WICT Greater Texas hosted an information session on May 17th, led by our Texas Cable Association leaders – Walt Baum, President TCA and Velma Cruz, VP and Legal Counsel TCA. Since 1960, the TCA has provided its member companies with a single, unified voice on issues affecting the cable and telecommunications industry in Texas. The Legislative timeline in Texas presents many opportunities in 2022. We are currently in the 87th Legislation Session. On May 24 was the Texas Primary Election Runoff, with November 8 being the General Election. The 88th Legislative Session begins Jan. 10, 2023.
A significant development in this session was the Texas comptroller creating a Texas Broadband Development Office. This office aims to increase access and adoption of broadband service. The office has amended their goals to protect RDOF, prevent overbuilding, limit grants to unserved areas only. In addition to the Broadband office, many other legislative agendas were created that include the Pole Replacement Fund (HB1505), prohibiting utilities from providing retail broadband service (HB3853), issuing bonds and loans to small and rural communities (SB1465)data breach legislation (HB3746). For more information about the TCA, please go to their web page at https://www.txcable.com/ and feel free to sign up for their newsletters.
It was enlightening to learn about the many ways our TCA organization help shape policies and laws that affect our industry. Thank you, Walt Baum and Velma Cruz, for bringing this to our awareness, and we look forward to sharing with our WICT Greater Texas chapter as these critical issues progress
The WICT Network: Greater Texas 