Combating State Video Franchising Reform: A Few Ideas
AT&T continues to press its vision of bringing Saturn’s “no haggle” policy to video franchising. There’s no need here to get into why video franchising reform is unnecessary and contrary to customers’ interests — that topic has been covered extensively in other places (get a copy of the International City/County Management Association’s white paper, “Forced Franchising: Why the Telephone Industry’s Calls for ‘Shall Issue’ Video Franchising Shouldn’t be Answered”). There is, however, some need to discuss how to deal with state legislation once AT&T makes its move.
In a prior life, I was responsible for legislative and regulatory activities for several different cable operators . . . in those roles, I also had significant exposure to the public advocacy techniques employed by telcos. Now that I’m representing local governments, it’s been fascinating to see how differently big, private companies advocate their public policy positions as compared to the processes employed by local government groups. The public policy teams at Fortune 100 companies have 2 big advantages when compared to those advocating the interests of local governments and their residents:
