[Mpls] Broadband legislation

[Jeanne Massey]

A segment on Democracy Now last Friday (Sept. 30) was about federal
legislation advocated by the telecommunication industry. One of the bills is
titled "Broadband Investment and Consumer Choice Act".

>From the introduction of the broadcast:

"Local public access television across the United States is being threatened
by legislation introduced in both the U.S. Senate and House of
Representatives. 

Proponents of the legislation claim that the bills will breakdown monopolies
in the cable industry and open the door to increased competition. But
critics say the trio of Congressional bills will lead to the elimination of
public access television in this country. 

Senate Bill 1504 - the Broadband Investment and Consumer Choice Act - was
introduced in July by Republican Senators John Ensign of Nevada and John
McCain of Arizona. According to the bill, the act would "eliminate
government managed competition of existing communication service" and
"provide parity between functionally equivalent services." 
Essentially, the legislation would eliminate a requirement for
telecommunications companies to pay franchise fees to local municipalities. 

These fees are required as compensation to the community for use of the
public right of way through which the companies route cables and utilities.
By eliminating the franchise fees, the bill will eliminate the only source
of funding that the public access provider receives. 

The bills would also replace local cable franchises with national franchises
and the concern is that this will take control and oversight away from local
government as well as cut channel capacity for public, educational and
governmental access channels or PEGs."

For the full broadcast, link to:
www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/30/1411227

Can the Institute for Local Self Reliance, Community Technology Empowerment
Project or others on line provide insight into the implications, if any,
this legislation has for the current franchise agreement between Time Warner
and the City of Minneapolis and the future of how our broadband network gets
built, managed, paid for and used?

Jeanne Massey
Kingfield