The City shall have sole and exclusive responsibility for identifying
the designated access providers and allocating the access resources
under this article. The City may authorize designated access providers
to control and manage the use of any and all access facilities provided
by grantee under this franchise, including, without limitation, the
operation of access channels. To the extent of such designation by
the City, the designated access provider shall have sole and exclusive
responsibility for operating and managing such access facilities.
The City or its designee may formulate rules for the operation of
the access channels, consistent with this franchise. Grantee shall
cooperate with the City and designated access providers in the use
of the cable system and access facilities for the provision of access.
Nothing herein shall prohibit the City from authorizing itself to
be a designated access provider. Nothing herein shall prohibit the
City from assigning several designated access providers to share a
single access channel.
All assigned access channels can be used to transmit signals
in any format which is technically compatible with the cable system,
including, by way of example and not limitation, video, audio only,
secondary audio and/or text messages. Such uses must be in furtherance
of access purposes.
All access channels provided to subscribers under this franchise
shall be included by grantee, without limitation, as a part of basic
service.
Grantee will use reasonable efforts to minimize the movement
of access channel assignments.
Grantee shall provide the City with a minimum of 90 days’
notice, and use its best efforts to provide 120 days’ notice,
prior to the time any access channel designation is changed, unless
the change is required by federal law, in which case grantee shall
give the City the maximum notice possible. Any new channel designations
for the access channels provided pursuant to this franchise shall
be in full compliance with FCC signal quality and proof-of-performance
standards.
The grantee shall maintain all access channels at the same or
better level of technical quality and reliability required by this
franchise and all other applicable laws, rules and regulations for
other channels.
In the event grantee makes any change in the cable system and
related equipment and facilities or in grantee’s signal delivery
technology, which affects the signal quality or transmission of access
services or programming, grantee shall, at its own expense, take necessary
technical steps or provide necessary technical assistance, including
the acquisition of all necessary equipment and training of access
personnel, to ensure that the capabilities of access services are
not diminished or adversely affected by such change. For example,
this provision shall apply if the cable system is converted from an
analog to a digital format, such that the access channels must also
be converted to digital in order to be received by subscribers.
Upon request by the City, grantee shall include information
about access programming in the installation packet provided to subscribers.
The City shall supply the materials, for insertion in the packet,
in a format consistent with grantee’s requirements.