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 Pottsville
 Code of Ordinances
 Appendix
 Chapter A226. Cable Television Franchise

  § A226-8. Design, service, and capabilities service provisions.  

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  • A. 
    Design, services, and capabilities.
    (1) 
    The cable system. Every cable system shall pass by every single-family dwelling unit within the franchise area in accordance with Section § A226-7D of this ordinance. Service shall be provided to subscribers in accordance with the schedules and line extension policies specified in this ordinance unless otherwise specified in the franchise. The cable system shall be described in a franchise and will have the capacity to meet current and future needs in the City as determined by the City Council in accordance with the cable act, taking into consideration the reasonable cost of meeting the needs.
    (2) 
    Complimentary service. Each grantee shall provide complimentary service for the City as may be set forth in the franchise agreement.
    (3) 
    Use of franchisee's facilities. Subject to any applicable state or federal regulations, the City shall have the right to install and maintain, upon the poles and within the underground pipes and conduits of a franchisee, any wires and fixtures desired by the City for public purposes. The specific terms and conditions of such access shall be set out in the individual franchise agreement. Provided, however, that such use by grantor shall not interfere with the current or future use by franchisee or any preexisting user or lessor of franchisee's facilities; such use by grantor is restricted to noncommercial public purposes; grantor takes reasonable precautions to prevent use of franchisee's facilities in any manner that results in an inappropriate use thereof, or any loss or damage to the cable system. For the purposes of this subsection, "public purposes" includes, but is not limited to, the use of the structures and installations for City fire, police, traffic, utility, and/or signal systems, but not for commercial cable system purposes in competition with the franchisee; to the extent provided by state law, the City holds franchisee harmless against and from all claims, demands, costs, or liabilities of every kind and nature whatsoever arising out of such use of said poles or conduits; and at the franchisee's sole discretion, the City may be required either to pay a reasonable rental fee or otherwise reasonably compensate the franchisee for the use of such conduit or other equipment, provided, however, the franchisee agrees that such compensation or charge will not exceed those paid by it to public utilities.
    (4) 
    Closed captioning and descriptive audio service. Every franchisee will make audio descriptive services and closed captioning capabilities available to the extent required by state and federal law.
    (5) 
    Standby power. In accordance with FCC rules and regulations the franchisee shall provide standby power.
    (6) 
    HDTV conversion. Conversion to High Definition Television (HDTV) format shall occur in accordance with applicable law.
    (7) 
    Proof of performance testing. To ensure high quality of service on the access channels, results of proof of performance testing as required by applicable federal law throughout the system and on all required channels will be made available to the City upon request to the extent required by the franchise. Every franchisee will monitor the cable system to determine and ensure that the level of technical quality of the system's transmission of access channels is in conformance with the FCC rules and is the same as on other channels transmitted on the cable system.
    B. 
    Service to subscribers and users. Subject to applicable law and concurrently with the activation of the cable system in the City, the grantee shall provide all services to subscribers as described herein and in the franchise agreement.
    (1) 
    The cable system shall carry the broad categories of programming and services listed in the franchise agreement. Should the grantee desire to change the selection of programs or services offered on any of its tiers, it shall maintain the mix, quality and level of services provided over the cable system. Any such change in programs or services offered shall comply with the conditions and procedures contained in the franchise agreement and shall be reported to the City at least 30 days prior to the proposed implementation. The grantee shall use its best efforts to ensure diversity of programming.
    (2) 
    At its sole discretion, the City, in a franchise granted pursuant hereto, may request that the grantee provide and maintain public and/or governmental and/or municipal access channels. The number and type of access channels shall be specified in the franchise agreement.
    (3) 
    The public access channel(s) shall be a specifically designated channel available on a first-come-first-served, nondiscriminatory basis.
    (4) 
    The grantee shall fully provide, at a minimum, services, facilities and equipment for public, educational and government access as indicated in the franchise agreement, but shall have no further responsibility hereunder.
    (5) 
    The grantee shall have the right to utilize any of the required access channels for its own purposes to the extent such channels are not utilized for the cablecasting of access programming.
    C. 
    EAS, emergency alert system. Grantee shall comply with all applicable federal and state rules and regulations regarding broadcast and dissemination of emergency information.
