CCMIN032001 - Laserfiche WebLink

Michael Friedman, on behalf of Telecommunications Management, explained that in order to find a breach there must be notice and opportunity to cure. If there was a single subscriber who did not receive service and notice is given to AT&T and the subscriber continues not to get service, then there would be a breach. So one is not talking about a single instance, but a repeated pattern. He said the amount of damages the cable service pays is one thing, but the greater issue is the fact that it was found in breach of the franchise. He referred to federal law on patterns of practice. It is not the amount of the liquidated damages. If you talk about customer service standards in section 8 of the ordinance, such as answering the phone, a breach must be measured over a three-month period of time. If the company does not meet the standard of 90-95%, then notice is given and an opportunity to cure. It is not something that is instantaneous. Because of that, the impact of considering different violations is somewhat minimized. The standards for the most part are consistent with the standards that have been established by the Federal Communications Commission. The City can establish more stringent standards if it wants, but the cable company is allowed to raise its rates in order to implement those more stringent standards. There is a fine line to be walked to take into account what is best from the consumers' interest and what is the impact on the subscriber rates. Ms. Dennis felt it was difficult for a consumer to accumulate evidence of a breach over time, provide the evidence to the City and have the City intervene, etc. Mr. Friedman said there are different types of failures. He referred to various sections on pages 21-22 which cited various instances such as a system outage that must be responded to within two hours that affects one or more channels that affect ten percent of the subscribers or more. That does not have to be measured on a quarterly basis. If there are repeated outages and AT&T does not cure the problem, then the company can be found in breach. Ms. Dennis referred to page 19 regarding service problems and answering phone only during normal hours with no response due until the next business day. When she has a service problem with analog, it is difficult to find anyone to answer the phone. One night she had a problem. The recording said to hold and she was on hold for two hours. Finally she called the sales number and got assistance there. If they are selling, they ought to be fixing. Most people don't watch television during normal business hours. Mr. Friedman said from a practical standpoint, people ought to call the cable company during normal business hours and tell them about the problem. Most cable companies will give the user a credit for the day's service. Ms. Dennis referred to another page and said a user is entitled to a credit and that should be part of the tape-recorded message. She believed the credit should be from the time a user begins to experience the difficulty. The response to service difficulty is very good; the company sends a technician to check all possible problems, but in her case nothing was ever found. The company then began to suggest an upgrade to a more costly service or an amplifier, which is another $40 dollars. The company should not be Pleasanton City Council 27 Minutes 03/20/01