Wednesday, March 02, 2011
 
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Mayor tells Comcast to cover meetings, provide public access channel

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[March 02, 2011]  Mayor Keith Snyder told the city council Tuesday evening that Libbie Stehn of Comcast Cable Communications has been asked to attend the March 7 meeting to address the ongoing issues the city has with the cable service provider.

In recent weeks, Snyder received information from Comcast that would impose a rate increase on local customers effective March 1.

He shared information with the council, saying the letter he had received indicated there would be changes to certain services, but the price list attached appeared to reflect those increases in every service offered locally.

He said that upon receiving the letter he had contacted Stehn, but she had been unavailable to meet with the council prior to the increases taking effect.

On Monday, Snyder addressed a letter to Stehn reviewing some of the recommendations and requests that had come out of a service evaluation conducted by the council in August.

He pointed out in the letter that there are several requests that to date have not been fully satisfied.

First on his list was the call for a local phone number for customer service.

When this came up in August, Stehn said the company's call centers were very effective in taking care of customer needs, and establishing a local number to report outages was not cost-effective, nor did it make good sense for her company.

In Snyder's letter, he argued that the call centers are not effective and addressed the issue with his own personal experiences:

You stated in your 9/15/10 letter to me, "Comcast... has improved call center operations by focusing on investing in larger, more technically advanced facilities." You said you introduced "state-of-the-art tools" in order to deliver "the best experience possible to our customers."

Yet, we continue to hear on a regular basis the difficulties that Lincoln subscribers have in reaching an appropriate contact through your call centers in order to resolve their problems.

I can note from personal experience that these "improved call centers" were rendered virtually useless during the recent Internet outage that affected most of your Chicago region (to which you have assigned Lincoln).

I know that during the course of that outage, the toll-free number provided by Comcast resulted in busy signals for over three hours and no possibility of ever reaching a live person during such outage. Is this "the best possible experience for [your] customers"?

I also note that Section 3-13-12 of our franchise agreement with Comcast (which is entitled "local Office") requires your company to maintain a "business office" (not a call center) "which customers may telephone during regular business hours."

Snyder's letter also reminded Stehn of a commitment she had made on behalf of Comcast that the service provider would work with CITV 5 to provide taping of all city council meetings.

Comcast has always provided coverage of the Monday night voting meetings, but not the Tuesday workshops.

Stehn had said covering the Tuesday night meetings would have to be done by CITV 5. Celeste Rogers of CITV 5 had also attended that meeting, and she and Stehn made a verbal promise to the city to work out an agreement for the taping.

Immediately after the August meeting, CITV 5 did record the Tuesday night sessions and aired them on Wednesday nights, but the commitment lasted only about a month.

Snyder in his letter asked Comcast to provide a means for coverage of these meetings and reiterated the need for a true public access channel in Lincoln.

In his letter he wrote the following:

At the Evaluation Session in August you committed to filming, taping, and replaying our 2nd and 4th Tuesday City Council Workshop meetings In addition to taping and replaying our 1st and 3rd Monday City Council Voting Meetings.

Consider this the City's official request for that service from Comcast. We understand from your comments at the Evaluation Session that the actual times for airing these sessions are subject to negotiation with CITV.

Given your statement that no time is currently available on CITV for Comcast to air such meetings live or on tape delay, we take that as acknowledgement that under 3-13-10(B) of your franchise agreement with the City of Lincoln that "capacity" for the local origination channel (channels) has been reached and that the addition of a public access, educational access, and governmental access (PEG) channel would necessitate "additional utilization."

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The City of Lincoln, therefore, requests that Comcast make available one additional channel in the Lincoln market for PEG access in addition to the local origination programming provided on channel S.

We note that this request for an additional PEG channel is not out of line with other area franchise agreements.

In Champaign-Urbana there are four PEG channels: a government channel operated by Champaign, a government and public access channel operated by Urbana, a channel allocated to Parkland College, and a channel operated by the University of Illinois. As a community with three colleges, a second channel dedicated to PEG access in Lincoln does not seem out of line in the least.

In order for the new PEG channel to be adequately programmed, the City of Lincoln requests that Comcast fund, build, and outfit a full digital broadcast studio within facilities owned by Lincoln College to be utilized by LC, Lincoln Christian University, Heartland Community College, and Lincoln Community High School.

We would request that the studio be outfitted with broadband (fiber optic) capability and that resources be committed to provide: sufficient digital camera, recording, and editing equipment for the studio; annual training on all equipment and on technical production of programming; and an annual grant to update studio equipment.

The studio and equipment will be used to create programming for the new PEG channel and to provide educational and training opportunities for the students of LC, LCU, HCC, and LCHS.

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Finally Snyder asked Comcast do one of two things: either drop their opposition to Illinois Senate Bill 108 or provide fiber optic services in Lincoln.

SB108 is an amendment to the Illinois Municipal Code that would classify broadband and fiber optic Internet as a part of a city's infrastructure. This provision would allow municipalities to use non-home rule tax funding for the installation and implementation of fiber optic services.

The amendment was introduced to lawmakers on Jan. 27 by Sen. Larry Bomke on behalf of the city of Lincoln.

Snyder concluded his letter to Comcast with this issue:

We would encourage Comcast to take one of two actions with regard to SB 108, legislation sponsored by Senator Larry Bomke at the request of the City of Lincoln. Either drop your opposition to the legislation or provide fiber optic service to end users in Lincoln as quickly as possible. Lincoln is not pursuing SB 108 as a competitive threat to Comcast. We are doing so to improve connectivity and throughput for our existing businesses and organizations and to make our community more attractive to future business investment. As a community that recently lost over 800 residents in the most recent census, it is vital that we fully embrace ways to make our community more attractive to both investment and prospective residents. Is Comcast as committed to the future viability of the City of Lincoln as we are? If so, I would ask you to drop your opposition to S8 108 or to commit to fiber connectivity for Lincoln.

The Monday night meeting of the city council will begin at 7 p.m. The public is reminded that all council meetings are open to the public, and interested or concerned citizens are encouraged to attend all council meetings and are invited to address the council regarding their concerns.

[By NILA SMITH]

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