The Michigan House of Representatives passed a bill last month to replace the current local cable television system with a statewide franchising system. The bill could be voted on in the Senate as early as today after the Energy and Technology Committee finalizes its recommendations.

"(The bill) is going to be taken to committee at 8 o'clock. It should be voted on by the end of the day," said Amanda Price, a representative for Sen. Patricia Birkholz, R-Saugatuck, who is a member of the Senate Energy and Technology Committee which has been responsible for hearing the bill.

If signed into law, phone companies could provide cable television services without securing individual licenses in each community.

Currently, cable providers must negotiate a contract with each city, which leads to limited cable choices in the state.

For example in East Lansing, Comcast is the only cable provider available to MSU students and East Lansing residents. This bill would allow other companies to come in without contracts and provide cable to the community, in hopes of increased competition.

Google Inc. stepped into the debate last week, when the company sent a representative to Lansing to join SavetheInternet.com Coalition members in a rally against the Senate bill.

Protesters oppose the bill because they believe having more competition might lead high-speed Internet providers to charge Web sites a premium to load faster. A similar bill was introduced in the U.S. Congress, but stalled in the Senate.

Andrew McLaughlin, Google's senior policy counsel, spoke in the rotunda of the Capitol Building last week at a protest.

"We want to preserve and open a competitive atmosphere that their control over the infrastructure could be used to jeopardize," McLaughlin said about companies such as AT&T Corp. and Comcast, which support the bill.

Mark Monk, the president of the Michigan Alliance of Community Media, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing electronic access to all residents, said the bill could reduce public access funding by 30 percent, which would greatly reduce public access television.

"The bill hurts public-, educational- and government-access programming," Monk said. Brian Dumont, production manager at HOM-TV in Meridian, agreed.

Although Dumont said it's hard to say how the bill might directly affect his station, it is clear that if passed, the bill would cut funding because certain taxes and franchise fees will no longer be collected.

"We will get a lot less money to operate on. It's not a question of shutting down for us, but other smaller stations might face that," Dumont said.

Monk is worried about the stations that will survive, however.

"How many high school sports games won't be funded? How many school plays won't be shown?" Monk asked.

But general management junior Cole Townsend isn't worried about high school football games. Townsend, who lives in 711 Burcham Apartments, pays Comcast $92 each month for basic cable and Internet, which includes about 50 channels.

Comcast was the only option available to Townsend and his roommate, unless they wanted to get a satellite dish, he said. Increased competition between cable companies would be better, Townsend said.

"If there was competition, maybe rates would be better and maybe the quality would be better," he said.

AT&T has said it would hire 2,000 new employees and invest up to $260 million over the next three years. About 1,200 of those jobs would come next year.

Rep. Mike Nofs, R-Battle Creek, who introduced the bill in September, said it gives consumers a choice.

"We've listened well and put a lot of what (protesters) want into the bill, but not everyone can get everything," Nofs said.

After the protest, the SavetheInternet.com Coalition planned to deliver a petition signed by 18,000 Michigan residents to senators' offices.

Despite protests, testimony in the Senate is going well and has garnered support, said Ari Adler, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Ken Sikkema, R-Wyoming.

The final committee meeting for the bill took place Monday, and Adler predicts the Senate will vote on the bill by the end of the week.

"There seems to be support for doing something in terms of cable contracts," Adler said.