    D. 
    Institutional network and institutional service. Every grantee shall, to the extent required in its franchise agreement and subject to applicable law, provide or, if an institutional network exists, fund on an equal basis with other cable providers, an institutional network that provides two-way broadband capabilities for noncommercial use by governmental or educational organizations designated by the City.
    E. 
    Customer service standards, service calls and compliance procedures.
    (1) 
    Cable system office hours and telephone availability.
    (a) 
    Every grantee shall maintain a local office within 10 miles of the franchise area. Such office shall be open during normal business hours. Every grantee also shall maintain a publicly listed toll-free or collect call telephone access line that is available to subscribers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The local or toll-free numbers shall be listed, with appropriate explanations on subscribers' bills.
    (b) 
    Every grantee shall have trained representatives available to respond to subscriber telephone inquiries during normal business hours. The term "trained representatives" shall mean employees of the grantee who have the authority and capability while speaking with a subscriber to, among other things, answer billing questions. adjust bills, and schedule service and installation calls.
    (c) 
    After normal business hours, the telephone access line may be answered by a service or an automated response system, including an answering machine. Inquiries received after normal business hours must be responded to by a trained representative on the next business day.
    (d) 
    Upon reasonable prior written request, a grantee shall prepare and distribute to the grantor a calendar of holidays and business days on which the operator will be closed.
    (e) 
    Under normal operating conditions, telephone answer time by a customer service representative or automated response unit, including wait time, shall not exceed 30 seconds. If a call must be transferred, transfer time shall not exceed 30 seconds. These standards shall be met no less then 90% of the time as measured on a semiannual basis under normal operating conditions.
    (f) 
    Under normal operating conditions, subscribers will receive a busy signal less than 3% of the time.
    (g) 
    The period of three hours following major outages (more than 25% of the subscribers) or periods of natural disasters are not included in the response requirements above, provided that grantee has used reasonable best efforts to provide voice-mail information about the outage on phone answering equipment and the system bulletin board (assuming outage is not City-wide)
    (h) 
    Grantee shall respond to all subscriber or user inquiries or complaints within 10 business days of the inquiry or complaint, except to the extent a more stringent standard is set forth for specific types of activities, inquiries or complaints herein or in the franchise agreement.
    (i) 
    On a semiannual basis, the grantee upon written request will provide the grantor with reports for hold time, busy signals, and abandonment rate and if requested by the grantor, the grantee will meet with the grantor to review such reports. The grantor may allow periods of excused noncompliance if the grantee can provide reasonable documentation that these periods of noncompliance were not within normal operating conditions.
    [1] 
    The grantee will be deemed in compliance if:
    [a] 
    During any such semiannual period each criterion has been met or exceeded; or
    [b] 
    If each criterion has been met or exceeded during four months within any such semiannual period.
    [2] 
    Should the grantee be found to be in noncompliance, the grantor shall notify the grantee in writing and specify the basis for the finding. Upon notification, the grantee shall have 30 days to cure such noncompliance.
    [3] 
    If the grantee, based upon the available monthly data, fails to cure the noncompliance within the thirty-day period, the grantor may commence enforcement procedures.
    (2) 
    Installation, outages, and service calls. Under normal operating conditions, each of the following standards must be met no less than 95% of the time as measured on a quarterly basis:
    (a) 
    To the extent practical, at the time an appointment is scheduled, in accordance with applicable FCC rules and regulations, the grantee shall inform the subscriber of service procedures, required payments, possible delays, phone or field verification procedures which are related to the appointment and/or possible rescheduling/cancellation.
    (b) 
    The appointment window alternatives for standard installations and service calls will be within a maximum four-hour time block during normal business hours. Grantees may schedule service calls and other installation activities outside of normal business hours for the express convenience of a subscriber, if so requested.
    (c) 
    No grantee may cancel an appointment with a subscriber after the close of business on the business day prior to the scheduled appointment.
    (d) 
    If a grantee's representative is running late for an appointment with a subscriber and will not be able to keep the appointment as scheduled, all reasonable efforts will be made to contact the subscriber. The appointment must be rescheduled, as necessary, at a time that is convenient for the subscriber.
