Cable television rates are too high and competition needs to be encouraged in the industry, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin says.
FCC could have made more progress, says Kevin Martin
The commission continues to see cable rate increases, he pointed out at the Consumer Electronics Show. At the same time, cable companies continue to ban consumers from using third-party equipment to connect to the Internet and to video programming on the Web, he said.
The FCC needs to figure out ways to give people more choice while encouraging competition, Martin said during an on-stage interview.
“That’s an area we could have made more progress in,” he said, reflecting on his tenure as commission chairman.
During the interview, Martin suggested the FCC use universal service fees designed to bring telephone service to rural areas to bring broadband access to hard-to-reach communities in the U.S.
Indeed the cable industry needs more regulation. Not only is the increase of cable rates out of whack with the CPI, but the cable companies and networks are unfairly taxing consumers for programming that they don’t want. We despirately need ala carte programming letting those who want to buy sports, spanish language or Viacom’s brainless entertainment products (MTV, VH1 etc) to pay for their own addictions without subsidy from the rest of us.
Cable companies are already offering bundled internet and cable tv services at a cheap price ”