Verizon has weighed in on an FCC proposal to modernize business-to-business and business-to-consumer communications.
Specifically, Verizon wants email to be the default correspondence mechanism between MVPDs and their subscribers.
“Consumers prefer email correspondence to postal mail and find it more convenient to access their service providers’ websites than reading hard copies of notices,” Verizon said in comments to the FCC. “The Commission should therefore align its MVPD notice rules with consumer preferences and adopt the proposals for electronic delivery in the NPRM.”
Currently, customers must intentionally opt out of U.S. Postal Service correspondence and choose to receive messaging from their provider through email. Verizon said snail mail should instead be the alternative choice.
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The FCC is also reconsidering the way broadcast stations communicate carriage elections to MVPDs.
“The Commission should allow MVPDs to establish an email address for electronic delivery of broadcasters’ carriage election notices,” Verizon said. “Simply posting elections in a broadcaster’s online public file does not provide “notice” to MVPDs. The Commission should reject that proposal as a method for specifying carriage elections.
The American Cable Association also weighed in on that topic this week: ”We support email delivery of TV station carriage elections because it can ease the burden on cable operators to process up to hundreds of such notices that they receive from broadcasters," said ACA President and CEO Matthew Polka. "Use of email to make carriage elections is clearly less burdensome and a reform ACA urges the FCC to adopt."