Save Access

from: Riedel Communications

More Verminators!

On the eve of a Congressional hearing regarding what has happened to Public, Educational and Government (PEG) access channels since the passage of statewide or state issued franchise legislation, it is heartening to note that the cable and telecom industries (and the FCC) have severely overplayed their hand. Tomorrow, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government will hear a laundry list of harms done to PEG in what appears to be an industry-wide effort to bury and destroy these local channels. An effort that was spawned by the FCC’s First and Second Report and Order on Video Franchising and the nineteen states that passed the state legislation. These harms come at a time when Congress and the American people are acutely sensitive to media consolidation and the loss of localism.

from: The Tennessean

Cable man's alleged abductor ordered to get mental exam

June 10, 2008
By CHRIS ECHEGARAY
Staff Writer

The cable TV war in Tennessee has reached new heights.

But it's not the competitors waging this battle — it's a customer. His name is John Weatherly, and he has been accused of kidnapping a Comcast technician during a service call in March 2007.

from: MultiChannel News

Tennessee Franchising Bill Aims To Extend Broadband Services
Local Governments Could Also Subsidize Deployment If Private Sector Passes
By Linda Haugsted -- Multichannel News, 4/11/2008 1:10:00 PM

Legislators in Tennessee have been presented a new version of a state franchising bill with a unique scheme to provide an incentive to new providers to extend broadband services.

from: The Tennessean

Deal is near on AT&T's statewide cable plans
Compromise bill is expected to be unveiled Monday
By THEO EMERY and NAOMI SNYDER • Staff Writers • April 5, 2008

Lawmakers expect to unveil compromise legislation on Monday that would permit AT&T to offer its television services statewide, capping months of closed-door talks between feuding sides of the telecommunications industry.

from: Memphis Business Journal

Friday, April 4, 2008
Comcast, AT&T work together on new bill for franchising rights
by Einat Paz-Frankel Staff writer

After vociferously contending an AT&T, Inc.-backed bill on the state's Capitol Hill last year, Comcast Corp. is now working with the telecom giant behind closed doors to create a new bill that will assuage both parties while changing the way video franchising rights are granted in Tennessee.

from: MultiChannel News

IBEW Tries Mass. Organizing Of Comcast Workers
Electrical Union Rallies, Sets Up Web Site Targeting Largest Cable Operator
By Linda Haugsted -- Multichannel News, 3/23/2008 5:22:00 AM

Comcast is in the crosshairs of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which has vowed to demonstrate nationwide at Comcast facilities in an effort to organize the company’s employees.

from: MultiChannel News

COVER STORY: When Capacity Is Never Enough
The Cautionary Tale Of Video Downloads
By Tom Steinert-Threlkeld -- Multichannel News, 3/22/2008 5:34:00 AM

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A bit is a bit is a bit. An electronic packet of data is a packet is a packet. Unless you look inside to see what it contains.

From: New Teevee

Note: Apparently Comcast (now the #4 telephone company) is working overtime to pass AT&T as the most hated telco.

Comcast Cameras to Start Watching You?

If you have some tinfoil handy, now might be a good time to fashion a hat. At the Digital Living Room conference today, Gerard Kunkel, Comcast’s senior VP of user experience, told me the cable company is experimenting with different camera technologies built into devices so it can know who’s in your living room.

from: Silican Alley Insider

BitTorrent CEO: Rethinking Media Store, No Business Impact from Comcast

If [Comcast is] thinking about ways to manage networks they should do it openly and publicly, especially when they haven’t been able to keep up to world standards in terms of the speeds of the networks in the first place.

from: Wet Machine

Comcast to Illinois: I loves Me The Market Power!
Harold Feld

As reported on BroadbandReports.com, Comcast has greeted former Insight customers transferred to Comcast as part of unwinding a partnership with a 6% rate hike. Thanks to all the delightful cover given to Comcast by Congressional Republicans, who declare that all is “A OTAY” in Cableland, the Comcast guys are no longer even pretending that the rise in rates has anything to do with cost. Rather, as Comcast rep Libbie Steh told the Springfield Journal Register in a rare attack of honesty: “increased costs are not a factor this year.” Rather: