U.S. court upholds new FCC video franchising rules

HMTKSteve

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit turned down a petition by cable operators and municipal officials seeking to overturn the new regulations, which were adopted by the FCC in December and aimed at spurring new competition with cable.

The new rules set time limits for local authorities to act on applications by new television providers and said some requirements imposed on some entrants, such as building a local swimming pool, were unreasonable.

Under the new rules, local jurisdictions have 90 days to act on applications by new television providers that already have access to city land to run connections and 180 days for new entrants to cities and towns.

UPDATE 1-U.S. court upholds new FCC video franchising rules

Because new swimming pools are just sooooooo related to installing cable TV type services.

Apreche

This is actually really good. You see what's happening here. There has been a major problem in terms of telephone, data, and television services in that there is almost no competition. Satellite dish services put some pressure on the TV, but not enough. The reason for the lack of competition is that it is very hard for a new company to come in and lay wires. They're pretty much limited to leasing from existing providers.

What's happening now is that the telephone companies are trying to provide data and video services. Meanwhile, the cable companies are getting into data and voice. Thus, now there is going to be real competition. Soon cable companies and telephone companies will be the same kind of company. They will both be "wire to your house companies", just using different kinds of wires. Anyone who lives somewhere that has both landline telephone and cable television service should benefit from increased competition.

This move by the FCC makes it easier for the telephone companies to compete in the video realm.