Oh bondage, up yours (big telecoms)!

Nothing like a good X-Ray Spex reference to start the day right.

Anyway, there's much hullabaloo over a bill making its way through the Senate at the moment--specifically SB 107, the so-called "Video Competition Bill" currently being championed by newly crowned Majority Leader Russ Decker. The positive spin on this piece of legislation is that it will break Charter Communication's monopoly on providing cable services in the area, and generally increase competition. Increased competition is usually good for the consumer, as it results in lower rates and better service.

The negative spin on SB 107 is that it's the work of AT&T and will provide all sorts of fun loopholes in the law, allowing for the industry to regulate itself (instead of the state), to deny service to people in rural areas, the elderly and lower income people. It would also cause a loss in fees usually paid by the industry to the state that then go to fund local public access channels, shifting the costs to taxpayers and causing significant damage to those public stations.

John Nichols has an excellent op-ed over at TCT about the issue, and does a good job of summing up what's going on:

Backed by AT&T as part of a move to consolidate control over communications in Wisconsin, the legislation -- Senate Bill 107 -- was written in consultation with industry interests with the purpose of undermining consumer protections, threatening public access channels, eliminating the ability of communities to establish basic standards for cable service, and decreasing the likelihood that new communications technologies will be offered to communities throughout the state.

The supposed regulations in this bill are riddled with loopholes that are designed to allow communications conglomerates to deny quality service to low-income and rural areas of Wisconsin. For instance, instead of requiring that cable TV and other broadband providers guarantee everyone in Wisconsin has access to communications networks, the so-called "build-out requirements" are so weak that big firms would be able to avoid them by claiming that providing equal service to the poor, to the elderly and to people living in the countryside is not "commercially reasonable."

The comments section under this piece is already riddled with people arguing back and forth either about why this legislation is a god-send or why it's of the devil. Personally, my take is that it smacks of being a bad take on a valid problem. Current state law probably does need some revision to better meet modern communications issues more effectively, to make sure everyone has equal access, that no one company can have a monopoly on a region, and that public access stations continue to be well maintained and accessible.

This bill doesn't do any of that, but instead appears to create a veritable free-for-all for companies like AT&T, the biggest backers of the legislation.

I'm as disinterested in providing Charter with regional dominance as the next person, but this is not at all the way to go about it. No amount of bellyaching about the Big Ten or NFL Networks is going to change my mind, either. There are other ways of going about getting access to stations like that, ways that don't involve deregulating the entire industry in Wisconsin, and that don't favor any one company in particular.

For more information about the legislation and actions being taken to oppose it, visit saveaccesswisconsin.org and their great "Myths and Facts" section in specific.

P.S. Just found this very interesting article about the whole thing, including a breakdown of how an influential poll on the matter was conducted and worded. This part in particular is telling:

For example, the poll states: "Opponents of this law say that the state legislature should not pass the bill ... because community access stations would be required to spend up to $1 million dollars [sic] to upgrade their equipment." Cardona told PR Watch that this is not what AB 207 / SB 107 would require. Instead, she said, "this bill passes on AT&T costs to PEG stations. In the past, the cable operator has always provided all of the interconnections from our stations to their end. AT&T wants to pass off the price of conversion equipment, which they need to have our normal broadcast signal stream on their systems. ... They want us to do that, which is going to be very cost prohibitive, especially for our smaller stations." Cardona couldn't say how Mellman might have come up with the $1 million figure used in the poll.

It should be noted, too, that one of the organizations that conducted this poll, the Wisconsin Merchants Federation (WMF), has been highly active in promoting the bill for some time. Seems a bit fishy to me.