roundtable: Anti-Redlining Amendment in Cable-Telco Legislation (fwd)

roundtable: Anti-Redlining Amendment in Cable/Telco Legislation (fwd)

Anti-Redlining Amendment in Cable/Telco Legislation (fwd)

James Love (love@Essential.ORG)
Thu, 17 Mar 1994 23:41:39 -0500 (EST) 

Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 23:41:39 -0500 (EST)
From: James Love <love@Essential.ORG>
Subject: Anti-Redlining Amendment in Cable/Telco Legislation (fwd)
To: roundtable@cni.org
Message-Id: <Pine.3.85.9403172339.F15519-0100000@essential>


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TAXPAYER ASSETS PROJECT - INFORMATION POLICY NOTE
March 17, 1994

         Anti-Redlining Amendment Added to Cable/Telco legislation

- james love (love@essential.org; 202/387-8030 or 610/658-0880)

     On Wednesday, March 16, the full Energy and Commerce
Committee held a mark-up session on HR 3626 and HR 3636, two
bills which will substantially rewrite the nation's
communications laws.  This note provides some background on one
amendment which was offered by Representative Bill Richardson (D-
NM), and adopted by the full committee.  The purpose of this note
is both to discuss the amendment, and to illustrate how the
network of citizen groups who are members of the
Telecommunications Policy Roundtable work together to influence
the NII legislation.

     The amendment deals with the issue of "redlining" in the new
Video Platform broadband networks provided by telephone
companies.  Richardson's redlining amendment requires the FCC to
adopt regulations which would prevent telephone companies from
excluding areas from their Video Platform service area on the
basis of the ethnicity, race or income of the residents.

     Video Platform services are multimedia networks that will be
provided by telephone companies in the same service area where
they presently provide telephone service.  Early this month, the
Consumer Federation of America (CFA), the Center for Media
Education (CME), Essential Information, and TAP began a study of
redlining in the 20 so called "video dialtone" applications the
telephone companies have filed with the FCC.  These groups noted
that the initial service areas for the new services were small,
and appeared to be narrowly targeted to high income communities. 
One New England Telephone Company proposal, for example, included
West Hartford, a very wealthy community, but excluded Hartford,
which is a lower income community with a significant minority
population.  Some proposals were very specific, including only a
few apartment buildings.

     TAP circulated some suggested language for HR 3636 to deal
with this issue.  Representative Bill Richardson's staff
indicated on Monday afternoon that the Congressman would be
interested in doing something on the problem.  After wider
discussions, the language was redrafted by Richardson. and
information about the amendment was more circulated among some
members of the Telecommunications Policy Roundtable.  By
Wednesday, nine groups (CFA, CME, People for the American Way,
Libraries for the Future, TAP, the Black Coalition on Voter
Participation, the Center for Policy Alternatives, the United
Church of Christ Department of Communication,  and the
Communications Task Force of the National Council of Churches)
endorsed the Richardson anti-redlining amendment.

     Meanwhile, two news stories were shaping the debate on the
mark-up in different directions.  A story in monday's issue of
Communications Daily indicated that the Regional Bell Operating
Companies (RBOCs)  were threatening to "pull away" from the
legislation, because they were unhappy with changes in the
legislation that had emerged from the earlier mark-up at the
Telecommunications and Finance Subcommittee.  Communications
Daily attributed this to "strong campaigns by long distance
industry and consumer interests," which were shifting the
"balance" of the bill away from Telco interests.  Whether this
was a ploy or not is hard to say, but several members of the
Committee indicated that they didn't want to do anything that
would further jeopardize the telephone companies' support for the
bill.

     On Tuesday, however, the Wall Street Journal ran a page one
story, detailing the RBOCs' massive lobbying efforts, and their
willingness to play political hardball, by bankrolling opponents
in member districts.  The Journal article seemed to shift
sentiment against the RBOCs, at least somewhat.

     Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee,
Representative John Dingell (D-MI), was responsible for managing
the mark-up on HR 3626 and HR 3636.  His staff opposed the
inclusion of the redlining amendment, on the grounds that it was
appearing too late in the process, but Richardson insisted on
offering it during mark-up.  On the day of the mark-up committee
staff raised some additional questions about the need for the
amendment, and asserted that it would be redundant and
unnecessary, given current communications law.  That set off a
scramble to find out what if anything was in the Communications
Act that dealt with redlining in Video Dialtone services.

