ACA's Polka to Hill: Reduce 'Sheer Mass' of Regulatory Burdens

On the eve of a March 21 House Communications Subcommittee hearing on broadband infrastructure, American Cable Association president Matt Polka outlined his group's advice for how best to do that.

In a letter to Communications Subcommittee chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Polka sounded an investment and economic-friendly note, saying his small and mid-sized members were ready "to invest more and create thousands of jobs to meet their residential, business, and institutional customers’ demands for even more robust networks."

But he said they would need some help from Washington.

That was:

1) Insure access to critical infrastructure

2) Target support in unserved, high-cost areas

3) Reduce the "sheer mass" of regulatory burdens on smaller operators who have fewer resources to shoulder them.

ACA members are also likely to take that message to the Hill in person next week as members gather in D.C. for their annual policy summit and regulator/legislator meet-and-greet.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.