    (e) 
    The grantee may phone the subscriber within the appointment window to verify that the appointment is still needed. If the subscriber telephone is answered by a machine or service, the grantee must leave a message which includes a number the subscriber may use to call back to confirm or reschedule the appointment.
    (f) 
    Upon arrival at the subscriber's address, if the grantee verifies that a subscriber is not at the address during the scheduled appointment window, the grantee shall leave a door tag or similar notice with the name of the person leaving the notice, the time the person determined that the subscriber was not at home, and a telephone number the subscriber may call back to confirm or reschedule an appointment.
    (g) 
    Grantee shall require that any vehicle used for the installation, construction, maintenance, or repair of a cable system shall bear the identification of the contractor or the applicable grantee in a conspicuous place and manner.
    (h) 
    Reconnections due to erroneous disconnection based on billing or technical errors must be completed at no charge within 24 hours of notification by the affected subscriber.
    (i) 
    Reconnections after a disconnection attributed to nonpayment of bills must be completed within seven business days of grantee receipt of back payment, provided that any bank draft received for such payment has been processed and cleared through banking channels.
    (j) 
    A subscriber's preference as to the point of entry into a residence shall be observed whenever feasible. Runs in building interiors shall be as unobtrusive as reasonably possible and outlets shall be located for the convenience of the subscriber. The grantee shall use due care in the process of installation and shall repair any damage caused by grantee to the subscriber's property caused by installation work performed by grantee. Such restoration shall be undertaken as soon as possible after the damage is incurred, shall be subject to reasonable subscriber approval of the corrective action, and grantee shall use its best efforts to complete the corrective action within no more than 30 days after the damage is incurred. Should such restoration not be corrected within 30 days, the grantee shall notify the subscriber as to the cause for the delay and the date when such action shall be completed.
    (3) 
    Repairs and interruptions.
    (a) 
    Every grantee will begin working on service interruptions and outages within a reasonable timeframe but in no event later than 24 hours after the service interruption becomes known.
    [1] 
    Any reports of no picture/no sound must be responded to within 24 hours of such report.
    [2] 
    Work not requiring the grantee to enter subscriber premises (or property) shall not require the subscriber to be available for an appointment and shall not be delayed on account of the grantee's inability to arrange an appointment with the subscriber.
    (b) 
    Work on all other requests for service must begin by the next business day after notification of the problem and must ordinarily be completed within 72 hours of the initial request. If for reasons beyond the grantee's control a longer time for the completion of such repairs is necessitated, the grantee shall exercise all due diligence to complete the work in the shortest period of time possible.
    (c) 
    Outside repairs to cable plant that cannot be made by the initial service technician dispatched shall be rescheduled within 24 hours of the originally scheduled service call. The subscriber does not need to be home for outside plant and line repairs.
    (d) 
    A grantee may interrupt service only for good cause and for the shortest time possible, including interruption for system upgrade, maintenance and repair. Routine maintenance shall occur at times that affect the fewest number of subscribers. The grantee shall post override notices on the system to advise subscribers in advance of planned service interruptions. To the extent that specific neighborhoods will be affected by a planned outage, such as during an upgrade, the grantee shall provide advance notice through telephone calls and/or door hangers.
    (e) 
    upon written or credible oral request, a grantee shall provide a pro rata credit for service for each service interruption exceeding four hours in any twenty-four-hour period, unless it is demonstrated that the subscriber caused the outage, or the outage was planned as part of an upgrade or other work of which the City and the subscriber received appropriate prior notification or the service interruption was determined to be beyond the control of grantee. These credits and refunds shall be made available upon request by subscriber.
    (f) 
    A service interruption shall be as defined in FCC regulations: the loss of picture or sound on one or more cable channels.
    (g) 
    Within one hour of an identified outage, service technicians will respond and use all available reasonable means to correct the outage in accordance with FCC regulations.
    (4) 
    Communications between grantees and subscribers.
    (a) 
    Notifications to subscribers:
    [1] 
    In accordance with applicable law, every grantee shall provide written information to subscribers on each of the following topics at the time of installation, at least annually to all subscribers, at any time upon request, and at least 30 days prior to making significant changes in such information:
    [a] 
    Products and services offered;
    [b] 
    Prices and options for programming services and conditions of subscription to programming and other services and facilities.
