It's Not Redlining!

Our item Wed on Verizon securing a franchise to serve the Town of Hempstead, NY, touched a nerve at the telco’s HQ. "Never let facts get in the way of CableFAX’s ongoing drumbeat about redlining," Sharon Cohen-Hagar emailed. "Verizon doesn’t redline, no matter what phony arguments Broadband Everywhere…dreams up. Verizon will serve the entire Town of Hempstead." Still, at the public hearings in NY, Cablevision identified several loopholes in Verizon’s franchise agreement that would allow it to walk away from certain areas and never provide service. — The CA legislature introduced a video franchising bill that looks to be anti-cable. It would allow telcos to gain a statewide franchise; establish a 30-day shot clock for telco franchise applications to be processed; and it doesn’t have build-out requirements (which shouldn’t matter because the telcos don’t redline!)