roundtable: Re: Common Carriage on Video Dialtone (fwd)

roundtable: Re: Common Carriage on Video Dialtone (fwd)

Re: Common Carriage on Video Dialtone (fwd)

James Love (love@essential.org)
Tue, 22 Feb 1994 05:46:23 -0500 (EST) 

Date: Tue, 22 Feb 1994 05:46:23 -0500 (EST)
From: James Love <love@essential.org>
Subject: Re: Common Carriage on Video Dialtone (fwd)
To: roundtable@cni.org
Message-Id: <Pine.3.85.9402220523.C8337-0100000@essential>



---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 1994 22:13:01 -0600
From: Marvin Sirbu <ms6b+@andrew.cmu.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <telecomreg@relay.adp.wisc.edu>
Subject: Re: Common Carriage on Video Dialtone

This language is a big step backwards from the Markey Bill.  The Markey
bill specifies that telecommunications carriers must establish a "video
platform" where that service is as defined in the FCC's video dialtone
decision.  The FCC video dialtone decision was aimed at forcing the
creation of a SWITCHED service which would provide access to an
unlimited number of program providers.

This new language makes no reference to video platform, but speaks
instead in terms of "channel capacity"  Under this language, it would be
perfectly acceptable for a telephone company to build a traditional
cable system with a limited number of channels as long as it leased some
of the channels under contract to program providers other than itself.

Further, there is a very big difference in telecommunications law
between providing services by contract and providing services under
tariff.  The proposed language replaces the word tariff with the word
contract.  I am not a lawyer, but I suspect that the Commission's
oversight provisions for services provided via contract are not the same
as for those provided under tariff.

This could lead to a situation where additional channel capacity would
be made available only if a customer signed a contract to buy all the
channels on a new parallel cable.  In other words, there is no reference
to selling switched access by the program.

If one believes in a "video dialtone" model as proposed by the FCC in
1992, this language will do little to move the industry in that
direction.  Indeed, because it explicitly supercedes any prior
regulations, i.e. the FCC's video dialtone decision, it is a significant
step back from that proposal.

Marvin Sirbu
Carnegie Mellon University

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