    [c] 
    Installation and maintenance policies including, when applicable, information regarding the subscriber's home wiring rights and information describing ownership of internal wiring during the period service is provided;
    [d] 
    Instructions on how to use services;
    [e] 
    Channel positions of programming offered on a system;
    [f] 
    Billing and complaint procedures, including the name, address and telephone number of the City;
    [g] 
    The availability of converters, lockout devices or other signal control devices;
    [h] 
    The address and telephone number of the grantee's office to which complaints may be reported and, when applicable, the grantee's community unit identifier as specified by the FCC.
    [2] 
    Subscribers will be given 30 days advance notice of any changes in rates, programming services, or channel positions through any written means that are reasonably likely to bring such information to the attention of subscribers.
    (b) 
    Billing.
    [1] 
    Bills must be clear, concise, and understandable. Bills must be itemized, with itemizations including, but not limited to, applicable service tier charges and equipment charges.
    [2] 
    Bills must clearly show a specific payment due date.
    [3] 
    If a grantee chooses to itemize, as a separate line item on bills, franchise area or other government-imposed fees attributable to the total bill, such fees must be shown in accordance with any applicable law concerning the grantee's ability to itemize such fees.
    [4] 
    Bills must also clearly delineate all activity during the billing period, including optional charges, rebates, and credits. Nothing in this section prohibits or restricts a grantee from offering packages of programming to subscribers and to identify such packages on the subscriber bill.
    [5] 
    The billing statement must clearly and conspicuously indicate the past due date, and if applicable the date certain that a subscriber's service will be disconnected and a telephone number for the subscriber to call to make payment arrangements or otherwise resolve a billing dispute.
    [6] 
    Negative option billing is prohibited unless applicable federal law specifically requires that the grantee be permitted to engage in such practice.
    [7] 
    In case of a billing dispute, a grantee must respond to a written complaint addressed to grantee's local office from a subscriber within 30 days. Credits for service shall be issued no later than the subscriber's next billing cycle after determination that the credit is warranted.
    (c) 
    Late payment for cable service. No processing fees for late payment, however denominated, shall be added to a subscriber's bill less than 30 calendar days after the date of the bill by the subscriber. All such charges shall be separately stated on the subscriber's bill.
    (d) 
    Rebate for service failure. Upon written or credible oral request, grantee shall provide a service refund in its billings subsequent to system or signal outage resulting in signal and service failure to a subscriber for 48 hours or more. The refund shall be in proportion to the normal monthly charge for a subscriber.
    (5) 
    Complaint log. Subject to the privacy provisions of 47 U.S.C. § 521 et seq., grantor and every grantee shall prepare and maintain written records of all complaints or trouble calls made to them and the resolution of such complaints, including the date of such resolution. Such written records shall be on file at the office of each grantee. Every grantee shall make available to grantor a written summary of such complaints and their resolution upon written request.
    (6) 
    Lockout device. Every grantee shall provide to any subscriber upon request for sale or lease a lockout device for blocking both video and audio portions of any channel(s) of programming entering the subscriber's premises.
    (7) 
    Periodic subscriber survey.
    (a) 
    Upon 60 days' advance written notice, every grantee shall allow grantor to insert into grantee's monthly subscriber billing statements a written survey on an annual basis. The grantor shall be responsible for any costs incurred by a grantee that are related to the conduct of such surveys.
    (b) 
    The grantor may periodically elect to supplement such annual subscriber surveys with a statistically-valid telephone survey.
    (8) 
    Line extension policy. No resident shall be refused service arbitrarily. Unless otherwise set forth in the franchise agreement, whenever a grantee receives a request for cable service in an unserved portion of the franchise area where there are at least 30 dwelling units (which shall be interpreted to include businesses that have contractually agreed to subscribe to cable service) within one linear cable mile of the grantee's nearest trunk or distribution cable from which it is technically feasible to extend service, or the dwelling unit is within 125 feet of grantee's distribution cable, it shall extend its cable system to such subscriber at no cost, other than the published standard installation fee charged to all subscribers.
    (9) 
    Grantee shall comply with applicable provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act regarding provision of service to physically challenged customers.
    (10) 
    Dispute resolution. Every grantee shall establish procedures for receiving, acting upon, and resolving customer complaints, and crediting customer accounts, without intervention by the grantor. Such procedures shall be as set forth in the franchise agreement.
