NATOA, NLC, NACO, USCM File Comments Supporting PEG
March 9, 2009 4:04 PM
NATOA, joined by the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors, filed comments supporting three petitions for declaratory ruling at the FCC dealing with discriminatory treatment of PEG channels. The petitions addressed discrimination by Comcast on its Michigan system and AT&T’s “Channel 99” PEG product. Specifically, the Comcast petition attacked a proposed digitization of PEG channels and imposition of additional costs and burdens on the consumer to continue receiving PEG channels once located in the basic service tier. The petitions dealing with AT&T’s “Channel 99” focused on the substandard video quality, failure to pass through closed captioning, and stripping of secondary audio programming as sent by the PEG programmer, among other concerns.
In the comments, the Commission was specifically urged to endorse a District Court of Connecticut ruling that AT&T is a “cable operator” providing “cable service” over a “cable system,” and require compliance with all of Title VI of the Communications Act as amended. The Commission was also asked to find that Comcast’s proposed digitization of PEG channels violates federal requirements that PEG channels be placed on the basic service tier.
You can read the full text of the comments filed by NATOA, NLC, NACO, and USCM here. Reply comments in this proceeding are due March 24.