Community media organizations strive to address these issues. However, while community involvement in telecommunications is generally seen as a public good, over the past few years ongoing public funding for it has been threatened. Public broadcasting has undergone funding cuts in the past-and may experience the eventual elimination of Congressional funding through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the national endowments. In order to bolster support for community media at the national level, the Alliance for Community Media has created a five-part public policy platform, as follows. Protect fair competition .
Competition promotes efficiency and produces more varied choices for consumers.
Moreover, converging communications technologies have blurred many of the distinctions that once existed between types of telecommunications services, and between the entities that provide them. Data, voice, and video are now all being transmitted over telephone lines, through the airwaves, via coaxial cable, and on fiber-optic networks. Telephone companies offer video services, cable operators offer telephone services, electric companies offer electronic database services, and so on. Therefore, telecommunications reform legislation should acknowledge that all like services must be regulated in a consistent manner, regardless of actual or constructive ownership. Require fair compensation for use of public rights of way .