• Sign a letter going directly to your representatives in Washington
• let them know that community media is important to you.
• Ask them to support HR 3745, the Community Access Preservation Act, or CAP and work towards its rapid passage.

To learn about CAP, read the CAP Bill Summary.

Want to do more? Download the CAPAction Toolkit and Volunteer to help. The toolkit has sample letters, campaign materials, talking points, CAP Act summary, and much more. It is free so download it today. Sign up to volunteer to help by calling 202-393-2650 or email volunteer@alliancecm.org.

We thank you for your commitment to preserve the public right to be heard through community access. With your support, we will continue to provide a venue to make all local voices heard.

Thank you!

Save Access

Your Public Access Television channels--and all Public Access centers like it around the nation--are in jeopardy because telephone companies and cable companies competing for video business are weakening the regulations that mandate the option of having local channels in your community.  

Public, Educational and Government (PEG) Access owes its existence to the visionaries in Congress who recognized that the franchising process created an unprecedented opportunity to enable local communities to provide for their unique needs.  Millions of dollars have been spent by telephone and cable companies in the past two years on ad campaigns and lobbying to influence state cable franchise laws in 19+ states.  The FCC has over-ruled Congress, assigning itself powers that Congress conferred on local communities.  This chaos is being used to dismantle support and to damage channel quality and accessibility. We welcome competition.  But it cannot be used to gut PEG Access provisions that have provided direct service to the local community.

Many Access centers have moved into digital technology for production and transmission.  Access centers are fully engaged in migration to an integrated digital environment when allowed.  The primary challenge for PEG access is not digital technology, but how cable providers— whether traditional cable operator or a telephone company— provide PEG signal quality, functionality, channel placement and funding support.

How U-Verse is Delivered in Palo Alto 

AT&T’s “PEG platform” is an inferior technology that is only applied to PEG Access.  The U-Verse PEG system is sub-par, low resolution, cumbersome and PEG channels are segregated to a separate system unequal to commercial channels on AT&T’s system in virtually every way that matters to a viewer.  For example, Palo Alto cannot closed-caption the educational programming our hearing-impaired students rely on.  All DeAnza Community College programming is closed-captioned, as California law requires.  AT&T, however, will not pass through the closed-captioning DeAnza includes in its programming.  DeAnza is choosing not to offer it’s channel on U-Verse.

The AT&T U-Verse Problem

What's wrong with U-Verse with respect to Public Access Channels?

• Channels are not accessed by "surfing"  channels like it is for all other channels
• Several pages of Menus must be navigated, with many choice to select before seeing a channel
• Resolution of public access channels is one quarter the resolution of other channels
• Closed Captioning is not provided on any public access channels
• It takes about a minute to work through the menu structure to select a public access channel. You have to go through that process again if you switch your channel away from the public access channel.

We Need Congressional Help

We call upon to our leaders in Congress, to declare their vision in 2008, as they did in 1984, to preserve the ability of local communities to engage in local media, to express their unique interests and cultures, to get to know their neighbors views, to stay informed on local issues

Read about the challenges facing Public Access on this page, and Take Action by contacting your representatives in government and in public utilities commissions.

Barbara Popovic of Chicago Access Network TV, puts it well:

"Bottom line, AT&T, the company that promotes 'choice' in cable franchising, is giving viewers no choice when it comes to PEG."

How Hard is it to see a Public Access Channel on U-Verse?

Here is a demonstration showing what a U-Verse viewer has to go through to see a Public Access Channel.

A Good Summary of Challenges Faced by PEG

Barbara Popovic is the Executive Director of Chicago Access Network TV.  Her statement to the The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services is clear and forceful. Her oral testimony is available in hardcopy.

KCBS Channel 5 coverage of AT&T Consumer Controversy

KCBS Channel 5 did  a recent story about the controversy shaping up over AT&T's inadequate implementation of public access channels in their U-Verse Television offering, and what California state agencies are doing about it.

Annie Folger Testifies before Congressional Committee

The Media Center's Executive Director, Annie Folger, traveled to Washington to testify before the House Telecommunications & Internet Subcommittee on behalf of the Alliance for Community Media.

Anna Eshoo's remarks to the House Telecommunications Subcommittee

Rep. Anna Eshoo's district largely coincides with the Media Center's service area. She made some comments to open the hearings of the Telecommunications Subcommittee in January.

Links for More Information

For the latest in National news on the fight to Save Public Access, visit the following links

• SaveAccess.Org
  
• California Division of Rate Payer Advocates
  The California DRA is a government agency responsible for Consumer protection. They have issued a Consumer Alert against AT&T's UVerse, warning consumers about the diminution of public access channels in that product.
• House Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on PEG Access TV
  On September 17, 2008, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government held a hearing of grievances against AT&T for relegating PEG access to an inferior level of service. AT&T chose not to be represented at the hearing. The entire hearing is available on this blog page.
• Press Release from Alliance for Community Media regarding harm to PEG
  This was issued to announce bipartisan support for PEG operations during the House Appropriations Subcommitee on Finance Services and General Government, and asked the FCC to investigate whether ATT and other operators are in compliance with the Cable Act of 1984.
• Consumer Alert agains AT&T Uverse issued by California DRA
  The California Division of Ratepayer Advocates, of the California Public Utilities Commission, issued a Consumer Alert to warn potential subscribers of U-Verse that there is reduced capability to view PEG channels. They also submitted a letter to the House Appropriations Subcommittee advising them that AT&T's provisioning of PEG channels violates state law.

Take Action!

Let everyone know you are NOT okay with degradation of Public Access Television. If you are unhappy with the accessiblity of your public access channels, or if you are concerned that Public Access may slowly go away because of the gradual erosion of laws that created Public Access TV, complain to your cable TV operator, to the PUC and to your state and federal legislators.