Commissioners Hammond, Harmon, Smith, and Pinkston, as well as Law Director Owings and Knology and Charter representatives, were present for the Cable Committee meeting. Comcast, Charter, and Knology appear to be current on their franchise fee payments. The franchise agreement with Knology expires in 2010. Comcast and Charter are month-to-month, negotiations still in progress.

An attorney named Tillman Lay is assisting the Law Director with those negotiations. He was on speaker phone. He sees progress with Comcast, but the stumbling block is that Comcast wants a "walk away" provision from its pledges if those obligations are not shared by phone companies allowed by state (or presumably the federal government) in the cable TV business. Lay and I agreed the "walk away" provision was a bad idea. Lay believed progress with Comcast will push Charter toward agreement.

We got into the slow build problem, but in the absence of quorum it was largely a discussion of the proper combination of carrot and stick to nudge Knology along without putting it out of business. Knology pledged to Commissioner Smith a coverage map, but declined to give a subscriber count. I will provide to Councilman Rob Frost, who quite properly is a critic of that slow build, Lay's contact information for further pressing on this matter.

On the plus side, Knology insists it wants to provide our access channels but is having conduit problems getting into the Andrew Johnson building to get the signals. Comcast hasn't been assisting, and KUB has been slow, but now appears to be moving. I volunteered to assist Knology in any calls to push this matter along faster.

I was appointed as the Commission's representative on Community Television's board. CTV's David Vogel was there, and was amenable to putting Finance and Intergovernmental committees on the channel once he resolved some staffing matters.

We also had a brief discussion on net neutrality. I argued for it; Lay mentioned the political reality that the phone and cable companies are going to be pushing their side, and are tough to beat on Capitol Hill.

--Mark Harmon