Competitive Cable Coming

July 4, 2008

The Competitive Cable Bill, passed by the Tennessee General Assembly last session, was one of the major pieces of legislation sponsored by Murfreesboro State Senator Bill Ketron…

Any group or individual seeking to provide cable or video service must apply for a state franchise at the Secretary of S tate’s office. The legislation became effective May 15th. Cities and municipalities, like Murfreesboro, were against the legislation saying it’s bad for customers because it would do away with local enforcement of customer service standards and bills won’t necessarily be lowered. But Ketron reports savings could be over 20-dollars a month. Cities and municipalities were against the legislation because AT&T wants to offer bundled services of voice, cable and high-speed Internet across the state, but it wanted to acquire the rights to do so by obtaining a franchise directly from the state. That bypasses more than 600 local governments.