SERVICE PROVISIONS

Greensboro Code of Ordinances ch. 7, art. VI

in effect

Greensboro Code of Ordinances § 7-82 Services to subscribers and institutions.

Sec. 7-82. - Services to subscribers and institutions. (a) Programming. Concurrently with the activation of the cable communications system in the city, the grantee shall provide all services to subscribers as described herein. (1) The system shall carry programming as specified in the franchise. Any such change in programs or services offered shall comply with the conditions and procedures contained in the franchise and shall be reported to the city at least thirty (30) days prior to the proposed implementation. The grantee shall use its best efforts to ensure diversity of programming. (2) Basic service tier. A basic service tier shall be offered to subscribers throughout the term of this chapter and the franchise to the extent required by law. (3) Access. The grantee shall provide and maintain the following types of access channels the number of which shall be specified in the franchise: a. A government access channel which shall be a specifically designated channel for local governmental use and shall be managed, scheduled and programmed exclusively by the city. b. An educational access channel which shall be a specifically designated channel for use by local public school authorities, and shall be managed, scheduled and programmed exclusively by them. c. A public access channel which will be a specifically designated channel available on a first-come, first-served, nondiscriminatory basis. (4) Leased access. The grantee shall make available leased access channels to assure that the widest possible diversity of information sources are made available to subscribers as required by law. a. Such channels shall be specially designated for leased access use by persons unaffiliated with the grantee, at rates which are fair and reasonable as required by law. (5) Program guide. The grantee shall provide a cable guide which may be delivered in written or electronic form. (6) Access services. The grantee shall fully provide, at a minimum, services, facilities and equipment for public, educational, and government access as indicated in the franchise. (b) Institutional network. (1) The grantee shall provide an institutional network and related services as specified in the franchise. (c) Emergency override. The grantee shall, without charge, provide, service and maintain public emergency transmission facilities to the city, as described in the franchise. (Ord. No. 94-109, § 1, 10-24-94)

Greensboro Code of Ordinances § 7-83 Installations, connections, and other services.

Sec. 7-83. - Installations, connections, and other services. (a) Standard installations. Standard installation shall consist of a service not exceeding one hundred fifty (150) feet from a single point or pedestal attachment to the customer's residence. Service in excess of one hundred fifty (150) feet and concealed wiring shall be charged at such cost as exceeds normal installation costs. The desire of the subscriber as to the point of entry into the residence or commercial establishment and location of pedestal shall be observed whenever possible. Runs in building interiors shall be as unobtrusive as possible. The grantee shall use due care in the process of installation and shall repair any damage to the subscriber's property caused by said installation. Such restoration shall be undertaken within no more than ten (10) days after the damage is incurred and shall be completed as soon as possible thereafter. (b) Deposits. Any deposit required by the grantee shall bear interest at a rate of not less than the deposit rate of the bank then utilized by the city. (c) Lockout devices. The grantee, as part of its promotional literature, shall provide to the potential subscriber information concerning the availability of a lockout device for use by a subscriber. The lockout device described herein shall be made available to all subscribers requesting it beginning on the first day that any cable service is provided. (d) Reconnection. The grantee shall restore service to customers wishing restoration of service, provided customer shall first satisfy any previous obligations owed. (e) Free disconnection. Subscribers shall have the right to have cable service disconnected without charge unless otherwise specified in FCC rules. A refund of unused service charges shall be paid to the customer within sixty (60) days from the date of termination of service. (f) Downgrade fees. No downgrade fees shall be handled in accordance with FCC rules. (g) Delinquent accounts. The grantee shall use its best efforts to collect on delinquent subscriber accounts. Service will not be disconnected if a delinquent customer agrees at any time to be placed on a mutually acceptable payment plan to clear the account and makes all payment in a timely fashion. In all cases, the grantee shall provide the customer with at least ten (10) working days' written notice prior to disconnection. (h) Subscriber policies. The grantee shall comply with all subscriber policies in the cable ordinance and the franchise agreement. (i) Installation. The grantee shall install cable to a subscriber within seven (7) business days of request by the subscriber in accordance with the technical standards set forth in the franchise, unless the subscriber requests a later installation. (Ord. No. 94-109, § 1, 10-24-94)

Greensboro Code of Ordinances § 7-84 Service calls and complaint procedures.

