What does the City have to do with Cable Television? Plenty?

Federal law provides that any cable services provider who wishes to provide cable services to a community must enter into a franchise agreement with the local franchising authority -- in other words, the City.

Federal law gives the City the right to regulate certain aspects of cable services provided under the franchise agreement. Primary areas of regulatory oversight are:

• Rates -- the City has the right to review rate calculations for basic cable services (e.g., basic cable, expanded basic, etc.) as well as rates for various customer equipment and installation used to receive the basic service tier, even if that equipment is also used to receive cable programming service tiers (i.e., non-basic services that are not offered on a per-channel or pay-per-view basis) or unregulated services such as pay-per-channel or pay-per-view programming. The maximum rates that can be charged are based upon costs incurred by the cable provider through a federally-mandated formula. The City can conduct an audit on behalf of the customers to determine if the maximum rates are correctly computed and valid. The City can not negotiate for lower rates with the local cable provider. However, if the City receives complaints on rates, it can forward those to the cable provider for their information and follow-up. Rates for premiums services (e.g., Pay Per View, HBO, Showtime, etc.) are not regulated by the City.
• Maintenance -- the City has the right to ensure the cable system infrastructure, up to the point it enters the home / business, is maintained up to federal, state and local building codes.
• Customer Service Issues -- the City has the right to review the cable operator's compliance with customer service standards set forth in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. An example of a customer service standard is that the cable operator must answer at least 90% of its calls within 30 seconds. The City can not impose higher standards that those allowed under Federal law, but can attempt to negotiate higher standards if mutually agreed to by the cable operator through the franchise agreement. The City receives periodic reports from the cable operator to determine compliance with these standards.
• Channels -- the City can negotiate the minimum number of channels to be available to customers. Further, the City can ensure the cable operator is complying with FCC 'must-carry' channels, which are local broadcasters (e.g., KGO, KPIX, KTVU, etc.) that have received FCC approval that their signal must be carried on cable operators' systems. Beyond that, however, the City can not mandate that any certain channel be carried on the cable operators' system.
• PEG Channels -- Public, Educational and Government (PEG) Access Channels fall under the purview of the franchise agreement, and can be negotiated with the cable operator. The cable operator must provide at least one PEG Access channel within the franchise area by federal law. Beyond that is subject to negotiation.
  

The franchise agreement must comply with locally adopted laws (ordinances) that govern the deployment of cable services within the City. Foster City has a non-exclusive franchise ordinance, which means that more than one cable provider can provide services in Foster City.

Comcast Corporation, the City's only current cable provider, is under a franchise agreement that was renegotiated and went into effect on December 1, 2005.  The existing Franchise Agreement with Comcast expires in November 2020.  (Adobe Acrobat required -- click here to download a free viewer).