Article Courtesy of The Sun Sentinel

By CHRIS GUANCHE

Published July 26, 2007 

A new state law deregulating the cable industry will open up the market to new competition, but the picture is less clear for condominium and homeowners' associations.

Previously, cable providers contracted into franchise agreements with individual municipalities and associations. Under the new law, telephone companies such as AT&T apply for a statewide license, giving municipalities and associations more choices.

However, previous franchise agreements are still in place in many municipalities. Fort Lauderdale has a franchise agreement with Comcast that expires in 2011, said city spokeswoman Shannon Vezina. Even if new competition enters the market, Vezina said the city isn't considering changing or exiting from the agreement before it expires.

Competition will be beneficial to the market overall, said Comcast spokesman Spero Canton. Comcast provides service to more than 900,000 subscribers in South Florida, Canton said.

"We have competition with satellites ... and also with the high-speed Internet market with the telephone companies," Canton said. "We feel that the competition we've experienced has prompted us to be more innovative and have resulted in better products for the consumer."

Comcast offers cable and Internet service separately, as well as in bundled packages.

Bundling will figure into AT&T's strategy for the market, said spokesman Don Sadler. The company is reviewing its network and does not have a target date for when it will begin to offer cable service, he said.

"We're going to compete very aggressively once our cable product is out," Sadler said. "We expect our cable product to be a large piece of our bundled offerings."

The situation is somewhat different in condo and homeowners' associations in which residents pay for cable service as part of their monthly maintenance fees. Franchise agreements are contracted between the association's board and the provider, meaning that individual unit owners don't select which provider they want.

The issue of choice in an association is a concern for many owners, said Jan Bergemann, president of the Internet-based Cyber Citizens for Justice, a nonprofit group that deals with condo and homeowners' association issues. Aside from choice, Bergemann said some owners don't want cable service at all.

"You don't want to pay for something you're not going to use," Bergemann said.

If condo owners want to pay for their own cable service, that service is subject to the approval of the board, and they still have to pay for the service contracted by the association. Similarly, owners can run into problems with the placement of satellite dishes, which also require board approval, Bergemann said.

Although more competition will help municipalities, Bergemann said it won't necessarily help residents of associations, because the board decides which provider to contract with. Fighting a board's choice could lead to costly legal battles, he said.