HR 1542 [OT, anti-BS attempt, US]

Mon May 7 18:33:20 UTC 2001

> From: Greg Maxwell [mailto:gmaxwell at martin.fl.us]
> Sent: Monday, May 07, 2001 11:15 AM
> 
> On Mon, 7 May 2001, Roeland Meyer wrote:
> 
> [snip]
> > Cable operators are unregulated local monopolies.
> 
> No. They are regulated, by the franchise agreement. If the 
> agreement isn't
> strong enough to ensure the highest best use of public 
> right-of-way then
> it's a failure of the local government for not making it so (or the
> state/FCC for forbiding the local governments from placing certain
> requirements in the agreement).

The problem is that the local govs seldom "get it right" or, as mentioned
earlier, simply don't care (the latter being more prevalent). Most of this
is out of band, as far as state PUCs are concerned. Ergo, there is no
recourse or appeal. This is a major disconnect in the system process.