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FCC Moves To Regulate Cable TV Competition
explosivejared writes "The Federal Communications Commission is likely to impose a new regulation on the largely unregulated cable television industry, the first of what may be more to come. Under a proposed rule circulating at the FCC, cable companies such as Comcast and Time Warner Cable would have to slash the price they charge smaller television programmers to lease access on spare cable channels, a move the FCC says would open up cable viewers to a wider diversity of shows. In addition, the FCC is contemplating a national ownership cap that would prevent one company from having more than 30 percent of all cable subscribers." TechDirt has a jaundiced view of FCC chairman Martin's animus against the cablecos.
What I think might be interesting is to decouple the wire from the service provider
They do have something like that in Utah called Utopia. Here's the link: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/may06/3434
Wait, wait... the FCC is *thinking* of imposing an ownership cap on cable companies? How can you "think" of an idea you already had?
My understanding was that in the late '90s, there basically already *was* an ownership cap on cable. AT&T's entire strategy through that period was to obtain as much of the cable industry as possible and then to use those facilities as a new local-calling infrastructure, so they could take on the Bells head-on again. I was developing at Bell Atlantic in '99, and we were working on creating CLEC interfaces - I was working directly with the AT&T staff that were trying to establish local competition with BA in New York. AT&T's local services were all facilities-based (i.e. cable), nothing leased from the Bells.
Then they ran into a roadblock. They had been promised by the FCC in merger after merger that nobody would stand in their way. This was AT&T's whole gameplan - to build a brand-new local calling empire based on the cable infrastructure. But once they passed 33% share (I forget who they were going to merge with), the FCC suddenly stood up and said no. AT&T was billions and billions in the hole, and suddenly their whole gameplan was in the garbage thanks to the FCC. It was effectively the end of real competition for the telcos, at least at that time.
At least that's my recollection; I could be wrong. Anyway, it doesn't matter one hill of beans one way or the other whether they limit ownership of cable. Until they start forcing competition to be allowed in each metro market, it's all meaningless. My cable/phone bills are more expensive than ever, with even less choices than I had in the late '90s. It seems like the FCC has been *useless* to the American consumer over the past 10 years.