Sec. 7-84. - Service calls and complaint procedures. (a) Business office. The grantee shall establish, operate and maintain in the city a business office, and maintenance and repair facility for the purpose of receiving inquiries, requests and complaints concerning all aspects of the construction, installation, operation, and maintenance of the system and for the payment of subscribers' service charges, and providing facilities for the production of programming. The grantee shall provide all subscribers or users with at least thirty (30) days' prior written notice of a change in business office hours. The business office shall maintain a staff adequate to process complaints, requests for installation, service or repairs, and other business in a timely and efficient manner. The grantee shall add additional telephone lines and service representatives when existing lines are substantially utilized or when a pattern of subscriber complaints reflect a need for additional service employees. Additional offices and payment stations provided by the grantee shall be included in the franchise. (b) Telephone service. The grantee shall have a listed, locally-staffed telephone number for service calls available twenty-four (24) hours a day, seven (7) days a week. Said number shall be made available to subscribers and the general public. The grantee shall provide an unlisted locally-staffed telephone number to the city and utility companies to enable the city or utility companies to reach the grantee in case of emergency on a twenty-four-hour, seven-days-a-week basis. (c) Grantee rules. The grantee shall prepare and file with the city copies of all of its rules and regulations in connection with the handling of inquiries, requests and complaints. The grantee shall, by appropriate means, such as a card or brochure, furnish information concerning the procedures for making inquiries or complaints, including the name, address and local telephone number of the employee or employees or agent to whom such inquiries or complaints are to be addressed, and furnish information concerning the city office responsible for the administration of the franchise, including, but not limited to, the address and telephone number of said office. (d) Complaint records. The grantee shall keep full records in connection with all complaints and requests which require corrective action, excluding complaints related to rates and programming, in connection with the system. Such records shall identify the person contacting the grantee, and the person responding on behalf of the grantee, the subject matter of the contact, the date and time it was received, the resolution of the matter in question or the action taken by the grantee in connection with the contact, and the date and time thereof, and such other information as may be deemed pertinent by the grantee. These records shall be maintained for three (3) years and made available for periodic inspection by the city, subject to privacy provisions of applicable law. (e) Equipment service. The grantee shall service or replace all equipment provided by it to the subscriber. (f) Subscriber solicitation. The grantee shall provide the city with a list of names and addresses of all representatives who will be soliciting within the city and the area in, and the dates within, such solicitations shall take place. Each such representative and all other employees entering upon private property shall be required to wear an employee identification card issued by the grantee and bearing a picture of said representative. The grantee shall notify the general public of its solicitation in a manner calculated to reach residents in the areas to be solicited in advance of such solicitation. (g) Sales information. The grantee shall provide at installation annually and upon request to all prospective subscribers or users with complete written information concerning all services and rates provided by the grantee upon solicitation of service and prior to consummation of any agreement for installation of service. Such sales material shall clearly and conspicuously disclose the price and other information concerning the grantee's least costly service. Such information shall be written in plain English and shall include but shall not be limited to the following: all services, tiers, and rates; deposits, if applicable; installation costs; additional television set charges; service upgrade or downgrade charges; lockout devices; and information concerning the utilization of video cassette recorders (VCRs) with cable service(s) and the cost for hooking up such VCRs so that they function as manufactured. (h) Billing practices information. The grantee shall inform all subscribers annually and all prospective subscribers or users upon request of complete information respecting billing and collection procedures, procedures for ordering changes in or termination of services, and refund policies, upon solicitation of service and prior to the consummation of any agreement for installation of service. Such information shall be written in plain English. (i) Response to service complaint. Calls for repair service shall be acted upon as provided in FCC regulations and/or the franchise. System outages, whole or partial, shall be acted upon immediately. The grantee shall promptly resolve complaints other than requests for repairs. When a complaint cannot be resolved within three (3) calendar days, the grantee shall provide the affected subscriber or user with an explanation. The grantee shall maintain on a twenty-four-hour basis a team of field technicians to repair outages. (j) Unresolved complaints. Should a subscriber or user have an unresolved complaint after a seven-day period, the subscriber or user shall be entitled to file his/her/their complaint for repair service with the city, which shall have primary responsibility for the continuing administration of this chapter and the franchise and the implementation of complaint procedures. A representative of the grantee shall be available thereafter to meet jointly with the city and the affected subscriber or user, within thirty (30) days after said subscriber or user has filed the complaint, to fully discuss and resolve the matter. (k) Information with respect to viewing habits and subscription decisions. The grantee or its agents or employees shall not make available to any third party, including the city, information concerning the viewing habits or subscription package decision of any individual subscriber or household without obtaining the subscriber's prior written consent. If a court authorizes or orders such disclosure, the grantee shall notify the subscriber within one (1) week prior to such disclosure. The grantee shall provide written notice to each subscriber when equipment is to be installed on the cable communications system which would permit the recording or monitoring of individual viewing habits of such subscriber or household; such equipment shall be installed only after prior written permission has been granted by the subscriber. In no event shall such permission be obtained as a condition of service or continuation thereof. For any sort of transmission to emanate from a subscriber's residence or subscriber household, the subscriber must take some positive action to activate such transmission. In the event the service requested by the subscriber by its nature involves the transfer of information or data from the subscriber or household, including, without limitation, security services or data transfer, the ordering of the service shall be deemed to include the grant of permission by the subscriber or household for the making available of such information to such parties as is necessary for the provision of the service. Written permission shall be obtained from the subscriber prior to further dissemination or distribution by the grantee of such information. (l) Subscriber and user contracts. It is stipulated and agreed by the grantee that section 7-84 and section 7-86 shall be enforceable directly by every aggrieved subscriber or user and by every aggrieved person seeking to become a subscriber or user. The city includes the above referenced sections as part of this chapter pursuant to both its governmental obligations to the residents and institutions of Greensboro, including actual and potential subscribers and users, and as the representatives of such actual and potential subscribers or users. To this end, the grantee agrees to include the following provision in every contract or agreement between the grantee and any subscribers or users entered into after the effective date of the grantee's franchise: The subscriber/user as part of this contract, has certain rights of privacy prohibiting the unauthorized monitoring of service and publication of personal information under the control of the grantee, including, without limitation, information regarding program selections or service uses. The grantee shall make available upon the request of the subscriber/user further description of said rights as established in its ordinance and franchise with the City of Greensboro. The grantee further agrees that it will not allege or contend that any actual or potential subscriber or user may not enforce the above referenced sections by reason of lack of privity. (m) Subscriber information to be destroyed. Any information concerning individual subscriber viewing habits or responses, except for information for billing purposes, shall be destroyed within sixty (60) days. Information for billing purposes shall be kept for a minimum of two (2) years unless otherwise required to be kept by law. (n) Investigation and remedial action. For recurrent complaints regarding service deficiencies (other than total or partial loss of service, such as "ghosting," weak audio signal, distortion, and the like), the city manager may require the grantee to investigate and report to him/her/them the causes and cures thereof, and the city manager may also conduct his/her/their own investigation. Thereafter, the city manager may order specified remedial action to be taken within reasonably feasible time limits. If such action is not taken, or is ineffective, or if within thirty (30) days the grantee files with the city a notice of objection to the order, the city may conduct a hearing and may, if the evidence warrants a finding of fault on the part of the grantee, take appropriate action pursuant to the terms of this chapter. (Ord. No. 94-109, § 1, 10-24-94; Ord. No. 20-163, § 3, 12-15-20)