    F. 
    Protection of subscriber privacy.
    (1) 
    Protection of subscriber privacy mandatory. The grantee shall at all times protect the privacy of subscribers, as provided in this ordinance and consistent with other applicable federal, state and local laws.
    (2) 
    Notice of privacy provisions. At the time of entering into an agreement to provide cable service or other service to a subscriber and at least once a year thereafter, the grantee shall provide notice in the form of a separate written statement to the subscriber which clearly and conspicuously informs the subscriber of the privacy rights of the subscriber and the limitations placed upon the grantee in accordance with applicable federal subscriber privacy provisions.
    (3) 
    All provisions of this section are subject to the provisions of P.L. 107-56 (October 26. 2001) Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001, known as the "USA PATRIOT ACT."
    (4) 
    Disclosure of subscriber information prohibited. Unless the grantee has granted the subscriber the opportunity to limit or prohibit such disclosure in accordance with the Cable Act, the grantee shall not sell or otherwise make available to any party any list of the names and addresses of individual subscribers, any list which identifies the viewing habits of individual subscribers or any personal data, social security number, income and other data the company may have on file about individual subscribers, except as necessary to render or conduct a legitimate business activity related to a cable service or other service provided by the grantee to the subscriber; provided, however, that such disclosure shall not reveal, directly or indirectly, the extent of viewing or other use by the subscriber of a cable service or other service provided by the grantee or the nature of any transaction made by the subscriber over the cable system.
    (5) 
    The grantee shall not predicate regular subscriber service on the subscriber's grant or denial of permission to collect. maintain or disclose personally identifiable information unless such information is necessary for credit check or billing purposes. A subscriber may at any time revoke any permission given by delivering to the grantee a written statement of that intent.
    (6) 
    Each subscriber shall be provided access to all personally identifiable information regarding such subscriber that the grantee collects or maintains or allows to be collected or maintained, and such subscriber shall be provided the opportunity to correct any error in such information.
    (7) 
    This section is not intended to prohibit the use or transmission of signals useful only for the control or measurement of cable system performance or signal theft.
    G. 
    Rights of individuals.
    (1) 
    Nondiscrimination required. The grantee shall comply with all applicable federal and state statutes dealing with nondiscrimination.
    (2) 
    Subscriber contracts. The subscriber should receive a complete copy of any form provided by the grantee that is signed by the subscriber at the time of signing.
    H. 
    Reporting requirements. Each grantee shall submit a written report to the City with respect to the preceeding calendar year containing the following information at the following time intervals:
    (1) 
    Quarterly reports. Within 30 days after the close of each calendar quarter, the grantee shall submit a quarterly report to the grantor that includes:
    (a) 
    A numerical summary of repair requests by fix codes covering the previous quarter;
    (b) 
    A numerical report on the number of total service outages with a duration of three or more hours during the previous quarter; and
    (c) 
    A numerical summary of customer service standards, including telephone answer time, busy signal time, outage response and installation response for the previous quarter.
    (2) 
    Annual reports. Within 60 days of the close of each calendar year, the grantee shall submit a report to the grantor that includes:
    (a) 
    Customer service and operational information.
    [1] 
    A system overview that summarizes the previous year's activities, including major system events, channel and price changes, community programming, subscriber totals and physical miles of plant construction and plant in operation during the previous year.
    [2] 
    A current price list and channel line-up.
    [3] 
    Copies of all required notices sent to subscribers, including subscriber privacy, availability of signals, equipment compatibility and service complaints and procedures.
    [4] 
    A year-end summary of repair requests, outages and customer service standards.
    [5] 
    A projection of significant plans or changes for the coming year.
    (b) 
    Financial and ownership information.
    [1] 
    An ownership report indicating the legal entity that holds the franchise.
    [2] 
    An annual, internally audited and certified report showing subscriber revenue from each category of service and every source of nonsubscriber revenue.
    [3] 
    An annual statement of capital expenditures within the franchise area, including the cost of construction and equipment.
    [4] 
    A list of members of the parent corporation board of directors and local management team.
    [5] 
    The grantee shall also submit a copy of the corporate annual report to the grantor as soon as it is available.