Save Access

from: Schaumburg Review

Community TV: If cable changes, what would happen to public programming?

January 25, 2007
By PATRICK CORCORAN Staff Writer

Public access television providers are worried they'll be lost in the shuffle stemming from AT&T's video network proposal.

IS PUBLIC ACCESS NEEDED YES.
TIME TO STOP marginalizing THE INSTITUION OF PUBLIC ACCESS

Consider sharing this with your fed and state legislators:

120 people pack City Council Chamber to support WCCA TV PUBLIC ACCESS TV
http://www.wccatv.com/node/785

Press release Illustrates the importance to PROTECT PUBLIC ACCESS
http://www.wccatv.com/node/790

from: Chicago Tribune

INSIDE TECHNOLOGY
AT&T laying low in bid to launch video services

By Jon Van
Published February 5, 2007

AT&T Illinois is keen to launch video services over its wireline network, but the company is uncharacteristically coy about how it plans to do so.

from: Worcester Telegram & Gazette

City Council Asked to Protect Public Access Channel

From Worcester Telegram & Gazette, February 1, 2007
By Nick Kotsopoulos

More than 100 supporters of WCCA-TV, Channel 13, the nonprofit, local public access cable channel, last night urged the City Council Public Service and Transportation Committee to ensure that the station’s funding is not decreased as part of the new cable television contract the city negotiates with Charter Communications Inc.

from: Athens Banner-Herald

Georgia Cable Reform Bill Would Give Service Oversight to State

From Athens Banner-Herald, February 4, 2007
By Don Nelson

Legislation designed to establish a statewide cable and video franchise system would allow telecommunications companies like BellSouth a quicker and less restrictive way to provide television services in the state’s cities and counties, the bill’s proponents say.

from: Contra Costa Times

AT&T, Verizon spend millions to access California cable TV market

SAMANTHA YOUNG
Associated Press

SACRAMENTO - AT&T and Verizon, the two most dominant players in California's telephone market, spent nearly $26 million to lobby lawmakers last year in a successful effort to access the state's lucrative cable TV market.

from: Multichannel News

Pre-Emptive Strike in Tenn.
By Linda Haugsted1/29/2007

The Tennessee Cable Telecommunications Association is countering an AT&T-based state franchising reform strategy before the telco has even submitted a bill in that state.

The cable trade group anticipates a proposal similar to those that have succeeded in other states, moving franchising authority from multiple community governments to a single point of contact at the state level.

from: Technology Daily

Revised Franchising Proposal Woos Missouri's Cable Industry

By Michael Martinez

(Monday, January 29) The video-franchising debate has returned to Missouri, and a key player has switched sides.

Almost a year after killing his own bill on the issue, state Sen. John Griesheimer has introduced legislation to allow for streamlined entry into the Show-Me State video services market. He authored a similar measure last year that appeared to be on the fast track for the governor's desk before it died in the spring.

Note: AT&T has struggled with it's roll-out of huge telco boxes. It seems AT&T's U-verse is 'your world delivered' in the form of a hulking gray box on the public 'right of way' in front of your home. In the competition with cable, AT&T wins for the biggest boxes and most number of lawsuits they've filed over where they can put them.

from: Journal Sentinel

from: WZZM13

Regulators approve form of cable franchise agreements

AP
Created: 1/30/2007 9:53:38 PM
Updated: 1/30/2007 10:11:20 PM

Lansing - State regulators today created a standardized form to be used for new statewide cable TV franchise agreements - the first step meant to open up Michigan to more cable competition.