NCTA, minorities unite on video franchise fight

Cable companies and minority civil rights groups combined their efforts today in launching a new lobbying group dedicated to broadband issues and focused immediately on fighting proposed federal legislation that would grant national video franchises to telecom carriers.

Broadband Everywhere is putatively dedicated to “the broadest possible deployment of competitive broadband networks.” Though its funding comes mainly from the National Cable Television Association, its members include the NCTA, the American Cable Association, the Hispanic Federation and the National Congress of Black Women.

Both the Hispanic Federation and the National Congress of Black Women argued that the granting of federal video franchises to telecom carriers, through a bill currently working its way through the U.S. House of Representatives, would deepen the digital divide. Though Hispanics are the country’s fastest growing population, only one in eight Hispanics has access to broadband, the group pointed out.

“Low-income urban and minority communities are being kept out of the first phases of these [telco video] rollouts,” said Lillian Rodríguez-López, president of the Hispanic Federation and co-chair of Broadband Everywhere. “This is an issue of fairness. They talk about having statewide franchises, federal franchises, but where are the protections in terms of nondiscrimination?”

Telecom carriers such as Verizon Communications have argued that local video franchise processes slow their entry into video markets and thereby inhibit competition.

At a press conference this morning announcing the group’s launch, perhaps the strongest language came from Matt Polka, president of the American Cable Association and another of the new group’s co-chairs.

“I’m not sure whether to laugh or scream,” Polka said of proposed federal video franchise legislation. “Our members are not going to let the phone companies bend, twist and pervert the rules to favor their companies. Small and medium businesses are going to march on Washington to stop this charade. We have to.”

“Let’s compete, but let’s play by the same rules,” he added. “That’s frankly the American way.”

The group’s leadership also includes former U.S. Congresswoman Susan Molinari, who vowed to personally lobby her former colleagues on Capitol Hill on the matter.

The group is currently looking for other sources of funding.

“We’re not going to hide [the group’s funding sources],” Molinari said. “We’re going to disclose it in all our activities. But we’re also going to challenge others to do the same thing.”