Wisconsin residents would lose their rights to cable television repairs within 72 hours, credit for service interruptions and advance notice of rate increases, under a bill on the fast track in the state Legislature.
The proposal, designed to increase competition in an industry dominated by cable companies, is supported by the lobbying muscle of telecommunications giant AT&T.
It’s part of AT&T’s challenge to cable companies such as Charter Communications, which are licensed by local governments.
There is little agreement on whether the proposal would help consumers or hurt them.
Pitsch mentions this:
But proponents say the bill would lower costs for telecast delivery – whether by cable or AT&T’s fiber optic lines – by up to 23 percent by introducing competition and deregulating the industry.
What fiber optic lines would that be? AT&T has done nothing to upgrade it’s copper based network to the home (other than spend money on lobbying and advertisements regarding the ongoing resale of the old network, something we’ve paid for over and over and over…), unlike Verizon in other parts of the country. Nice to see our politicians continue to “stick it to us”. `