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From Pasadena Star News
If
the nation’s largest telecommunications company gets its way, cable and
satellite companies won’t be the only firms offering subscription video
programming to local consumers.
New York-based Verizon
Communications Inc. is making a national push to carry cable and local
TV network programming using its fiber-optic networks, offering the
first substantial non- satellite competition to conventional cable
providers.
As part of its efforts, Verizon has enlisted the help
of California Assemblyman Hector De La Torre, D-South Gate, to make it
easier for phone companies to provide television ser vice in
communities throughout the state.
De La Torre’s Assembly Bill
903 would allow phone companies to offer video programming in their
existing service areas without having to provide access to an entire
city or county.
“I think we’re just at the right time to catch
the train before it really gets a head of steam going,’ De La Torre
said. “I want to create a marketplace that is an equal playing field.’
Currently,
state law allows competing cable and phone companies to enter a city
already served by another company, but only if the new firm makes its
video service a vailable to the entire municipality. Telephone
companies argue that current law precludes small cable companies and
other telecommunications providers from entering new markets, because
their networks do not necessarily cover an entire community.
“One
can interpret current law as requiring the phone company to have to
exactly match existing boundaries (of cable companies),’ said Tim
McCallion, Verizon’s Pacific regional president. “The cable companies
have been aggressively entering telephone companies’ territory. We want
to have the same opportunity to compete against cable companies.’
Increased
competition could threaten cable providers’ monopolies in their
existing territories, creating price wars as competitors battle for the
same group of customers.
Cable companies have opposed the
legislation, now in its earliest stage, saying it would allow some
residents of a city or county served by two phone companies to receive
video service, while others could go without.
“At the end of the
day, what Verizon’s bill attempts to do is suggest they not be held to
the same standard that we are,’ said Craig Watson, vice president of
communication for Charter Communications Inc., which provides cable
service in several San Gabriel Valley communities.
“The question
is, do we, as a matter of public policy, end up with a patchwork system
that somehow leaves some customers less served or unserved?’ Watson
said.
Anthony Thomas, a lobbyist in Sacramento for the League of
California Cities, said cities are most interested in providing
competitive choices to their constituents and generating increased
revenues through franchise taxes.
“They should, in fact, engage
into a franchise and be required to pay for it,’ Thomas said. “In Los
Angeles, there are more than 14 competing (cable) franchises. Does it
provide competition, and does competition provide lower cost to the
customer? And I would say, ‘Yes.’ ‘
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