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HomeMy WebLinkAboutReso - CC - 044-1981RESOLUTION NO. 81-44 A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF BURLINGAME, CALIFORNIA, ESTABLISHING RULES AND REGULATIONS AND STANDARDS OF OPERATION FOR A NON- EXCLUSIVE CABLE TELEVISION FRANCHISE TO BE GRANTED TO CAPITAL CITIES PENINSULA CABLE, INC. CITY OF BURLINGAME WHEREAS, the Burlingame City Council is considering the grantingofa non-exclusive franchise to Capital Cities Peninsula Cable, Inc. to provide cable television services to residents and institutions of Burlingame; and WHEREAS, the Burlingame City Code Title 6 XXXXV5, Chapter 6.48, requires that Rules and Regulations and Standards of Operation for cable television shall be established by resolution as a part of the granting of a franchise; NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Rules and Regula- tions and Standards of Operation set forth herein shall apply to the franchise granted to Capital Cities Peninsula Cable, Inc. upon acceptance of the franchise, to wit: -SECTION 1. Rules and Regulations for Customer Service Standards. (a) Grantee shall utilize best efforts to establish, operate and maintain a centrally located office in the City of Burlingame within 60 days following franchise award. (b) It shall be the right of all subscribers to receive all available services insofar as their financial and other obligations to the Grantee are honored. Neither the Council nor the Grantee shall, as to rates, charges, service, service facilities, rules, regulations, or in any other respect, make or grant any preference or advantage to any person, nor subject any person to prejudice or disadvantage. (c) The cable television system shall be extended to every new subdivision of the City, and the capacity to provide cable television service shall be provided by Grantee during the construction phase of every new subdivision. For purposes of this paragraph, the capacity to provide cable television service shall include the provision of conduit and other such substructure necessary to make cable service available to sub- division residents following completion of 60% of housing units of each phase and within sixty (60) days after initial occupancy. (d) There shall be no charge for service calls to sub- scribers' home except as provided by Resolution No. 81- 45 adopting rates and charges. (e) The loss or theft of a converter will incur a penalty of $125.00 plus replacement cost to the .responsible subscriber unless a police report has been filed. If a police report has been filed, then the subscriber shall be charged only wholesale replacement cost. (f) In the event of service interruption or unresolved service complaint not caused by subscriber, Grantee shall credit the subscriber's account on a pro-rata basis to offset the monthly billing charge for all outages, no matter what the cause, of over 72 tours. (g) No polls or other two-way responses to subscriber shall be conducted unless the program of which the poll is a part shall contain explicit disclosure of the nature, purpose and prospective use of the results of the poll. No commercial or other use of information of subscriber viewing habits or patterns may be made and no release of such information shall be permitted without the prior consent of the City Council or pursuant to rules and regulations duly adopted by the City. (h) In the event that the Grantee elects to rebuild, modify, or sell the system, or the Grantor revokes or fails to renew the franchise, the Grantee shall do everything in its power to ensure that all subscribers receive continuous, unin- terrupted service regardless of the circumstances during the lifetime of the franchise. In the event of system purchase by the Grantor, or change of Grantee, the current Grantee shall cooperate with the Grantor to operate the system for a temporary period, in maintaining continuity of service to all subscribers. Grantee shall be entitled to reasonable compensation for its efforts in operating the system for such temporary period. SECTION 2. Standards of operations: Programming. •(a) The programming of the Basic TV, FM and Premium (Pay TV) service shall be at minimum as proposed in Grantee's franchise application with the following additions which are resultant from Grantee's letter of commitment dated March 2, 1981, and Grantee's letter of April 28, 1981: (1) WOR, New York (2) Appalachian Community Service Network (ACSN) (3) The Woman's Channel (4) People That Love (5) The English Channel (6) CBS Cable (7) National Christian Network .$NCN) (8) American Educational Television Network (AETN) - 2 - j. (9) Public Service Satellite Consortium (PSSC) (10) Front Row (11) Home Theatre Network, with Simulsound (12) Cinemax (13) Bravo, with Simulsound (14) Reuter's Financial Nevis (15) USA Sports (16) Alpha Repertory TV Service This required programming, including that as proposed in Grantee's franchise application, is subject to FCC Rules and Regulations and availability of service; however, will be carried on a full- time basis when available and permitted by FCC Rules and Regula- tions, unless specifically approved by the City to the contrary. (b) Any future change to the programming established by this Resolution shall be subject to approval by the City Council. At least once per year the Grantee shall provide all subscribers with their monthly service statement, a complete descriptive menu of possible programming and services, including area inde- pendent