WASHINGTON -- Today, the Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) Council released and filed with the Federal Communications Commission a just-completed study by Render Vanderslice & Associates, LLC, (RVA) entitled: A Study of the Effects of the Texas State-Issued Video Franchise Law on Fiber to the Home Deployments and Video Competition. The study was commissioned by the FTTH Council.

The Texas State-Issued Video Franchising Law, SB 5, was signed by Governor Perry on September 7, 2005. SB 5 streamlined the existing time-consuming and costly video franchising process of the many local franchising authorities in Texas and enabled providers to obtain a state-issued franchise within 17 days of filing a complete application and without incurring onerous obligations. By removing these barriers to entry for new competitors, the law aims to increase competition to incumbent cable operators and accelerate the deployment of advanced broadband infrastructure.

The study by RVA took a detailed look at the effects of SB 5 – some 15 months after it was enacted – to determine whether it is in fact accelerating FTTH deployments and increasing video service competition. The conclusion is that the new law is having a positive effect. The study found that every major provider of video enabled FTTH believes the new law is accelerating the deployment of FTTH networks by significantly lowering both their cost of entry and their cost of ongoing operations. The study also found that video enabled FTTH has grown 8 times faster in Texas than in other parts of the USA since the new law was signed, a statistic that was influenced by enactment of SB 5 as well as other factors.

Joe Savage, President of the FTTH Council, stated in releasing the study, “It is clear that the ‘monopoly-era’ video franchising process is broken and is tilted in favor of protecting incumbents and against new entrants. We now have proof that once you remove these barriers to entry, FTTH network deployments greatly accelerate, bringing consumers competition for their broadband and video dollar with virtually unlimited optical fiber bandwidth. This is good news for the citizens of Texas and for those in other states that have streamlined their video franchising processes.”

FTTH Council