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Bloomington Telecommunications Council Opposes State Video Franchises |
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Written by Administrator
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Thursday, 19 January 2006 |
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The Bloomington Telecommunications Council has asked members of the Indiana Senate to oppose the state-wide video franchise provisions of the telecommunications deregulation bill, SB 245:
We, the members of the Bloomington Telecommunications Council, urge the Senate of the State of Indiana to remove all parts of SB 245 dealing with video service franchises.
This bill and its counterpart in the House are products of Corporate America - the big telephone companies that want to get into other services more aggressively -- and are not really the creations of the Indiana General Assembly or the local governments in the state. There is no place for regulation of video services in a bill created to serve the expanding telephone companies.
We support updating of the state's Telecommunications infrastructure and its regulations, but we would like to see legislation based on Indiana needs of citizens and businesses rather than national corporate initiatives.
1. The provisions currently included in SB 245 that would move the granting of franchises from the local governments to the state would be contrary to the state's prevailing preference for "home rule."
2. In no way does this bill protect the local standards for delivery of service nor does it demand a level of accountability that many local franchise agreements now include that require:
a. Attendance at local public meetings to respond to service complaints
b. Service records
c. Backfeeds to transmit programming from remote locations (city hall, school board meetings, etc.)
d. Build-outs and service to local governmental and educational facilities
e. Specific services
f. PEG expansion and standards (hours per day of programming, etc.)
g. Participation in multi-agency local emergency warning systems
h. Required channel categories
We cannot expect that any new state franchise that would go into place when our current franchises expire would grandfather any or all of these provisions that now exist in our franchise.
Further, we see no guarantees that the five percent revenue would not be rerouted by future legislatures to other needy government agencies. (That revenue is the principal funding source for public access and
information channels in our community.)
SB245 may seem that it is a quick fix that you think would put Indiana in the forefront of Telecommunications reform, but in fact it will create more problems and more disadvantages in video services than it provides. It serves the Telecom industry, not the local video services structure in the State of Indiana.
Further, any state legislation may be short-lived due to the emerging federal Telecommunications legislation that is being heard in committees in the U.S. Congress starting this month.
We urge you to revisit SB245 to exclude the video services and the state-granted franchises for them.
Respectfully submitted,
Bloomington Telecommunications Council |
