Passing the Senate telecom bill would sap local franchise enforce...

Passing the Senate telecom bill would sap local franchise enforcement and harm consumers, local govts. said in a letter to Senate Commerce Committee Chmn. Stevens (R- Alaska) and Ranking Member Inouye (D-Hawaii). The bill would erase local franchising authority, letting the FCC decide most franchising terms via rulemaking, said NATOA, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, National Assn. of Counties and the National League of Cities. The bill’s 30-day window for negotiations and a requirement that cities act within 15 days of fielding an application is an “unattainable mandate,” the groups said. The bill would send rights-of-way disputes to the FCC rather than courts that now handle such cases, they said. Communities would have to satisfy a “set of hurdles, at least 6 in the current draft, before the FCC,” the letter said, noting that the FCC has no expertise in rights-of-way management. The groups objected to eliminating from gross revenue advertising and other non-subscriber revenue, cutting local franchise fees. Broadband video providers would be allowed to pick and choose neighborhoods in which to build out while bypassing others, the letter said, though the bill would “ostensibly” bar redlining under the current Cable Act.