     Andy Schwartzman, a communications lawyer and the longtime
director of the Media Access Project, provided some advice for
the proponents of the amendment on extremely short notice,
despite other demands on Andy's time, such as another amendment
on the reallocation of HDTV spectrum.  Because of his extensive
knowledge of communications law and the legislative process,
public interest and industry groups often use Andy as a sounding
board or advisor on a wide range of issues, as was the case for
the redlining amendment.  In this case Andy located someone else
who had recently examined the issue, the answer seemed to be that
once a telephone company wires a community, anyone can hook-up
(an issue that was not in dispute), but that they telephone
companies did not have a clear affirmative obligation to wire
certain communities, or build out the system into certain
neighborhoods.  [The key issue concerned Section 202 of title 47,
which prohibits a common carrier from "subjecting any particular
person, class of persons, or locality to any undue or
unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage."]

     Michael Ward from TAP also contacted a number of other
Roundtable members, asking what they know about current
regulatory or statutory provisions on video redlining.  This
connected Michael with Tony Pharr, who represents the United
Church of Christ and the Communication Task Force for the
National Council of Churches.  It turned out that Tony had
prepared an analysis of the Ameritech video dialtone proposal for
Illinois, which was announced by Ameritech with great fanfare on
January 27, 1994.

     The Ameritech proposal involved 28 communities in Illinois. 
For the State as a whole, 75 percent of the population is white
and 25 percent is non-white.  However, in the 28 communities that
are included in the Ameritech proposal, 22 had minority
populations less than 25 percent, and 18 had minority populations
less than 10 percent.  In only 1 of the 28 communities did non-
whites constitute a majority of the residents.  In 26 of the 28
communities the median household income was higher than the
median income for the state as a whole.  The median household
income for the entire state of Illinois in 1990 was $32,252.  The
average 1990 median income for the 28 communities in the
Ameritech proposal was $46,337.

     On the same day Ameritech announced its digital video
network for Illinois, it also announced a special program to
connect elementary and secondary schools to advanced
communications capabilities..  Ameritech President Richard C.
Notebart indicated that "schools should be among the first
'information haves' as this nation moves into an era of
interactive communication."  According to Pharr, the two
communities in Michigan selected for tests of this program
included Warren and Birmingham, which have populations which are
96 and 97 percent white.  

     Ultimately, the preliminary analyses by CFA, CME, TAP and
Pharr provided a strong empirical case that a stronger legal
mandate against redlining was needed.

     Richardson went ahead and offered his redlining amendment ,
which was adopted as part of HR 3636.  The amendment expands a
section that defines the rules that must be adopted by FCC for
the Video Platform services, by asking the Commission to adopt a
regulation which will prohibit redlining.  The text follows:

     On Page 52, line 34, insert the following new subsection:

          "(G) prohibit a common carrier from excluding
     areas from their geographic service area on the basis
     of the ethnicity, race or income of the residents of
     that area, and provide for public comments on the
     adequacy of the proposed service area on the basis of
     the standards set forth under this subsection.

     The new language was considerably more direct than Section
202 of Title 47, focusing on the exclusion of areas from the
Video Platform service area, and provides both for new rules to
implement the section and a mechanism for public comment on the
adequacy of service areas.  The amendment will expand the debate
about universal service and equity in a very concrete and
important way.  In his comments on the amendment, Richardson said
that "one has to look no further than the problems incurred with
building-out cable systems, especially in the inner cities, to
realize that this amendment is crucial to bringing the
information superhighway to all Americans, regardless of their
ethnic or social-economic status."

     The work in the redlining amendment involved a number of
groups, which made different value added contributions.  We
didn't focus on the issue until CME and CFA proposed a study of
the pending Video Dialtone applications.  TAP conducted a
preliminary analysis of a few cities, where we had good
information about the neighborhoods.  A number of Roundtable
members looked at the proposed language on a very short time
table, so that the amendment enjoyed a solid basis of support. 
The Media Access Project helped identify the key legal issues
concerning the current state of the law, and Pharr's analysis of
the Ameritech proposal provided strong empirical basis for a
stronger FCC role in determining which communities will have
access to the new services.


- jamie love
  March 17, 1994

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