STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2517

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 2432

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirtieth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2020

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committee on Technology, to which was referred S.B. No. 2432 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO CABLE TELEVISION,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

 

     (1)  Remove the requirement that the Director of Commerce and Consumer Affairs take into account the geography and topography of a proposed service area, and the present, planned, and potential expansion in facilities or cable services of an applicant's proposed cable system and existing cable systems; and

 

     (2)  Require that the Director of Commerce and Consumer Affairs require cable operators to provide cable service to residences in their service area where there is a minimum density of at least twenty-five homes per linear mile, with certain exceptions.

 

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from Charter Communications.  Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs.

 

     Your Committee finds that access to television service is critical in today's current events-driven world, and a lack of access to cable television service places a unique burden and hardship upon the residents of the State.  Requiring cable operators to offer cable service in areas that have twenty-five homes in a linear mile provides residents in these areas with the access necessary to sustain the needs and uses of those residents.

 

     Your Committee has amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Clarifying that the service deployment requirement threshold shall not apply where service is already available from at least three other cable franchisees or multichannel programming distributors; and

 

     (2)  Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Technology that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2432, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2432, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Health.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Technology,

 

 

 

________________________________

JARRETT KEOHOKALOLE, Chair