Local access means giving communities the ability to create their own media and the power to decide how to best serve their own technology and communications needs. Those needs include everything from public access television channels to universal broadband Internet service.

Local access has never been more important. We are entering an era of "convergence." In the next few years, your telephone, television and Internet service will all come through the same pipeline.

In a fierce competition to corner the market and protect their astronomical profits, the largest cable and telecom companies are trying to take away community control. Across the country, industry giants are working to subvert, hobble or eliminate the tools communities can use to hold them accountable.