Overview

Cable: not just for watching television

The cables that enter our homes offer more than arts and entertainment programming. Cable television “public access” channels have become an important communication tool for communities. Local public access stations primarily air content made by citizens, and often broadcast high school sports games, local mayoral debates, religious programming, coverage of controversial topics, as well as non-mainstream arts and entertainment.

Cable is also widely used for connecting to the Internet. Today, over 84 million Americans have high-speed broadband Internet access at home, 41 percent of whom use cable to connect.

And while most Americans now use cell phones or traditional land-line phones to communicate, “telephony” over cable wires is expected to make traditional land lines obsolete with the promise of cheaper long distance calls and better sound quality.

Local franchise agreements protect consumers

In return for allowing cable companies the use of public rights-of-way, municipalities negotiate a number of commitments from the cable provider that benefit consumers. It’s because of these franchise agreements that companies like Comcast must offer cable services to every member of a community, and cannot discriminate based on a neighborhood’s demographics or income profile. These franchise agreements are also a way for local officials to make sure the cable company doesn’t cause damage to public or private property when installing or maintaining their cables. Many of these benefits include: 

• Financial and technical support for local public, educational and government channels (PEG) that broadcast locally produced shows about local community issues, city council meetings, high school sports games, and many other programs with distinct local content.  

• Free or reduced cost cable and Internet services to police and fire departments, libraries and public schools.

• Customer service standards that require cable companies to credit consumers for service outages, answer customer service calls in a timely manner, and offer discounts to seniors.

• Requirements to offer service to every member of a community, prohibiting providers from discriminating based on a neighborhood's demographics or income profile.

Verizon seeks special treatment and weaker consumer protections

Rather than negotiate local franchise agreements, Verizon is seeking new rules on Beacon Hill that would take away the rights of municipalities to negotiate these agreements. The company is aggressively pushing legislation in the state house that contains few customer service requirements, and no requirements that the company offer its video services to all consumers.

While Verizon argues the process of negotiating franchise agreements is the barrier to consumer choice, it simply does not appear to be the company’s true experience. Verizon has already negotiated agreements in over 40 Massachusetts communities. In fact, nothing prevents Verizon from accepting the same franchise agreement that the existing provider has already negotiated. The truth is that Verizon does not want to commit to the same requirements and consumer protections that other providers already do.

The public interest will be met when these core tenets are upheld for cable:

• Video service providers will offer their video services to all consumers in their service territory over a reasonable period of time.
  
  
• Strong customer service standards, including prohibitions on locking consumers into long-term contracts with unfair cancellation fees, credits for service outages, penalties for missed service appointments, and standards for resolving disputes in a timely manner will be upheld.
  
  
• Cable companies will provide adequate financial and technical support for public, educational and government channels (PEG).
  
  
• The rights of local communities to negotiate franchise agreements are protected.