Greensboro Code of Ordinances § 7-85 Operation after termination or expiration of franchise.

Sec. 7-85. - Operation after termination or expiration of franchise. (a) Subscription rights. It shall be the right of all subscribers to receive continuous, uninterrupted service insofar as their financial obligations to the grantee are honored. (b) Failure to provide continuity. In the event the grantee fails to operate the system for seven (7) consecutive days without prior approval of the city or without just cause, the city may, at its option, operate the system or designate an operator until such time as grantee restores service under conditions acceptable to the city or a permanent operator is selected. If the city is required to fulfill this obligation for the grantee, the grantee shall reimburse the city for all reasonable costs or damages in excess of revenues from the system received by the city that are the result of the grantee's failure to perform. (c) Extended operation. In the event the franchise is terminated, or upon its expiration, the council may require the grantee to continue operation for a period not exceeding twelve (12) months after the date of the grantee's termination or expiration. Thereafter the grantee shall remove, at its own expense, all portions of its cable television system from all streets and public ways to a condition reasonably satisfactory to the city as specified in section 7-14 and section 7-15. The grantee shall maintain a bond and letters of credit pursuant to section 7-50 until the conclusion of all operations under the franchise and this chapter, including the removal of all equipment and facilities. (Ord. No. 94-109, § 1, 10-24-94)

Greensboro Code of Ordinances § 7-86 Protection of subscriber privacy.

