December 13, 2006
Ex Parte
Ms. Marilyn Dortch, Secretary
Federal Communications Commission
445 12
th
Street, S.W.
Washington, DC 20554
Re: Implementation of Section 621(a)(1) of the Cable Communications Policy Act of
1984 as amended by the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of
1992, MB Docket No. 05-311
Dear Ms. Dortch,
This notice is to record my ex parte meeting Rudy Brioche?s voicemail of
Commissioner Adelstein?s office. My comments are summarized as follows:
We unite with Access Montgomery and the Alliance for Community Media
members in calling for competition without destruction of local, community
controlled media.
1) The proposed rule eliminates incentive for providers to negotiate in good
faith. If the city and the provider do not come to agreement within 90 days, the
provider can proceed without an agreement and likely result in our communities
not receiving the benefit of these public interest provisions. They can then make
billions of dollars using our public land without considering local needs. This
framework would be unreasonable.
2) The proposed rule lacks a remedy for geographic discrimination. Public,
Education and Government Access, or PEG, are tools to engage our local
communities in democracy. Democratic participation should be for all, not based
on a company business plan. The public-right-of-way is owned by all in our
community, not just those in an area lucky enough to be served. We believe that
inevitable market imbalances must be anticipated by the FCC, as they were by
Congress, and that any rule-making must provide these three elements:
A) A standard for identifying imbalances in service.
B) A party responsible for identifying the imbalance?logically, the municipality.
2
C) A means for prevention or remedy of the imbalance.
3) The proposed rule reduces the support for PEG or other community media
services from what is allowed by current Federal law. We believe this is an
arbitrary reduction which will hurt our communities. This reduction would
eliminate a valued community resource with no demonstrated effect on either
subscriber price or level of competition.
4) Any subsequent or further proposed rulemaking that would provide
competitive video service providers with an exemption from having to provide
PEG Access would be unacceptable. Elimination of the requirement for PEG
Access would reduce diversity and localism.
5) The changes being proposed to the law are dramatic. We believe that such
changes to the law should be made by Congress, not the FCC. These changes
will slow competition by confusing the legal framework. Such changes should be
decided by law-makers, not the courts. The FCC should not usurp
Congressional authority.
We look forward to working with the FCC to establish a process which supports
both competition and community fairness. Please contact us if you have
questions or comments.
Sincerely,
Patricia Stewart
Research, Evaluation and Development Director/MCT
7548 Standish Place
Rockville, MD 20855
pstewart@mct-tv.org
CC:
Christina Pauze
Chris Robbins
Heather Dixon
Rudy Brioche
Bruce Gottlieb
My Congressional Delegation