Parish President Kevin Davis has joined Slidell city officials in hurling objections at a Senate bill that would provide a statewide-only franchising agreement for cable operators entering Louisiana, a move critics said would increase local cable fees for consumers.

Senate Bill 422, authored by Sen. Ann Duplessis, D-New Orleans, was modified this week to adhere to requests by the Louisiana Municipal Association to scale back the bill. But critics such as Davis still said the bill amounted to a slap in the face for local municipalities.

The bill, aimed to garner more competition from cable providers entering the state, would nix the roughly 400 so municipalities statewide from entering their own non-exclusive franchise agreements with cable providers. Instead, cable companies would adhere to one set of rules, dictated by the state, concerning how municipalities will earn taxes collected from the companies using their right of ways to set up infrastructure. For instance, St. Tammany Parish and its municipalities collect franchise fees from cable providers, typically a 5 percent fee on total revenue generated in the area, to use for infrastructure or governmental needs. The fee is paid in exchange for those cable providers to use the publicly owned right of ways to set up cable lines and more.

Under the bill, those local agreements would be nixed. Instead of brokering 400 agreements, the interested companies would now broker only one deal, a move 14 others states have already initiated, and one that would attract more companies who don’t want to deal with the headache of brokering numerous deals, Duplessis said. Already AT&T has pumped $400 million into Louisiana’s communications infrastructure in hopes the bill passes, Duplessis said. That figure could not be confirmed as of deadline.

“This is economic development at its best,” the senator said.

Duplessis said the one stop shop for negotiation with the state versus the effort to broker 400 or so contracts with local municipalities would entice additional companies to enter the marketplace.

In the end, local consumers may have three to four times the amount of companies to chose from, each paying the 5 percent franchise fee tag to local governments, she said. In some instances that could be three to four times the amount local governments already collect from cable companies for use of their right of ways, she said.

“Yes, local (governments) may lose some power in negotiating,” she said. “But at the end of the day we can’t make everyone happy, but we can think progressively forward.”

But Davis, in a recent memo, blasted the bill, saying cable

companies will be allowed to “cherry pick” which citizens they will serve according to their business model.

“I fully support more and better choices for cable television,” Davis said. “This bill, however, will not provide the competition that we all want.”

According to the National Association of Telecommunications Officers & Advisors, consumers in states that have enacted state-level franchising laws have seen their video service bills go up 8 to 50 percent, depending on the level of service, Davis said. In Texas, which enacted its franchise legislation in 2005, nearly every video provider increased its prices, he said.

Duplessis debated the fact. Her research suggests a 25 percent decline in prices, she said.

“It’s just the law of economics, supply and demand,” Duplessis said. “The more competition you have the cheaper the service.”

But Davis said if cable companies are allowed to cherry pick their target areas, a funding fiasco would unfold. For example, if neighborhood A fits a company’s business model while Neighborhood B does not, no service will be made available for Neighborhood B.

“This is not acceptable for a company making a profit by the use of public land,” Davis said.

He also argued that companies would define their fee for the use of public rights of way by controlling their definition of gross revenue, which the fee is based upon. The company will decide which portion of its bill is attributable to cable and subject to franchise fee, Davis said.

“I would rename this bill the ‘Act to Allow Cable and Telecommunication Providers to Choose Their Customers,’” he said. “This bill will not help citizens, and may, in fact, hurt them.”

Citizens will not have more choices, he said. In fact, when current franchises expire that require service to rural and low-income areas, these citizens could lose service if it no longer fits the cable companies’ business model.

“If local government is liable for rights of way, it must have control of that land,” he said.