Sec. 7-86. - Protection of subscriber privacy. (a) Protection mandatory. The grantee shall at all times protect the privacy of subscribers, as provided in this chapter and other applicable federal, state, and local laws. (b) Notice of privacy provisions. At the time of entering into an agreement to provide any 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 each subscriber which clearly and conspicuously informs the subscriber of: (1) The privacy rights of the subscriber and the limitations placed upon the grantee with regard to this chapter hereof and all other applicable federal, state, and local subscriber privacy provisions; (2) The nature of personally identifiable information collected or to be collected with respect to the subscriber and the nature of the use of such information; (3) The nature, frequency, and purpose of any disclosure which may be made of such information, including an identification of the types of persons to whom the disclosure may be made; (4) The period during which such information might be maintained by the cable operator; (5) The times and place at which the subscriber may have access to such information in accordance with this chapter and other applicable federal, state, and local law; (6) A request for the subscriber's signature [which] allows for use of personally identifiable information. (c) Collection of personally identifiable information prohibited. The grantee shall not use or permit the use of the cable system to collect personally identifiable information concerning any subscriber, except as necessary to render a cable service or other service provided by the cable operator to the subscriber or if consented to by the subscriber. The grantee shall not install or permit the installation of any special terminal equipment in any subscriber's premises for the two-way transmission of any aural, visual, or digital signals without the prior written consent of the subscriber. The grantee shall not tabulate, nor permit others to tabulate, any subscriber use of the cable system which would reveal the opinions or commercial product preferences of individual subscribers, whether residential or business, or of any occupant or user of the subscriber's premises without written authorization from the subscriber for his/her/their participation in a shop-at-home or similar service. When providing such service, the grantee may tabulate only those responses essential to the functioning of that shopping or other service, and may not use any such tabulation of individual preferences for any other purposes without the subscribers consent. Tabulations of aggregate opinion or preference are permitted, provided the aggregations are sufficiently large to assure individual privacy. (d) Disclosure of subscriber information prohibited. The grantee shall not without the specific written authorization of the individual subscribers involved, sell or otherwise make available to any party, 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 cable operator 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 cable operator, or the nature of any transaction made by the subscriber over the cable system. (e) Notices of monitoring. The grantee shall report to the affected parties, the city and other appropriate authorities, any instances of monitoring or tapping of the system, or any part thereof, of which it has knowledge, which is not authorized under this section whether or not such activity has been authorized by the grantee. The grantee shall not record or retain any information transmitted between a subscriber or user and any third party, except as required for lawful business purposes. The grantee shall destroy all subscriber or user information of a personally identifiable nature after a reasonable period of time, unless retention of such information is authorized by the affected subscriber or user. (f) Polling by cable. No poll or other upstream response from a subscriber shall be conducted or obtained except as part of a program that contains all explicit disclosure of the nature, purpose and prospective use of the results of the poll or upstream response. The grantee or its agents shall release the results of upstream responses only in the aggregate and without individual references. (g) Monitoring devices. The grantee shall provide written notice to each subscriber when equipment is to be installed on the system which would permit the recording or monitoring of individual viewing habits of a subscriber or household; such equipment shall be installed only after prior written permission has been granted by the subscriber. Such permission may be valid for one (1) year only and may be renewed by permission of the subscriber. In no event shall such permission be obtained as a condition of service or continuation thereof. The grantee shall give each subscriber annual written notice of any such monitoring and of the subscriber's right to terminate the monitoring in accordance with the terms and conditions of the subscriber's contract with the grantee. (h) Personally identifiable information. 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. A subscriber may at any time revoke any permission previously given by delivering to the grantee a written statement of that intent. (i) Correction policy. 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. (j) Viewing habits. Any information concerning individual subscriber viewing habits or responses, except for information for billing purposes, shall be destroyed within sixty (60) days of collection. Information for billing purposes shall be kept for a minimum of two (2) years, unless otherwise required to be kept by law. (k) System performance. This section is not intended to prohibit the use or transmission of signals useful only for the control or measurement of system performance. (Ord. No. 94-109, § 1, 10-24-94)

Greensboro Code of Ordinances § 7-87 Rights of individuals.

Sec. 7-87. - Rights of individuals. (a) Nondiscrimination required. The grantee shall not deny service, deny access, or otherwise discriminate against subscribers, channel users or general citizens on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, or physical or mental handicaps, provided the subscriber shall pay all applicable fees for the service desired. The grantee shall comply at all times with all other applicable federal, state and local laws and regulations and all executive and administrative orders and rates relating to nondiscrimination which are hereby incorporated and made part of this chapter by reference. (b) Fairness of accessibility. The entire system of the grantee shall be operated in a manner consistent with the principles of fairness and equal accessibility of its facilities, equipment, channels, studios and other services to all citizens, businesses, public agencies and other entities having a legitimate use for the network; and no one shall be arbitrarily excluded from its use; allocation of use of said facilities shall be made according to the rules or decisions of the grantee and any regulatory agencies affecting the same. (c) Information accessibility. (1) Each individual shall have the right to information concerning the provisions of this chapter and the rules and regulations formulated pursuant to it by the council, the grantee, agent or entity created hereunder or pursuant to this chapter. (2) Such information as may herein be prescribed will be made available to the public and individual subscribers in such form required for the understanding, including, upon request, the deaf and blind, and in such languages as may be specified by city council if there exists a significant need. (3) Each document required to be maintained, prepared, filed or submitted under the provisions of this chapter or pursuant to it, except those required and designated confidential by the Federal Communications Commission or other public law or regulation, is a public document, available for public inspection and copying, at the requestor's expense, at the office of the grantee or the city during normal business hours. The charge for such copying shall approximate the cost of mechanical reproduction and shall not include a charge for labor. (Ord. No. 94-109, § 1, 10-24-94)

Source: City of Greensboro, North Carolina, Code of Ordinances and City Charter (Municode Library, library.municode.com)URL: https://library.municode.com/nc/greensboro/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=COOR_CH7CACO_ARTVISEPRFetched: 11/1/2026