Easier Pay-TV Licensing Is Urged

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin J. Martin on Friday called for easing regulations that make it hard for new competitors to enter the pay-television business.

Telephone companies offering subscription television, Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T; Inc., have complained that obtaining a license from thousands of cities and towns is too cumbersome and want federal and state officials to help ease the burden.

“We need to seek to eliminate any rules or regulations that are creating unreasonable barriers for other people to get in and provide the service and deploy the equipment necessary to do so,” Martin said at an FCC meeting in Keller, Texas, where Verizon recently launched its new video service.

Before the meeting, the FCC commissioners toured AT&T; and Verizon facilities that send video over Internet lines as well as a company offering high-speed Internet over power lines. Martin said new Internet-based technologies would spur innovation and competition.

“The competition ends up driving prices lower, increasing innovation, improving service quality to consumers,” he said.

The FCC also issued a report at the meeting that found satellite television providers such as DirecTV Group Inc. and EchoStar Communications Corp. gained market share as the number of cable subscribers slipped.

Satellite TV providers added 2.9 million subscribers in the 12 months ended in June for a total of 26.1 million. The number of basic cable subscribers fell about 700,000 to 65.4 million in the same period, the report said.

The report covered a period before new video services were launched by Verizon and AT&T.; Both companies have declined to release subscriber numbers.

Separately Friday, commissioners voted to probe whether tougher protections are needed to safeguard telephone customer information. The FCC will examine security measures that telephone carriers have in place and “what kind of security measures may be warranted to better protect consumers’ privacy.”

The move comes at the request of a privacy watchdog group amid pressure to clamp down on online data brokers that offer to obtain and sell telephone subscriber information. Some of those brokers have stopped offering the service.