More disturbing for local grassroots democracy are the proposed limits on local cable access support. Cable access TV may be the butt of jokes, but it’s cable access that broadcasts selectmen and school committee meetings, town meeting, high school sports and graduations, local cultural events, local talk shows, etc.
The cable companies provide the financial support that makes that possible. Reducing that support reduces local cable stations ability to perform these tasks.
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There is a hearing on the bill on July 22nd (conveniently when many are on vacation). Your support at the hearing and/or by contacting your senators and rep’s can help preserve an important local media outlet. I am sure your local cable access folks can provide further information on this bill and how it might affect them.
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The Mass.Gov link to the bill:
http://www.mass.gov/legis/bill…
Other Links:
http://massaccess.org/
http://www.cctvcambridge.org/v…
http://www.wickedlocal.com/som…
Here’s some of the things I’d like to see w.r.t. cable companies:
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p> * more support (financial, technical, equipment) for local access from cable companies
* more buried lines, particularly in neighborhoods with sidewalks. Reducing poles in those areas improves accessibility for peds walking, using walkers, or wheeling. Yes, this also includes power and telco.
* cities and towns having an easier time building their own fiber network and leasing the lines to cable, telco, and ISPs. It’s been done in a few towns in the USA, and they’ve got much better QoS (faster Internet, fewer telco/cable outages) much cheaper (economies of scale, single modern network). We only need two wired networks, power and data
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p>I don’t watch local access on television (I don’t have cable and didn’t buy a converter box, so Netflix/Internet/DVD only), but I know people in my town get value from our local access because people come up to me and say they saw me at some meeting or other on television — that means that they’re watching.
… is at the heart of keeping our city council, zoning board, and school committee transparent. Once the station started broadcasting all the meetings (and making them available on the internet) the behavior improved immediately… especially on the zoning board.
Braintree, and other towns I think, have municipal power companies. That means that not only do they own the right-of-way, they own the poles. Braintree, where the in-laws live, has had cable and high speed internet for years thru the power company, and cheaper than either cable/phone company.
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p>Another public option worth thinking ’bout.
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trouble is, going muni is almost impossible now. The only new muni came from the military base-turned-community. It turns out that the process to go muni is really intense, and the cost of all the infrastructure is quite high too.
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p>I love muni power. Remember the rolling brown/blackouts in California? Los Angeles never lost the lights. Why? LA has muni power.
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p>Ultimately, muni power can work well because it turns out “maximizing profits” isn’t what the community values. The community values all of the (sometimes contradictory) things:
* low cost power
* green power
* customer service
* robust grid (low/no outages)
* not looking at telephone poles
* infrequent cutting into the roads and sidewalks
* quality patching of roads and sidewalks when finished
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p>I believe that munis are in a much better position to provide all of these things than NStar et al. Hull is a great example — their muni owns two wind turbines.
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p>The elegance, of course, is that even though power and data are two independent networks, nearly every building wants both — so the two networks can be, roughly speaking, copies of each other. All conduit is a double — one pipe for power, one pipe for data. The infrastructure is far cheaper to build and maintain that way (though, admittedly, service outages take down multiple systems).
This bill proposes two things– share the cost of local cable programming among all cable providers and establish some predictability about the licensing process. It proposes a 90-day timeline for issuing a new license, which is the same timeline endorsed by the FCC and longer than the 17-45 day periods adopted in many other states.
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p>This bill keeps approval at the local level, but eliminates unnecessary steps in the process.
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p>It also shares local cable programming costs. If the financial model in the bill were implemented, it would generate in excess of $70 million annually statewide to support local cable programming.
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p>Consumers shouldn’t have to pay more than is necessary for local cable programming. And they shouldn’t have to wait for a choice in cable providers. Massachusetts needs more broadband technology. This bill promotes competition and deployment.
Many other states don’t have Town Meeting government. The fact is that New England local government is bigger and slower than the rest of the country. This is our choice, and that choice requires more time — as a community activist, I’m not sure 90 days is enough, and I am sure that the following 5 days is nowhere near enough.
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p>Sure, the cable companies have uncertainty in the process. You know what? Tough noogies. The citizenry also has uncertainty, and we also have day jobs and lack the expertise of cable company lawyers. We need more time to check and balance, to make sure that our community’s needs are being met.
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Gee, where have I heard this before? Oh yeah, developers. I don’t think there are enough steps. I don’t want to feel steamrolled. Again, remember that the proponent (say, a cable company) has full time employees with expertise working to craft the proposal to benefit the cable company as much as possible. The citizenry lacks expertise and wages for their work as the opposition; if you take away their time to do the work too you lose the balance necessary.
