I believe you're correct - the local municipality can hold Comcast (or the cable provider to their contract and wield power over them with it) accountable for the TV portion of the service. The internet service is something outside a city's purview.
However, someone in the municipality can inquire about the service and when they do, the cable company (in this particular case, Comcast) gets very interested very fast. After months of intermittent internet service from Comcast, 1 phone call to the City Manager's Office earned me an apologetic phone call from Comcast Government Affairs and 2 trucks in my neighborhood looking and finding! the cause of the problem. -----Original Message----- From: Computer Guys Discussion List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rev. Stewart Marshall Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2008 4:04 PM To: COMPUTERGUYS-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Subject: Re: [CGUYS] Comcast puts on the brakes It is my understanding that the local municipality negotiates contracts with the cable companies and they have to meet specific goals and or marks to keep the franchise. I know locally Charter just about lost their franchise when the local municipality had their accounts audited and it turned out Charter had shorted them a number of years in a row, plus there were some other marks that had not been met, plus local unhappiness with Charter. Local municipalities hold the franchise in their hands and if enough local pressure is applied they can get terms changed and/or companies changed. It all depends on how the franchise agreement is written. Like locally all non profits must pay to have any of their activities advertised on the local access channel. Most of the municipalities in our area do not charge non-profits to advertise, but then again they are not Charter. Stewart ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
