The Maryville Daily Times reports [1] that the Alcoa City Commission unanimously agreed to a resolution opposing AT&T's efforts to pass a state-wide cable franchise law. City Manager Mark Johnson gets it right:

The point is, he said, that other cable companies have dealt with individual municipalities in the past, and have done so successfully.

[..]

As argued in Alcoa's resolutions, the city has taken the stance that giving AT&T that kind of broad access to the market would be unfair to the companies that have gone out and gotten franchise agreements (600 of them across the state). And worse, Johnson said, it would allow AT&T and other companies the ability to "cherry-pick" who they wanted to provide service to.

If a company comes in to Alcoa to provide cable service today, they have to offer the same rates, packages and options to every person in the city. If AT&T's proposed legislation goes through, the fear is they could only set up service in wealthier neighborhoods and leave others without anything, Johnson said.

The article also presents AT&T's arguments for passage of the lobbyist-crafted bill which is pending in the Tennessee General Assembly. Noting that 11 other states have passed the bill, the AT&T spokesperson says "Eleven states can't go wrong."

Previous posts about this issue:

Rural broadband v. state-wide franchising lobbyists [2]

Legislative Roundup: Broadband access [3]