ACA Faithful Hope to Sway Legislators

Sometimes a cable bundle can be too big.

The Frankfort Plant Board provides several services for the city of Frankfort, Ky., and surrounding areas, including cable, broadband, telephone, security, electric and water.

"And it's all on one bill," said John Higginbotham, the assistant general manager of the Frankfort Plant Board, on a panel at the American Cable Association's 24th Summit in Washington, D.C.

Given the cost of programming in general, not to mention retransmission-consent fees, particularly for midsize cable operators, Frankfort, which does not subsidize its video product, tallied 353 non-pay disconnects recently.

The erosion of video subscribers was just one of the topics discussed as the ACA faithful and members of the National Cable Television Cooperative descend on Washington for their annual policy summit. Indeed, some cable operators, such as Cable One, have abandoned the marketing of video services because of high costs and instead focus exclusively on broadband and phone.

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