Fight about TV over IP coming to Congress

TV over IP may come eventually to a television set near you, but not before a regulatory fight in the U.S. Congress.

It's a fight pitting two giant industries against each other -- cable television carriers vs. the largest telecommunications carriers -- with the two sides arguing over the rules that will govern competition for traditional television and advanced video and broadband services offered to U.S. residents.

While telecom giants SBC and Verizon are already beginning to roll out IPTV services, they're also asking Congress to streamline the rules that forced cable TV carriers to negotiate franchise agreements with every local government where they provided service. The large telecom carriers faced heavy regulation in the traditional telephone market when they were the only providers, they argue, but when Congress opened up voice calls to competition in the 1996 Telecommunications Act, competing carriers had fewer regulations.

Two bills now before Congress would exempt cable TV competitors from local franchise requirements, although allowing local governments to continue receiving franchise fees. In essence, companies like SBC and Verizon would need to negotiate one national franchise, with the fees filtering back to local governments. The bills also require new video providers to offer educational and public access TV channels, as cable providers have been required to do.

TV over IP, sometimes called IPTV, has the potential to bring multiple services to subscribers' TV sets, said Walter Mergura, general manager of broadband network solutions at Nortel, which sponsored an IPTV policy debate Wednesday in Washington, D.C. Consumers could receive voice, video and broadband Internet services over their TV sets, and TV programming could be linked to Web data so that viewers watching a cooking show could immediately download a recipe, he said.

As competition comes to the cable TV market, Congress should give new competitors similar regulatory breaks it gave to telecom competitors, said Brent Olson, SBC's assistant vice president for regulatory policy. In the case of video services, telecom carriers shouldn't have to negotiate thousands of franchising agreements to bring competition to the cable TV carriers, he said during the policy debate.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.