Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 30, 1993 TAG: 9309300155
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MELANIE HATTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., announced their support of Boucher's bill on Tuesday at the first of a series of hearings by the House telecommunications and finance subcommittee on the Cable Act of 1992. The hearings will look at its implementation and the increase in some cable bills.
Wyden and Cooper said competition would improve customer service, expand programming, reduce prices and increase availability of cable television service in rural America.
"I sense a growing national outrage at the cable companies for socking it to their subscribers," Boucher said. "Competition clearly works. In those communities that today have more than one provider of cable service, the rates tend to be 30 percent below the national average."
Not everyone agreed. Kelvin Bowles, owner of Atlantic Metrovision Corp. in Franklin County, says competition does not work with cable because companies would be dividing the same advertising dollars, resulting in less revenue for each.
"Growth would be down because of competing prices," Bowles said. If regulation was provided by the state, instead of at the current federal level, quality service would be maintained.
Besides, there's already competition from satellite dishes, he said.
Cox Cable Inc. has said it doesn't mind the competition as long as the cable industry can have equal access to providing telephone service to their customers.
Boucher's bill will allow telephone companies to provide cable television service in their telephone service areas by repealing the cross-ownership restriction in the 1984 Cable Act. Also, he has said, it would encourage a nationwide fiber-optic communications network.
The legislation contains a provision that protects telephone customers from undue rate increases and the cable companies from unfair competition.
by CNB