Agenda - 12-13-2005-5j - Laserfiche WebLink

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2 DRAFT Via US Mail December _, 2005 The Honorable Fred Upton Chair Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet 2161 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515-2206 The Honorable Tohn Dingell Ranking Member House Committee on Energy and Commerce 2328 Raybum House Office Building Washington, DC 20515-2215 Re: House Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee "BITS II" bill of the House Energy and Commerce Committee Dear Representatives Upton and Dingell: I write to respectfully request that you oppose the "BITS II" bill, a staff draft advertised as "unleashing competition into the local video market", but which will instead deprive local govemments and their residents of competition, deny consumers effective means of redress, impact the safety of our roads, and eliminate millions of dollars of revenue annually out of local government budgets. In essence this bill is anticompetitive and anti-consumer.. The bill is anti-competitive: Without any evidence that a wire line video competitor has entered a local community, the bill permits cable and phone companies to buy each other out. This encourages further monopolization of our local markets. Without any evidence that effective competition exists in a local community, the bill deregulates all rates. The bill is anti-consumer: The bill would preempt all local authority over the provision of video services within the community, including the ability of local governments to provide appropriate oversight of entities conducting business within their jurisdiction and their streets. The bill would eliminate local governments authority to enforce consumer protections. There are currently 65 million cable customers whose cable service is potentially overseen by more than .35,000 local governments nationwide. The FCC is simply not prepared or staffed to handle the millions of local customer billing, repair and installation complaints that local governments resolve every month of every year..