Hard FCC data chewed up and regurgitated for your convenience

Franchise follies

Despite the overwhelming opposition of states, counties, and cities, the Federal Communications Commission will issue new rules that weaken the authority of local governments over new entrants into video service.

The present system "constitutes an unreasonable barrier to entry that impedes the achievement of the interrelated federal goals of enhanced cable competition and accelerated broadband deployment," the FCC announced yesterday after voting for the changes 3 to 2.

To rectify this perceived problem, the Commission will

• Get tough on "unreasonable" demands that video providers commit to "unreasonable obligations relating to public, educational, and governmental ('PEG') and institutional networks ('I-Nets')"—in other words, requirements that if AT&T wants access to a city's infrastructure to rollout broadband video, it has to contribute something to the town's colleges and schools. This represehensible practice will now be curtailed, Thank God.
• Put a limit on the amount of time it takes for a government to negotiate a franchise with a video provider. The Commission news release didn't specify the exact period, but FCC Chair Kevin Martin has been talking about 90 days. What exactly happens after 90 days isn't clear, but the ambiguity obviously provides an incentive for new entrants to wait out the process.
• Put the kibosh on what the Commission calls "unreasonable build-out requirements" for a new franchisee. Glossary: "unreasonable" = providing broadband to poor, rural neighborhoods.
• Enforce ceilings on franchise fees

The big incumbent phone companies, anxious to move in on cable, are having orgasms over this decision. Community access TV groups are sharpening their knives. Anthony Riddle, Executive Director of The Alliance for Community Media, spent most of yesterday afternoon coming up with snarly sound bites for the group's Web site. Here's my favorite:

"The FCC, in the spirit of Christmas, has given the biggest gift of all to the giant telephone companies while the children of our cities and towns get a lump of coal in their torn stockings," he said.

"This fight is not over. It will never be over. We think that light needs to be shined on this arcane, closed door process by which the rights of the many can be sold for interests of a few big companies."

This puppy is going to court. Trust Indigest on this.

Shocking news on cable prices

The Indigest does not need to tell you that cable TV prices went up last year. The FCC's latest report on cable rates, issued yesterday, calculates the hike at 5.2 percent. That's from $40.91 to $43.04 a month for basic cable, up by 93 percent since just before the enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which was supposed to encourage competition.

Oh well. If it's any consolation, FCC Commissioner Michael Copps says the agency doesn't even know whether this information is true.

"We continue to rely on the operators’ own reports of their rate and cost structures, without any auditing of our own to assure the accuracy of their data," he said at yesterday's FCC meeting.

Who will get to run our national emergency network?

Ok. Try to keep your eyes from glazing over this story (more to glaze over here).

The FCC has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking calling for comments on the implementation of a "national public safety network." The Notice proposes that the Commission (and we quote):

1. allocate 12 megahertz of the 700 MHz public safety spectrum from wideband to broadband use;
2. assign this spectrum nationwide to a single national public safety broadband licensee;
3. permit the national public safety broadband licensee also to operate on a secondary basis on the narrowband public safety spectrum in the 700 MHz band;
4. permit the licensee to use its assigned spectrum to provide public safety entities with voluntary access to a public safety broadband service on a fee-for-service basis;
5. permit the licensee to provide unconditionally preemptible access to its assigned spectrum to commercial service providers on a secondary basis, through leases or in the form of public/private partnerships;
6. facilitate the shared use of CMRS infrastructure for the efficient provision of public safety broadband service;
   and
7. establish performance requirements for interoperability, build-out, preemption of commercial access, and system robustness.

The Elephant in the Room asks, who will this "single national public safety broadband licensee" be?