Service providers that want to offer cable TV services in California will now find a more welcoming regulatory climate, given new statewide franchise rules. Gov. Schwarzenegger late last week signed AB 2987, which allows telecommunications companies to receive a single permit to deliver Internet and television services to homes and businesses instead of having to apply for individual permits with cities and counties.

Other states with statewide cable TV franchises include Indiana, Kansas, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.

At the same time, some telephone companies have been pushing for a nationwide franchising approval process. However, the federal bill has not gotten enough votes to make it to a vote on the floor, and it's widely expected that it won't make it before November elections.

For telcos entering the TV arena, such legislation is obviously good news. Until the various states passed such legislation, video providers had to negotiate with various municipalities to offer their services, a very arduous and time consuming process.

"It was past time for lawmakers to remove the monopoly that local governments had created for cable services," said Sonia Arrison, director of technology studies at the Pacific Research Institute and co-author of “Cutting the Cord: Streamlining the Video Franchising Process,” a major study released this year on the merits of reforming the video franchise system. “Over the last 10 years, cable television rates have shot up almost 86 percent but without any significant improvement in service. Moreover, competitors to this dysfunctional system have been clamoring to get into the market."

However, many legacy cable TV providers feel this expedited franchising process is unfair. A letter on the National Cable & Telecommunications Association Web site from NCTA President & CEO Kyle McSlarrow to members of Congress says such legislation is a "Bell monopoly" effort "to short-circuit this [video franchise] process by having you focus only on one side of the equation video and they do so by grasping for special benefits that are unparalleled for companies of a scale that dwarfs their competitors."