^{Democracy & Technology Blog} Video franchise reform gets push from Martin

“Section 621 of the statute prohibits local authorities from granting exclusive franchises and from unreasonably refusing to award a second franchise.”
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin told a trade group yesterday that the FCC should fulfill Congress’s directive that franchising authorities not grant exclusive franchises or unreasonably refuse to award additional competitive franchises. He has circulated a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to his colleagues and plans for the Commission to consider the item next month.
This is exactly the right thing to do, but it will be very controversial. Irrational local officials want to be able to tax IPTV to death and then blame the industry for taking too long to wire their communities.
Congress should provide cover for Martin and the FCC — unless it would rather wade into this mess itself. Fortunately, there is a bipartisan vehicle. S. 1349 by Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR) and Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) would allow telephone companies to deploy competitive video services pursuant to their existing authority to access public rights-of-way and pay fees to a local franchise authority based on their gross revenues from video services.
Senate Commerce Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK) has expressed concern that the current franchising morass “could be very costly and, really, ultimately, kill competition … it’s also going to increase the price considerably to the consumer.” He should schedule a hearing on the Smith-Rockefeller bill. Congressional action would send an important signal to local franchising authorities and improve the chances of an FCC fix.
Ultimately, of course, the solution is to enact the Ensign bill (S. 1504) which, among other things, would outlaw video franchises.