FCC Chairman Kevin Martin reportedly wants to lift local obstacles to telecoms offering competing cable television service.

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is looking at pushing for competition for cable operators from phone companies, according to a published report.

USA Today said that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin told the newspaper in a written statement that he is looking at enforcing a little-noticed provision of the 1992 Cable Act that says local governments "may not unreasonably refuse to award an additional competitive franchise" for video.

Martin told the newspaper that granting additional franchises for cable television service to companies such as Verizon Communications (Research) and SBC Communications (Research) "would promote competition and stimulate broadband deployment.

"Several weeks ago I asked the staff to explore what the commission can do to ensure that local authorities are not unreasonably refusing to award additional competitive licenses (for video)," Martin's statement to the newspaper said.

The newspaper said the opposition for such a push would come not only from cable operators but from local governments, each of which has their own licensing process and timetables.

The cities are already upset about any push to curb their authority, Paul Glenchur, an analyst at Stanford Washington Research Group, told the newspaper. "What you're talking about here is the usurpation of local authority," he said.

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