from: News-Press [1]

State Primed to Take Over Control of Cable TV in Florida

May 9, 2007

Cable television subscribers who have been able to rely on their local governments to regulate service, may soon be calling Tallahassee for help.

A bill that was passed by the Florida House and Senate late last week would take control away from local governments and turn it over to the state. Supporters believe it will help increase competition among television, telephone and Internet companies. That could lead to reduced customer rates.

The bill, called Consumer Choice Act of 2007, only needs Governor Charlie Crist’s signature to become law. That could happen next week.

The bill comes at a time when Comcast, the primary cable TV provider in Lee County, has been under fire the past several months for service outages, interruptions and complaints about customer service. The major problems occurred, primarily in Cape Coral, when service was changed in February from Time Warner.

The bill had mostly negative responses from local governments that have their own contracts with Comcast.

“It gives the city less authority to control the companies,” said Terry Stewart, Cape Coral city manager. “It is unfortunate that more and more we are losing home rule.” Paul Arthur, technical support supervisor for Lee County’s Division of Public Resources, opposed “any legislation that removes local authority from county government.

“We have 21 pages of consumer standards they have to comply with,” he said. The county’s current franchise agreement with Comcast goes until 2012. That contract would not exist should the Governor sign the bill.

Sanibel and Bonita Springs city councils also oppose the bill, Arthur said, as does the Florida League of Cities.

Cape Coral officials received hundreds of complaints about the Comcast service problems, even threatened to fine or end the contract with the company unless those problems were corrected.

“It was a nightmare for the first 10 days,” said Cape Coral resident Mike Hermansen, 46. “It (the service) has stabilized.”

Because of those complaints, Comcast representative Larry Schweber spoke to Cape’s council Monday. He said the wave of major problems — including service outages and customer calls going unanswered — are “behind us.”

He also said 50 additional people have been hired for Cape Coral alone to deal with any issues. He said any customer issues are handled within 24 hours.

He stressed to council that if the customer is unhappy with Comcast and the percentage of homes with the service declines, Schweber, who is Comcast general manager for Southwest Florida, says he’s out of a job. About half of the city’s approximate 60,000 households have cable TV.

State representative Gary Aubuchon R-Cape Coral, believes the state should regulate Comcast and any other cable companies. He supported the bill.

“The down side is that there could be a loss of revenue at the local level,” Aubuchon said. “The upside is that increased competition could result in lower rates for citizens, given that choice I voted for the citizens.”

At least one independent organization also has come out against the bill. “The only ones who benefit will be AT&T and other cable companies,” said Brad Ashwell, legislative advocate for Florida Public Interest research Group in Tallahassee.

“It follows federal regulations, which are the least strict in the industry.”

As it stands now, cable companies can negotiate exclusive rights to an area. The federal government already regulates Internet service. Stewart doesn’t want to lose TV control as well.

“Congress took away our regulations on the Internet,” Stewart said. “If we have complaints we have to forward them to the FCC (Federal Communication Commission).”

This struck home in Cape Coral because the city was inundated with complaints after the Time warner and Comcast business deal that gave the Cape to Comcast.

The changeover started in February as a major undertaking for the company, said Schweber. The most massive of his carrier, he said.

It left many people complaining about inadequate service, inability to get to customer service and other problems with Comcast.