ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 10, 1996 TAG: 9604100045
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
Cable TV customers soon will lose the ability to contest rates for popular cable programs directly to the Federal Communications Commission, agency officials said Tuesday.
Instead, they will have to rely on their state or local governments to file complaints to the FCC on their behalf. Congress required the FCC to make the change as part of a larger telecommunication law.
The FCC on Tuesday ordered changes to its complaint procedures and proposed other rules that would change the way the FCC regulates the cable television industry.
FCC spokesman Brian Foucart said new complaint procedures would take effect ``in a couple of days,'' when the rules are published in the Federal Register.
Cable customers have been allowed since 1993 to protest rates for expanded basic service, which makes up the vast majority of regulated cable services. On most cable systems, networks such as ESPN, MTV and USA are part of expanded basic service. Premium services such as HBO are not regulated. The policy was mandated by Congress in response to public outrage over rate gouging.
Cable companies also will no longer be required to give customers prior notice of any rate changes that occur because of a regulatory fee, franchise fee or any other fee or tax. However, companies still are required to notify customers before they make rate and service changes.
The new telecommunication law deregulated rates for customers of small cable TV systems - about 20 percent of the nation's 61 million cable subscribers. It also directed the FCC to deregulate rates for all other customers by March 31, 1999, or sooner if a cable company competes against a telephone company for cable customers.
``Cable operators will now be able to respond to competition more effectively without being burdened by unnecessary rules and regulations,'' said Decker Anstrom, president of the National Cable Television Association.
The FCC said it would seek public comment on whether telephone companies should have to provide cable services to a certain number of people in a given market before the existing cable company's rates are deregulated.
That proposal drew criticism from two of the FCC's four commissioners. James Quello and Rachelle Chong said Congress did not include such a penetration or market-share test in the new law and the FCC shouldn't, either.
``If Congress had intended a higher standard, I believe that it would have specified'' one, Chong said.
LENGTH: Medium: 54 linesby CNB