stations and satellite carried stations and services available to Grantee. The menu to be in the format of a mail - back survey of the subscribers' programming preferences. The results of the survey are to be provided the City Manager by the Grantee with any proposed change(s) in programming to ac^.ommodate subscribers' desired revisions as indicated by the results of the survey. _--- (c) The Origination and Access channels carriage shall be as proposed in the Grantee's franchise application with the following additions which are in accordance with Grantee's letter of commitment dated March 2, 1981: (1) Religious Access Channel (2) Library Channel (d) The City will have the option to utilize, at no cost to the City, one additional residential system full 6 MHz forward channel and one full 6 MHz reverse channel when desired for video, data, facsimile, and/or audio transmission in support of City administration, public facilities and community services: The City will. be responsible for the provision of all termination and cable access equipments, i.e., modems, etc., for such applications. - (e) Additional services, e.g., Requestavision, Reuter's IDR, etc., shall include as a minimum as proposed -in Grantee's franchise application with the following additions which are resultant from the Grantee's letter of commitment dated March 2, 1981: - 3 - (1) Security services, i.e., burglar, fire, assault and medical alert system for residences, institutions and businesses. The system should be of comparable or greater capacity and capability to that of the TOCOM III -A Central Data System, and will be offered to residential, institu- tional, and commercial subscribers no later than the time of completion of system construction. (2) Play Cable, when proven economically feasible in other systems of comparable description. (3) Energy management, when proven economically feasible in other systems of comparable description. (4) 87 text/data downstream channel (vertical blanking interval) capacity and capability. A minimum_ of five channels of such service, if available, to be provided not later than system construction completion, utilizing TOCOM 55-Plus or equivalent state-of-the-art equipment. (5) Electronic interactive banking services, when proven economically feasible in other systems of comparable description. These additional services are optional services and rates other than those for Basic and Premium services are applicable. P (f) When demonstration is made by the survey, addressed in Subparagraph (b) above, or other means that sixty percent (60%) or more of Grantee's subscribers desire a modification and/or addition to the cable television services, one for which they have previously agreed to pay a sufficient amount of money to Grantee to return Grantee's investment for the providing of such service within a period not exceeding five (5) years, and Grantee elects not to provide the modified or additional service, the City may require Grantee to show cause why it should not be required to modify and/or add to the service to provide said service to the subscribers. Should Grantee not be able to demonstrate that it could not financially and on a technically viable basis modify and/or add to the service, the City may require Grantee to provide such modification and/or addition to the service. (g) The access/origination studio shall be completed with all equipment installed and fully operational by the time of initial activation of the Grantee's cable plant. Grantee shall maintain all studio equipment, including portable equipment, in a fully operational status on a continuous basis, and to technical standards requisite for quality performance. 4 - SECTION 3. Standards of operation: Technical. (a) The cable system technical characteristics shall be a minimum as proposed in Grantee's franchise application with the following modifications which are resultant from Grantee's letter of commitment dated March 2, 1981: (1) The combined residential and institutional sub- scriber network shall be a 400 MHz, dual cable system capable of providing a minimum of 94 downstream and 21 upstream 6 hiHz video channels. (2) Three earth stations for access to SATCOM I, COMSTAR D-2 and WESTAR III satellites for satellite - delivered programming. (b)_ The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Rules and Regulations, Part 76, Subpart K (Technical Standards), shall apply. However,, because of emphasis on interactive and other innovative services, modifications of FCC standards, as presented in the specifications herein, are considered necessary to meet system design objectives. The following referenced specifica- tions will also apply, unless exception is agreed upon between the City and the Grantee. a- (1) Applicable City, County and State Codes and `tordinances; _ (2) Applicable Utility Joint Attachment Practices; (3) National Electrical Safety Code, NFPA.No. 70; *' (4) Local Utility Code Requirements; t (5) Local Right -of -Way Procedures; (6) Grantee's franchise application proposal includ- ing system construction, maintenance, inspection, and testing procedures. W Technical standards and parameters are to be referenced to the mean temperature of the Bay area. The system shall be designed to meet all specifications over a temperature range of +500 F from the mean. (d) The forward system shall be capable of carrying 94 Class I Television Channels, the full FM broadcast band and ade- quate bandwidth for Pilot Carriers or such auxiliary signals as - 5 - required for syst-in control. In the event _.,at future FCC restrictions prohibit use of portions of the band (e.g., the Aircraft Navigational frequencies from 108 to 120 MHz), a reduction in channel capacity may be required, or modifications made to the slope/gain control method to retain channel capacity. The combined forward trunk and distribution system will deliver signals to each and every customer's TV receiver that will meet or exceed the following specifications at the mean system temperature +500F, unless otherwise indicated. This shall include the effects of drop cables, interior splits, and any terminal equipment such as descramblers and set top converters. (1) Peak to Valley response, 54-400 MHz at unity gain compensated for slope 4 dB (2) Peak to Valley, any 6 MHz Video Channel +2.0 dB (3) Carrier to Noise, 4 MHz bandwidth 40 dB (4) Cross -Modulation Ratio 52 dB, (5) Carrier to Hum Ratio 40 dB (6) Carrier to Compos�..te Triple Beat 55 dB (7) Carrier to Discrete Triple Beat (CKT Carriers) 58 dB (8) Carrier to Second Order Beat 60 dB (9) Chrominance-Luminance Delay Distortion (All Channels) +150 ns (10) Carrier to.Echo Ratio (greater than 2 microseconds displacement) 40 dB (111 Differential Gain 1.0 dB (12) Differential Phase 3 degrees (13) Customer Signal Levels --the signal level delivered to the customer's TV receiver, except as modified by peak valley 0 dBmV Min. specifications (14) Level Differential between adjacent channels 3 dB Max. (15) FM Levels shall be essentially uniform and carried at approximately the same level as the Channel 6 Sound Carrier - 6 - (16) Sufficient isolation between subscribers shall be provided to prevent 10 dB Min. interference between terminal equipment and other portions of the system. (e) The dual -cable system shall have the capability of providing and delivering return signals from each subscriber and institutional (including all schools) tap to the extreme down- stream end of any area in compliance with the above specifica- tions. This capability shall include transmission of Color video, Black and White video, and both low and high speed data, whether analog or digital. Where applicable, the end of the system specifications shall include the effects of any signal reprocessing equipment necessary to achieve forward transmission. (f) If necessary to prevent the. build-up of noise and distortion products, the area shall be divided into sections and sub -trunks run to a central hub within the area, prior to feeding the interconnect system. When two or more such cables of the same size are lashed to a common strand, they shall be distinctly and permanently identified as to function. (Note: Equivalent alternatives such as addressed taps or switches may also be proposed.) (g) Grantee provided subscriber entertainment system channel converters shall have a minimum 54-channel capacity, digital type, with internal decoding capability and internal A/B switches for provision of in excess of 54 channels service when required. (h) Grantee shall either install dual drops from the outset of service installation, or provide the second of the dual drops to any or all subscribers at no cost to the subscriber(s) if and when the City, at its sole option using reasonable standards, so directs to accommodate the activation of additional entertainment channels, including•local origination and access channels, in excess of the capacity (i.e., about 50 channels) of the initially activated primarily entertainment cable of the dual cable system. (i) Although the programming procedure of shared channel usage for non -contrasting programming is encouraged to preclude having numerous channels with large blank periods (i.e., infrequent programming), it is an implicit obligation of the Grantee in accepting the franchise award to activeIy foster development of full usage of entertainment, access, and local origination channel capacities, including readily activating additional channels as necessary to fulfill this obligation. (j) Technical specifications set forth in this Section are intended to insure accommodation of possible multiple institutional and residential interactive data information and cable communica- tions applications, e.g., home management information retrievel and educational services, as well as possibly significantly expanded entertainment service offerings. Grantee shall make additional channel space available including a third cable, as - 7 - necessary, when any such institutional and/or interactive appli- cation(s) and/or services are mutually determined by Grantor and Grantee to be technically and economically feasible and to be in the best interest of both parties so -as to accommodate City's broadband communications needs for the full period of the franchise. This caveat of mutual determination of economic feasibility and best interest of both parties does not preempt, override, or mitigate the sole option stipulation pertaining to the no -cost installation of second drops as specified in sub- paragraph (h) immediately above. (k) Grantee may use above ground enclosures for active - electronic devices in underground areas. Passive devices will be placed in vaults except as otherwise directed by the City. PASSED AND ADOPTED by the City Council of the City of Burlingame, California, thisl5th day of June , 1981, by the following votes: AYES: COUNCILMEMBERS: AMSTRUP,BARTON,MANGINI,MARTIN NOES: COUNCILMEMBERS: NONE ABSENT: COUNCILMEMBERS: CROSBY ATTEST: victor Mangini,: Mayor r✓1-7 City Clerk