The House Energy and Commerce subcommittee voted 27-4 in favor of allowing companies to apply for a national license to offer television service without winning the approval from local communities. The win comes as a victory for the largest phone companies such as AT&T and Verizon who have been seeking new legislation to accelerate their IPTV rollout and increase competition with the cable companies.

The Bells argue that negotiating for local franchise agreements slows their rollout tremendously and that new legislation needs to come into play.

Besides this legislation, Verizon, AT&T, and Bellsouth have been working in several states to receive state wide franchise agreements.

Meanwhile, other organizations such as Broadband Everywhere contest that the Bells are not hindered as much as they say by local franchise agreements and that if a national license becomes available, the Bells can cherry pick communities for service and discriminate against lower income areas.

Two amendments to the legislation were both voted down. In a vote of 8-23, legislation that would block Internet service providers from imposing charges for "bandwidth priority" failed. The other loss came when an amendement that would have created a requirement for services to extend into poorer communities was voted down 11-22.

The legislation is anticipated to reach the full committee in 2 and a half weeks for a vote.