LETTERS: FEDS MADE CABLE RULES

To the editor:

At the risk of repeating myself on a subject, I think it is important to make it clear to the caller to Speak Out who complained about the city's approval of the franchise agreement with TCI. The caller there thought it was the city's fault that TCI was granted a franchise agreement without protecting customers from bad service or excessive price increases.

To put it simply, if the caller is having problems with service, there are mechanisms in the franchise agreement to protect customers. For example, if service is out more than three hours because of a problem with TCI, the customer is entitled to a rebate on the lost service. With regards to the price increases, the caller needs to complain to Congress. The federal government years ago -- long before any renewal of the franchise was done -- established that city governments would have no control over two of the things that matter most to customers:

1. What programs are put on a cable system.

2. How much is charged for that programming.

Although the most recent legislation provided some mechanisms for regulation, that's never actually gone through, and the marketplace is the only control that the cable industry has on how much it wishes to charge. Therefore, if the person is unhappy with it, that person should talk with his pocketbook and not continue to accept the service. Placing the blame on the city in this instance is inaccurate, because there was nothing the city could do. The agreement that we negotiated provided for all the rate-regulating power that was possible, but most of the increases that have occurred were without our power to prohibit. You can't do what the law doesn't allow you to do.

MICHAEL H. MAGUIRE

Cape Girardeau