Study Shows Cable Competition Would Create 100,000 New Jobs

Study Shows Cable Competition Would Create 100,000 New Jobs

WASHINGTON, May 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Most Americans realize that direct competition between telecommunications and cable TV companies would lower cable prices, but a new study estimates that video competition would also create a minimum of 101,000 new jobs -- with a third of them in the Information Technology (IT) sector, where wage levels are 77 percent above the national average.

"This is one more piece of compelling evidence in favor of legislative efforts in Congress and individual states to open up the cable TV market to competition," commented Larry Irving, former assistant secretary of commerce under President Bill Clinton and co-chairman of the Internet Innovation Alliance (IIA), which commissioned the study.

The IIA is one of many non-profit groups supporting legislation to streamline cumbersome local video franchise regulations. Those regulations are a barrier to competitors trying to enter the cable market and compete with the traditional cable TV monopolies to provide video programming, including Internet-based video services, as well as high-speed Internet access, telephone, and other broadband services.

The study, conducted by Stephen B. Pociask, president of TeleNomic Research, documented studies by public agencies and private groups indicating that full competition would lower cable rates by an average of 23 percent. Through additional analysis, the TeleNomic Study projects that lower prices driven by competition would attract new cable customers, expanding the market and the need for new employees.

According to the new research, competition would create 33,700 new jobs directly in the cable and video industry and another 67,400 jobs elsewhere in the economy. Some of these jobs would involve building and operating the high- speed local broadband networks that companies are installing to add video to their lineup of broadband services.

"The new research is powerful documentation that Internet-enabled competition for video, voice and data services and the high-tech investments that come with it are good for overall economic growth," said Bruce Mehlman, co-chairman of IIA and a former assistant secretary of commerce under President George W. Bush.

The Internet Innovation Alliance is an association of nonprofit groups, business associations, consumer advocates, think tanks, corporations and technology leaders. We believe in the power behind broadband Internet and its ability to improve American lives by encouraging innovation and freeing the market forces that foster greater competition, job creation and economic growth. The co-chairmen of IIA are Larry Irving, former Assistant Secretary of Commerce under President Clinton, and Bruce Mehlman, former Assistant Secretary of Commerce under President George W. Bush.

Source: Internet Innovation Alliance

CONTACT: Hillary Maxwell, +1-202-572-6205, for Internet Innovation
Alliance

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