Franchise Reform Act of 2006 - Amends the Communications Act of 1934 to designate the State Commission of each state as the franchising authority for any state-issued franchise for the provision of cable or video service in that state. Outlines application requirements for any entity or person seeking to obtain a state-issued certificate of franchise authority. Exempts existing franchises from such application requirements. Requires the holder of a state-issued certificate to pay each municipality in which the holder provides cable or video service a franchise fee of five percent of the gross revenues of such holder.
Requires certificate holders to: (1) comply with applicable customer service standards until there are two or more providers offering service in a municipality; (2) provide municipalities, upon request, with capacity to allow public, educational, and governmental (PEG) access channels for noncommercial programming (with a required minimum number of such channels); and (3) provide for the interconnection of cable and video systems within a municipality for the purpose of providing PEG programming.
Requires local municipalities to allow certificate holders to install, construct, and maintain necessary communications networks within public rights-of-way.
Prohibits certificate holders from denying access to cable or video service to any group of residential subscribers because of the income of the residents in the local area.
Take Action
Your position
Add a comment
to comment on this bill.
Annotate the text
Highlight any passage on the Summary or Full Text tab to attach a note. Annotations appear on the Annotations tab.