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Prepared Statement of
The Honorable Joe Barton
to consider H.R. ____, a Committee Print on the Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act of 2006
Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet
March 30, 2006
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing. We stand on the threshold
of a new age in communications. The 1996 Telecommunications Act served an
important purpose, but technology and the markets have moved on.
Previous attempts at increasing innovation, choice, and lower prices for
consumers have focused on promoting competition within individual sectors of the
communications industry. Time has shown, however, that the best way to promote
competition and innovation is to encourage the deployment of advanced,
facilities-based networks and competition ACROSS sectors. The right approach
will invigorate the tech sector and produce jobs, growth and opportunity for its
workers. American consumers will get an array of services and choices that were
unimagined just a few years ago.
This is the approach the committee print seeks to take with respect to
increased cable competition and the deployment of advanced broadband networks.
Cable service is interstate in nature, as the Supreme Court has long recognized.
Most video programming carried on cable systems is produced by national networks
and distributed across state lines to a national audience. Cable systems are
also carrying increasing amounts of Internet-based video, voice, and data
services that cross state, as well as national, borders.
Today, there are thousands of local franchising authorities, and each may
impose disparate restrictions on the provision of cable service in its local
franchising area. The requirement to negotiate such local franchises, and the
patchwork of obligations local franchising authorities impose, are hindering the
deployment of advanced broadband networks that will bring increasingly
innovative and competitive services to consumers.
The committee print seeks to address this concern and strike the right
balance between national standards and local oversight. Thus, the committee
print:
. Preserves municipalities' existing authority to collect a franchise fee
of up to 5 percent of gross revenues from cable service.
. Preserves their control over local rights-of-way.
. Continues to require carriage of public, educational, and governmental
channels, referred to as PEG channels, and allows municipalities to increase the
number of PEG channels over time.
. Preserves institutional networks used for governmental and other public
safety purposes.
. Allows municipalities to collect an additional one percent of gross
revenues to support PEG channels and institutional networks.
. Allows municipalities to continue to negotiate local franchise
agreements.
. Requires the Federal Communications Commission to establish national
consumer protection and customer service standards that the municipalities may
enforce.
At the same time, the committee print offers an alternative, streamlined
national franchise process. This will help expedite competitive cable entry,
thereby promoting the deployment of advanced broadband networks that can offer
new and exiting broadband video, voice, and data services.
I thank Congressman Rush, the Chairman, and Mr. Pickering for sponsoring this
bipartisan legislation with me. I hope that other Members from both sides of the
aisle will join us in supporting the bill. I look forward to today's testimony
and to an expedited Subcommittee markup of the legislation. I yield back.
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