About Us - CA
The TV4US Coalition is advocating on behalf of customers throughout California who deserve new choices, better service and lower costs in their television service.
Coalition Principles:
Californians Want and Deserve the Benefits of Competition and Video Choice
For the first time, new competitors are preparing to give consumers throughout California real choices, better pricing options, and more control over what they see on their televisions. Technological advances promise consumers the opportunity to choose from multiple video service providers, select from a wider range of pricing options, and design the video experience that best suits their needs. Policymakers can speed the delivery of consumer choice by enacting policies that promote video competition.
Video Choice Promotes Broadband Deployment and Investment in California's Communities
Video competition will help Califoria meet the goal of universal broadband so that every citizen can enjoy the benefits of the Internet. Using revenues generated by video services, network providers will have the resources to build and deploy broadband to more neighborhoods. Competition will benefit all consumers. By continually competing for customers, companies will drive to invest and innovate. That means investment in new technology, in accelerated broadband deployment, and updated infrastructure that supports economic growth and the creation of new jobs.
Video Competition Benefits Local Communities and Preserves Their Rights
Deployment of new technologies by new competitors will benefit California communities, while preserving local government’s traditional authority to manage the public streets, enforce consumer protections, and guard public health and safety. Studies show that local government revenues from video service fees should increase as consumers purchase the advanced services generated by competition. Local governments also retain the right to protect existing social obligations such as the delivery of public educational and government programming.
Lower-Income Consumers Stand to Gain the Most from Video Competition
California's lower-income families proportionately spend more on premium cable television than higher income families. In those communities where a competitor to local cable has been announced, annual increases have been frozen or prices have dropped dramatically. And because the benefits of competition reach across an entire geography—regardless of which neighborhood is first targeted for new service—those consumers most in need of the benefits of competition stand to gain the most.
California Needs Streamlined and Uniform Rules That Promote Consumer Choice and Broadband Deployment
Consumers deserve, and today’s economic and technological realities demand, streamlined and uniform rules that promote competition, investment and accelerate broadband deployment. The patchwork quilt of local franchising rules designed in the 1960s is now impeding new investment and competition in video services. We need to modernize the rules so they will deliver consumer choice, broadband deployment, investment and economic growth.