Today, the New York City Council will vote on a new authorizing resolution that would provide the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications with the authority to negotiate cable television franchises.

The market and consumers stand to benefit should the City Council vote in favor of opening up the cable market.

The marketplace has been dominated for decades by just two providers — Time Warner and Cablevision. That’s right, the communications capital of the world gives its denizens a choice of one wire-line cable provider — whichever one happens to serve that locality.

And without any real competition comes some very unrealistic pricing of cable services — along with the ritual of annual increases. It’s a “take it or leave it” situation. For too many years, New Yorkers simply have had no alternative.

Nor do New Yorkers have much to relish with today’s programming. Much of it is tired and anemic. The perennial picks are reruns, talk shows, all-news, and shopping channels. New Yorkers deserve more, and alternative cable providers aim to deliver a whole new range of programs over an all-fiber network.

Three words can sum up today’s cable environment — One Big Duopoly.

History shows that monopolies and near-monopolies are just plain bad for consumers. The cable television industry still labors under a 19th-century economic model where monopoly providers dominate the marketplace. The phone companies moved on from such antiquated concepts two decades ago.

The result has been affordable long-distance rates and new arenas for wireless and broadband services. Customers have been the big beneficiaries — with better quality, better technology, better customer service, and better pricing.

Now big telecommunications companies are journeying across another frontier of communications and entering the world of cable television. Fortunately for consumers, a number of telecommunications companies have been successful in bringing video choice to some states and municipalities that have been in the tight grip of the cable monopoly since the 1970s.

Currently, Cablevision and Time Warner Cable operate the nine cable franchises in New York City. Cablevision runs two franchises servicing the entire Bronx and parts of Brooklyn, while Time Warner’s seven franchises cover the rest of the city.

Simply said, two or more is a lot better than one when it comes to cable. Just with Verizon in the mix, New Yorkers would have a powerful new player vying for their patronage, hungry for their business, willing to do extra things, and able to make the necessary investments to the network. This is the way the fresh winds of competition blow. Competition will also coax the other players to be more aggressive, more willing to go the extra mile to satisfy customers.

Beyond the obvious benefits of choice, competition, and price, local communities all around the city stand poised to enjoy large-scale, nongovernmental investment in an all-fiber voice, data, and video network.

Speed, quality, and capacity are not just words to small start-ups doing business over the Internet, to work-at-homes delivering large data files, to healthcare professionals transmitting images or monitoring patients remotely, or to students and educators conducting research. Deployment of a next generation voice, data, and video network is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity befitting a world-class city like New York.

As a municipality, New York City also benefits with cable competition. Think about the increase in local franchise fees when customers with no cable service sign on with the new competitor or when new customers migrate from satellite TV, which pays no franchise fees. The “voice” of the local community also has a new messaging outlet as public, educational and governmental channels are aired on the new network.

Sometimes the tide of technology washes away our options, and there’s nothing we can do about it. New York will never again have a newsstand on every corner, a newspaper for just about every hour of daylight. Those days are gone. New media and new opportunities for news and entertainment have replaced them.

I sincerely hope the council moves with dispatch and swings open the door to cable competition and rapid deployment of advanced broadband technologies. It’s time to bring real competitors to the market, companies that have the financial juice, the resolve, and the better technology to usher in a new world of video and broadband services.

Mr. Levinson is professor and chair of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University. This oped expresses his personal and professional opinion. He did not and has not received compensation from any group or corporation including Verizon for publishing his views.