Save Access

from: Buffalo News

EDITORIALS
On balance, a good bill

Right now, the final days of the State Legislature session are winding down. But in the meantime, there’s a controversy brewing among big business over a bill to change how cable television is distributed, taking it out of the hands of local municipalities and creating a special state panel to decide what company gets the franchise.

Despite Albany’s history of creating bureaucratic quagmires, the bill by Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, which would award statewide contracts by the Public Service Commission, should be put to the test.

Local municipalities have been negotiating cable contracts for years and, unfortunately, it has resulted in a hodgepodge of services. If, by creating a state panel, the consumer ends up with a heavier hammer with which to wield in negotiations, then why not?

Brodsky’s bill doesn’t exactly break new ground in awarding state contracts. Others with laws providing choice for cable services include California, Indiana, New Jersey, Michigan, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.

What this bill does do is encompass many moving parts of burgeoning technology that includes broadband and the delivery of Internet services to pockets, small and large, of the state. It also touches on Net Neutrality, which disallows networks to favor one particular destination or class of applications over others.

In some ways this bill, titled Omnibus Telecommunications Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2007, appears to encompass just about every aspect of 21st century technology. As the bill states, broadband technologies are not evenly dispersed and utilized among the state’s citizens. The bill guarantees adequate service quality by telecommunications and cable companies in rural, high-cost and low-income areas.

By creating a statewide franchise, not only does the bill promise to expand services far and wide, it also produces studies showing statewide franchises cause rate reductions of 20 percent to 25 percent. Towns, cities and villages will receive a 40 percent increase in payments from cable companies.

So what’s not to like? According to the Association of Towns and Conference of Mayors, a lot. It believes that the bill takes away local authority and moves it to an unelected board in Albany, giving the Public Service Commission, a frequent target of Brodsky, enhanced power.

Take, for example, language in the bill stating that it protects all municipal power, “save the power to approve the franchise . . .” Opponents of the legislation want to know what else is left. Proponents say the most important point is not the final approval, but the terms and conditions, and many localities upstate generally don’t have the resources to negotiate a successful contract.

Opponents say Verizon is the driving force behind statewide franchises, yet it opposes the Brodsky bill because of the build-out provisions. But that insistence on wide deployment is something to like about the bill. Opponents believe that what cable providers, whether Cablevision, Time Warner, Cox, etc., respond to is the fact that they have to get permission from local authorities.

The Brodsky bill preserves the ability of local municipalities to demand that companies don’t rip up streets and provide a certain level of service in a specific time line, exactly the issues that concern local politicians.

It’s a conclusion Binghamton Mayor Matthew T. Ryan came to after examining the telecommunication industry and in his desire to support a progressive state franchising bill that will be a far better asset to communities across the state. He stands as a maverick among most municipal leaders, but he’s right to ensure that the best bill is put forward.

While not perfect, Brodsky’s bill is a piece of solid legislation to build upon.