Commentary—

Regulation, Oh Regulation … Where Art Thou?

By Bill Collins

Cable, phone,

And Internet;

Not well

Regulated yet.

A friend of mine is vying for the newly established title, “Electronic Joan of Arc.” She has just thrown off the tyranny of the remote control and ordered Cablevision to remove all its equipment from her house. They couldn’t believe it. No one does that! Well, now someone has.

It was an even bigger shock to her kids. They turned on the TV one day and nothing happened. Now they have to be really nice to their friends to get invited over. Thus has mom killed three birds with one stone — less TV decaying their minds, getting them outside and out of her hair, and forcing them to get along better with others. A trifecta.

But the cable also carried the phone line. Scary, but they’ve found that the cell phone handles all their essential needs. Luckily, they didn’t use the Internet much — less now — and her husband’s family lives nearby for occasional use. Clearly, the dollar savings from this declaration of independence are major, and frightening to the communications industry. The family half expects a knock in the night, hauling them off for subversion.

Most of us probably aren’t so stalwart. We’re not willing to face the wrath of the kids or the loss of TV, email, and a few favorite websites. But we too are unhappy. Monopoly rules us, or at least restraint of trade. Our cable companies were released from regulation in 1996, and have since raised their rates 53 percent. That’s 34 percent above inflation. They also deny us the freedom to purchase just those channels we want to watch. It’s all or nothing, baby, except that the channels we really, really want to watch often cost still more, even beyond the already pricey “family” option.

Then there’s the monthly phone bill. Verizon presents its charges with all the clarity of an insurance policy. Worded by obfuscation technicians, seemingly trained by CL&P, it fails to make clear which fees are required by law and which are simply cover for increased profits. Nor are cell phone companies any better. Do you know what your “surcharge” pays for?

We are assured, of course, that deregulation has brought us the cheapest and fairest of all possible communications worlds. The iron hand of competition forces all providers to give us their best price. Sort of like Medicare discount cards. Worse luck, this competition only works if you hire a consultant to evaluate all those conflicting options that stream in from the wireless, long distance, and Internet companies.

California is the first state, bless it, to go after the cell phone mob. Carriers will now have to post all rates and terms on their website, along with (800) numbers and addresses for taking complaints. And then there’s this added killer provision: All key terms must be printed in readable type. Further, customers will have an absolute 30-day right to cancel their contract. As of today, the cell phone industry ranks second nationally in consumer complaints, right behind autos.

But our neighbor New York is headed in the opposite direction. Its Public Utility Commission is thinking about extending cable TV franchises from ten years to 15. They’ve got to be kidding! It should be two years. When was the last time you heard of a cable carrier being denied renewal of its franchise? It doesn’t happen, no matter how awful they may be.

Regulation is, after all, the policeman of capitalism. It rescued us from the robber barons of the last century. It may also have headed off, for better or worse, government ownership of our nation’s natural monopolies (rail, power, phone, cable, airwaves), a path preferred by many sister nations. But in Connecticut, our policeman is dozing and needs a serious boot in the butt from each of us.

(Columnist William A. Collins is a former state representative and a former mayor of Norwalk.)