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With whom?
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How much is generated now? Who will cough up less if this bill goes through? Who will cough up more?
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Necessary? What the hell is necessary? This is cable TV not heart medication. Cable TV as a whole isn’t necessary. However, in exchange for using the community’s land, we ask that cable companies contribute to the community — in this case, through support for local access TV. So, necessary? Bah. I don’t think my local access channel gets enough funding. Necessary is certainly the wrong word, and in my opinion consumers aren’t paying enough for local cable programming.
Damn Phil, buddy, you’re fast! Let’s see:
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p>I posted this at
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p>Tue Jun 23, 2009 at 10:11:50 AM EDT
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p>You joined us here at BMG at:
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p>Tue Jun 23, 2009 at 10:36:07 AM EDT
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p>25 minutes! Gotta be a new record. (You didn’t do this just for me did ya big guy? I’m touched.) Takes me longer than that to get through your customer service menus (I know not your prob, right?).
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p>Did take you a bit of time to get the comment typed though:
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p>Tue Jun 23, 2009 at 12:40:28 PM EDT
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p>Maybe our menus need a little work in the useability department? Lunch break? Or you on hold at customer service, too?
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p>But then you been a busy boy:
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p>http://www.wickedlocal.com/som…
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p>Cripes, everybody else get layed off? Working weekends? Laying astroturf’s hard work buddy.
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p>When you folks get a little expediency in the customer service department, we’ll worry about expediency in our democracy department. We like our democracy just fine here, thanks.
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p>Could we ask for a couple of numbers please?
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p>- How long has it taken you to get through the process in our fair towns? Just an average would do.
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p>- Can you give us an example of the process delaying your roll out, at all? What towns? How long? How long after the ink’s dry does it take you to actually deliver the service?
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p>- I think you been watching too many of your own commercials. I don’t see a lot of real people agitating for this – I only see you. Where are all these people demanding a faster approval process? Maybe you were at the Worcester teabag rally and misunderstood them? Or you in the astroturf business, too?
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p>We certainly do. Which is why I supported you guys when you showed up in my town, so I could have competition and choice. (See I can be nice!) And, needless delays… nah, I won’t bring up customer service again.
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p>Adding state regulations to this process, which nobody else has had a problem with for 30 years, doesn’t exactly do a lot for keeping the “approval at the local level”. The Legislature lets you put a gun at my head and the clock’s ticking until you pull the trigger. That’s real local, and real friendly.
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p> Oh, and the competition thing’s why you got busted up a few years ago. You signed a deal to open your network to local phone competitors. A few lawyers – and your friends at the FCC – got you around that one. Verizon talking about competition is like a pig talking about flying.
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p>And where exactly does this $70 million come from? If you’re gonna pay less, how are we getting more? Your fair share is what you and the other guys are negotiating, why drag the Legislature into this? And, by the way, as the new guy in town, you owe the other guys for what they already paid for during the last 20 years or so. Mooch. I had a roommate like you once. Mooch.
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p>And that “don’t want to pay more for local cable programming”? Applies to the rest of the programming, too. Wanna talk about that? Cable bills getting a bit high, can you take care of that for me? Thanks. I used to get my TV for free, old habits are hard to break. Progress though, isn’t it?
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p>The local cable franchising system has worked for 30 years. For the companies, the consumers, and the towns. No reason to change it.
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p>But, Phil old buddy, you did your job. Bosses must be happy. Take a few bucks out of the bonus pool and buy yourself something nice.
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Mr. Santoro’s comment is definitely not “astroturf.” Astroturf is fake grassroots blogging — for instance, if someone who worked for Verizon posted anonymously on BMG as “Guy from Lowell” and talked about what a great bill this is. But Mr. Santoro clearly identified himself as a representative of “Verizon Media Relations.” Frankly, I think it’s great that he came to BMG and responded to your post. So I’d suggest that you might want to revise your comment – strip out the snark, and focus on your responses to Santoro’s points. You’ve got some substance in there, but it’s a bit hard to find.
I’m shocked that Verizon deemed this blog important enough to have their media guy respond the day the blog was posted. W
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p>We’re talking a private company, here, not some pol who probably checks here often anyway.
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p>And for the record, I like Verizon. Fios is fast as all hell and I can only think of 1 place I’ve been — ever — that I have calls drop. You pay for it, though!
… that people like their service when it works, but I hear nightmares about their interactions with customers.