NCTA: Cable Regs Apply to IP Video
By Ted Hearn
MultiChannel News
8/2/2005 5:47:00 PM
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA631740.html?display=Breaking+News
Phone companies have no plans to offer video services that qualify for
exemptions from cable laws and regulations developed over decades by
Congress and regulators, the National Cable & Telecommunications
Association said in a long legal analysis filed with the Federal
Communications Commission late last week.
SBC Communications Inc. has said that provision of Internet-protocol video
falls outside of federal cable laws found in Title VI of the Communications
Act. As a result, SBC said, it is not required to go town-to -own seeking
permission to deploy video facilities and services.
But the NCTA, in a 33-page paper attacking SBC's legal reasoning, said
IP-video services are effectively indistinguishable from what cable
operators can and do provide; thus, since cable operators need franchises
for video, so do the Baby Bells.
"Nothing the Bell companies have proposed -- video offerings, IP
transmission, switching technology, interactive applications -- is any
different from what cable companies now provide or will provide in the near
future," the NCTA explained. "They are all properly subject to Title VI
and, among other things, must comply with Title VI franchising requirements."
SBC and Verizon Communications Inc. want to escape franchising, claiming
that the process takes too long and postpones new competition to entrenched
cable operators.
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
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