar video providers from hand-picking only the most lucrative communities in which to launch competitive video services.

In the letter, the two members state:

Accordingly we urge you to ensure that any legislation you propose guarantee that Americans are not discriminated against, on the basis of race, color, national origin or income of the residents of a community, in how and where new services and technologies are deployed…In defining the scope of the non-discrimination provision, it is important that Congress require that non-discrimination apply not to just a small number of communities that a provider may self-select but rather to the entire footprint of a provider.

Cable’s representatives are calling this letter a “big blow” to the telcos’ efforts to gain the right to hand-pick only the best communities for video deployments. Although that spin overstates the case, it does seem that the telcos are now on the defensive and will probably have to justify their right to hand-pick service areas…justification that will be hard to sell given that there’s no denying that most of the areas that phone companies wish to service with video are upper-income and non-minority.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on March 23, 2006 11:43 AM to IP Democracy