§ 15-13 — Minimum facilities and services

§ 15-13 - Minimum facilities and services.

(a) Notwithstanding anything herein to the contrary, when reasonably practicable but no later than 12 months after notice from the city, a franchisee shall make the technically and commercially feasible improvements to its system as may be necessary to bring the system to the state of the art. The city shall grant extensions of the time within which a franchisee must comply with the obligations set forth herein, to accommodate the process to be afforded a franchisee hereunder, for good cause shown (including evidence that the franchisee has commenced necessary measures to comply with the obligations herein), but in no event to exceed 12 months. (1) Any cable system that commences construction, including but not limited to initial construction, rebuild, upgrade or reconstruction after the effective date of this article shall have a minimum capacity of at least 750 MHZ providing no less than 78 video channels available for immediate use. A franchise agreement may provide for a larger minimum channel capacity requirement. (2) The city and a franchisee shall agree in a franchise agreement that a franchisee provide access channels, facilities and other support for educational and/or governmental use. (3) Cablecasting of City Council meetings live to all subscribers located within the city may be provided on a government channel. (4) A cable system shall provide leased access channels as required by federal law. (5) City and school outlets: a. A franchisee shall, upon request, provide at least one cable television service outlet and when technically feasible and available in the area from franchisee, or its affiliate, parent or subsidiary, serving subscribers within the area served by the system, at least one standard installation connection to a cable on-line service to each public elementary and secondary school within its franchise area that is passed by its cable system, and shall provide basic cable service and on-line cable internet service to those installations at no cost to the city or school involved, and shall charge no more than its time and material costs for any additional cable service outlets (including cable internet service) to the facilities; and b. A franchisee shall, upon request, provide at least one standard installation for basic cable television service to each and every city government building within its franchise area that is passed by its cable system and shall provide basic cable service to those installations at no cost to the city and shall charge no more than its costs for any additional basic cable service outlets to the facilities. (6) A franchisee shall design its system to allow the city or other appropriate government body, to interrupt cable service in an emergency to deliver necessary information to subscribers, at minimum consistent with FCC regulations. (7) A franchisee shall make available to its subscribers equipment capable of decoding closed circuit captioning information for the hearing impaired. A franchisee may impose a reasonable charge for the equipment. (8) Standard installation shall consist of a drop, not exceeding 125 feet from the cable plant to the nearest part of a subscriber's residence; or, if a commercial subscriber, the nearest part of subscriber's place of business. (9) Any and all rights which the city may have, now or in the future, to regulate a franchisee's provision of cable internet services are hereby reserved by the city and may be exercised at any time throughout the term of the franchise, unless otherwise prohibited by applicable law. If a franchisee provides access to its system to internet service providers on an open, non-discriminatory basis on a cable system owned or operated by the franchisee, its parents, affiliates or subsidiaries serving the majority of subscribers in the State of Florida, franchisee shall provide access on the basis on any service which the franchisee provides in the city. (10) A franchisee shall, at all times during the term of a franchise, maintain a state of the art cable system within the franchise area, as that term is defined in this article, and consistent with the provisions of subsection (a) hereof. (b) A franchisee shall make cable service available to every dwelling within the franchise area as defined in a franchise agreement unless prohibited by a private property owner from doing so; provided that the dwelling is in an area of density of at least 25 dwelling units per cable mile. For purposes of this section, if a franchisee has not been granted the authority by an owner or associations of owners to extend its facilities to individual apartments, condominiums and co-operative units within the interior or a multiple-unit buildings or complex of buildings, then any multiple-unit building or complex of buildings shall be considered a single dwelling unit. Density per cable mile shall be computed by dividing the number of dwelling units in the area by the length, in miles or fractions thereof, of the total amount of aerial or underground cable necessary to make service available to the dwelling units in the area in accordance with the franchisee's system design parameters. The cable length shall be measured from the nearest point of access to the then-existing system, provided that extension is technically feasible from that point of access, and located within the public streets. (c) Notwithstanding anything herein to the contrary, service shall be required for new developments located adjacent to an area which already meets the residential density requirement in subsection (b) above, but only to the extent, in whole or in part, to which the development has been platted consistent with the density requirement in subsection (b) above, and public utility facilities are being or have been extended.

(Ord. 90-00, § 3, 9-11-2000)