Telecom execs to face General Assembly committee

Task Force has struggled to obtain details on state infrastructure

Email | Print By Milt Capps

Rep. Mark Maddox

On Friday morning, the General Assembly's State Broadband Task Force will again attempt to determine whether or not the state's telecommunications and data-transmission resources are likely to meet the rapdily growing requirements of business, industry and consumers.

As previously reported by Nashvillepost.com, The Task Force has thus far been politely thwarted in its efforts to pry needed information from the industry's biggest players.

The task force will kick-off its latest effort at 10 a.m. Friday in Legislative Plaza Room 12. Task force Co-Chairs State Sen. Roy Herron (D-Dresden-24) and State Rep. Mark Maddox (D-Dresden-76) and their colleagues may harbor hopes that more light will be shed Friday on the condition of Tennessee's broadband telecommunications infrastructure.

The task force has met twice previously in the same legislative venue, only to be left shifting in its seats while lower-level industry executives labored politely, but unsuccessfully to answer committee questions, without simultaneously revealing much about their businesses.

Now, it is the big corporate guns who will do the talking. The task force will hear from Marty Dickens, Tennessee state president, Bellsouth Telecommunications; Fred Lutz, senior vice president for Tennessee operations for Charter Communications; and, Steve White, regional senior vice president, Comcast Mid-South Region.

Pat Miller, a director of the Tennessee Regulatory Authority (TRA), which provides staff support to the Broadband Task Force, told NashvillePost.com this morning that in addition to the communications executives, representatives of Tennessee Fiber Optic Communities also will appear to provide comments on municipal utilities' interests in deploying fiber-optic communications infrastructure.