There's enough competition in the marketplace today that the rules and regulations of the 1992 Cable Act are about as relevant as analog television, the NCTA has told the FCC in a supplementary filing to the Commission's video competition report.
Following the increasingly relevant argument that broadband, not video, is the industry's lead product, the NCTA filing noted that "the amount and diversity of video content currently offered to anyone with a high-speed Internet connection by program providers unaffiliated with cable operators is staggering. And it is being viewed by millions of consumers on their computers, on their wireless phones and on their flat screen television sets."
The FCC report is not wholly unsympathetic to the cable case, having concluded that "cable continues to face threats from the growth of satellite TV, Internet video services (including free video websites such as hulu.com), the broadcast resilience and the introduction of Internet TVs."
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