Lethal injection: Dose of suspicion helped kill AT&T bill

UPDATED 12:59 P.M.- Committee chairman says AT&T headquarters pulled plug, but AT&T story differs. High stakes, deadline and growing mistrust contributed.

Email | Print By Milt Capps

Injections of disinformation bred mistrust

UPDATED 12:59 P.M. - Standing in the Well of the House this morning, Commerce Committee Chairman Charles Curtiss told his committee gathered near that while cities, cable companies and even AT&T Tennessee seemed willing to continue pursuing franchise reform, AT&T corporate headquarters in Texas "pulled the plug on this." Curtiss said he'd discuss with Speaker Naifeh whether to form a study committee, and promised his committee and stakeholders that the issue will "be back next year," this time with impetus from members of the General Assembly, rather than from "some corporate citizen." Within an hour of Curtiss' seven-minute committee meeting, an AT&T spokesman said AT&T insists the decision to pull the bill was a "consensus" decision involving AT&T executives in both Texas and Tennessee. Since our noon update to this story, AT&T again contacted NashvillePost.com to strenuously insist that the decision was the full responsiblity of AT&T Tennessee CEO Marty Dickens, but declined to provide details of the decision-making process or to comment on whether Dickens could have unilaterally kept the bill in play.♦

As originally posted:

Barring a resurrection, the burial of video-reform legislation AT&T sought is expected to happen later today when the bill probably will be taken off notice and disappear from the calendars of the 105th General Assembly.

The cause of death is hard to isolate. Time for heroic measures ran out. Alliances were badly frayed. In the end, with each side accusing the other of disinformation, the final throes were not pretty.

Fatigued AT&T Spokesman Ted Wagnon told NashvillePost.com late yesterday he could say little more than "I've asked myself a dozen times today" what could have been done to keep the bill alive.

Stacey Briggs, the executive director of the Tennessee Cable Telecommunications Association, said late yesterday, "This is the beginning of many, many battles...with a brand new competitor."

Briggs said in an unmistakably triumphant tone, "AT&T'd better get busy" and must now "play by the rules" if it truly wants to provide consumers new choices. She said that if AT&T further delays seeking video franchises from local government, the company will fall farther behind cable companies in selling voice, Internet and entertainment services.

Late-afternoon yesterday, AT&T Tennessee President Marty Dickens threw in the towel by issuing a statement decrying efforts by the cable and local government alliance to "run out the clock," thereby in his view denying Tennesseans more choice among video offerings.

Dickens made no commitment to seek individual local franchises, even in major metro areas, saying only "Now, AT&T will re-evaluate its strategy for investment and video competition in Tennessee."

During the past 18 months or so, AT&T had marshalled its arguments and advocates in an effort to eliminate the requirement for video providers to negotiate franchise contracts with individual local governments, and instead secure a single statewide contract.

The proposal initially caught the Tennessee Municipal League, the cable industry and county executives flat-footed, but they quickly mounted grassroots opposition, sounding the alarums about possible discrimination and about protecting rights of way and public-access television channels.

AT&T has repeatedly stressed that without franchise reform in Tennessee, AT&T capital investment would probably go to other states that have enacted legislation AT&T sought. The company may also choose to seek traditional franchises in the state's most lucrative urban markets.

The bill's death was not a total surprise. Its creeping paralysis was dramatically apparent Tuesday during a Senate Commerce Committee meeting, despite a vote to send a bill to the Senate floor.

During that session, Sen. Tim Burchett (R-Knoxville) berated AT&T Corporate Counsel Joelle Phillips for what Burchett clearly believed was AT&T's role in helping the conservative FreedomWorks think tank brand him an obstructionist for asking questions about the heavily amended franchise legislation.

A 13-year veteran of the House and Senate, Burchett told NashvillePost.com he was particularly "ticked off" by Washington, D.C.-based FreedomWorks taking their criticism of him to members of the executive committee of the Tennessee Republican party, in what he believes was a thinly veiled threat to his reelection prospects.

By Wednesday a radical new amendment offered by House Commerce Committee Chairman Charles Curtiss (D-Sparta) — designed to break the undeclared impasse — had drawn less support from wary opponents than Curtiss may have hoped.

Curtiss' proposal had prompted concern about what Briggs called a "new regulatory regime," and had created a potential wedge between Curtiss and original co-sponsor Rep. Steve McDaniel (R-Parkers Crossroads), who told Curtiss in committee he was not inclined to abandon the original bill.

By the time a ceasefire was declared, nearly 40 amendments to the original bill, including orphans with no formal sponsors, littered a battlefield heavily clouded by opposing factions' truths and half-truths.

While it is uncertain whether franchise reform will be studied this summer or be revived in 2008, one thing seems certain: A second front in the battle is about to open, whether AT&T seeks local franchises, or not.

The General Assembly recently extended the life of the state's Broadband Task Force, which has embarked on a thorough analysis of Tennessee's telecommunications infrastructure, with particular concern for services in rural communities and lower-income neighborhoods. The companies facing task force scrutiny are, of course, AT&T Tennessee, Comcast Communications and other members of Briggs' TCTA.