Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

Mon Dec 20 01:09:24 UTC 2010

In a message written on Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 05:16:27PM -0500, William Allen Simpson wrote:
> That would be against the law in Michigan.  And I've never heard of any
> cable company revealing its profits on a per municipality basis....

Google finds some:

http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=7364

"The Franchise Agreement requires AT&T to pay the City $0.88 per
residential subscriber per month to maintain and enhance PEG access
services provided by MPAC. AT&T has chosen to pass this $0.88 fee on to
subscribers, which it is not prohibited to do under Federal law."

http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/mcgtmpl.asp?url=/content/cableoffice/june98franchise.asp#8.%20FRANCHISE%20FEE

"Payment to County. Each year during the Franchise term, as
compensation for use of Public Rights-of-Way, the Franchisee shall pay
to the County, on a quarterly basis, a Franchise fee of five percent
(5%) of Gross Revenues, including any Franchise fee owed to the
Participating Municipalities."

http://www.cityofsouthfield.com/Government/CityDepartments/AC/Cable15/FranchiseFees/tabid/499/Default.aspx

"Franchise fees are calculated as a percentage of your bill.
Southfield's fee is eight percent of gross revenues."

Googling "Franchise Fee" turns up thousands of other documents.

This is also why, when speaking to folks at the cable and iLEC
companies I remind them that when it comes to network neutrality I
do regard them as different from CLEC's and independant companies.
They have been granted a monopoly by the local government for
wireline services, and in exchange for that monopoly need to act
in the public's interest.  In the TV world this is things like
running the local community interest channel, and paying a franchise
fee.  In the IP world we're still developing the criteria, but it's
not unreasonable to think they might have some government imposed
requirements there as well.

-- 
       Leo Bicknell - bicknell at ufp.org - CCIE 3440
        PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/
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