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from: Journal Sentinel

Lawmaker hopes to help rural cable users ease 'digital divide'

By STEVEN WALTERS
swalters@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Nov. 5, 2007

Madison - A state senator from western Wisconsin will try to rewrite a controversial cable franchise bill to require AT&T, cable and other companies to contribute up to $7.5 million to a new "digital divide" fund to make sure rural areas get the same services as cities and suburbs.
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Sen. Kathleen Vinehout (D-Alma) said she will try to make sweeping changes to the Assembly-passed cable deregulation bill, which is scheduled for a Senate vote on Thursday. She said her changes will be modeled on a law passed in Illinois.

Vinehout said the bill up for a Senate vote was written largely by AT&T, so it does not contain needed consumer protections and offers no assurances that rural areas - such as her part of Wisconsin - will get the next generation of telecommunication services.

"I'm representing the people that weren't at the table" when AT&T, cable companies and a few legislators wrote the bill, Vinehout said in an interview.

But Sen. Jeff Plale (D-South Milwaukee), sponsor of the deregulation plan, said his bill should be passed "without additional changes."

In the year that it has been debated, the bill "has been improved," Plale said in a statement, and it "should become law."

Plale said he knows that Vinehout and other rural legislators are worried that those regions will continue to lag behind cities and suburbs in telecommunications technology.

But the bill up for a Senate vote Thursday "is not the appropriate backdrop for these conversations," Plale added.

Major changes like Vinehout's plan for a new fund to pay to wire rural areas "should not be tacked on hastily as last-minute amendments," Plale said.

Plale's bill would scrap the 1970s-era system of local governments negotiating and issuing franchises with cable companies that also pay for local public, education and government channels.

Under the bill, the state Department of Financial Institutions would have to issue permanent franchises to companies that pay a $2,000 fee and that meet minimal requirements.

Consumer complaints would be handled by the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, which would also respond to complaints about satellite dish service. Under the bill, however, the agency would not get any money to hire new investigators.

Vinehout said the changes she and Sen. Mark Miller (D-Monona) will offer would:

• Require AT&T and other large telecommunications companies to either make services available in at least 90% of Wisconsin or pay $7.5 million into a "digital divide" fund, which would be administered by the Public Service Commission. The fund would be used to make sure rural areas get access to new technology. Illinois created a $15-million fund, Vinehout said.

"We have a huge difference between access to technology in rural areas and urban areas," said Vinehout, who said the only options available to her Alma farm are dial-up service or installing a satellite dish. "What we find increasingly is that the rural areas are left out."

• Require telecommunication companies to pay 1% of their gross receipts to local communities to continue public-access channels, in addition to a maximum 5% payment specified in the Assembly-passed bill. Under that bill, funding for public-access channels would continue for up to three years.

If the Assembly-passed bill became law, Vinehout said Eau Claire's community-access channels would lose more than half of their subsidy.

• Specify consumer-protection requirements for cable and telecommunication companies in state law.

Under the bill up for a Senate vote, Vinehout said, "We would lose, or roll back, the consumer protection standards that exist now for cable companies."

• Require cable and telecommunication companies to continue to provide service to libraries and other public buildings.

AT&T spokesman Jeff Bentoff said the Assembly-passed bill has been amended to include more consumer protections, so there is no need for Vinehout's changes.

The Assembly-passed bill "balances the needs of consumers for video choice with the demands of local governments and public, education and government (channel) operators," Bentoff said.

AT&T has pushed the bill in two ways: It has hired 15 lobbyists, including aides to current and former governors. And it has donated heavily to the campaign funds of both state parties, to Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle and key legislators.