For the purposes of this franchise, the following terms, phrases,
words and their derivations shall have the meaning given herein. When
not inconsistent with the context, words used in the present tense
include the future, words in the plural include the singular, and
words in the singular include the plural. Words not defined shall
be given their common and ordinary meaning. The word “shall”
is always mandatory and not merely directory.
Affiliate,
when used in connection with grantee, means any person who
owns or controls, is owned or controlled by, or is under common ownership
or control with, grantee.
Bad debt
means amounts lawfully billed to a subscriber and owed by
the subscriber for cable service and accrued as revenues on the books
of grantee, but not collected after reasonable efforts have been made
by grantee to collect the charges.
Basic service
means any cable service tier which includes, at a minimum,
the retransmission of local television broadcast signals and local
access programming.
Broadcast signal
means a television or radio signal transmitted over the air
to a wide geographic audience, and received by a cable system by antenna,
microwave, satellite dishes or any other means.
Cable Act
means the Title VI of the Communications Act of 1934, as
amended and codified at
47 U.S.C. Section
151, et seq.
Cable Internet service
means any cable service offered by grantee whereby persons
receive access to the Internet through the cable system.
Cable operator
means any person or groups of persons, including grantee,
who provide(s) cable service over a cable system and directly or through
one or more affiliates owns a significant interest in such cable system
or who otherwise control(s) or is (are) responsible for, through any
arrangement, the management and operation of such a cable system.
Cable service
means the one-way transmission to subscribers of video programming
or other programming service, and subscriber interaction, if any,
which is required for the selection or use of such video programming
or other programming service.
Cable system
means any facility including grantee’s, consisting
of a set of closed transmissions paths and associated signal generation,
reception, and control equipment that is designed to provide cable
service which includes video programming and which is provided to
multiple subscribers within a community, but such term does not include:
(1)
A facility that serves only to retransmit the television signals
of one or more television broadcast stations;
(2)
A facility that serves subscribers without using any right-of-way;
(3)
A facility of a common carrier which is subject, in whole or
in part, to the provisions of Title II of the Federal Communications
Act (
47 U.S.C.
201 et seq.),
except that such facility shall be considered a cable system (other
than for purposes of Section 621(c) (
47 U.S.C.
541(c)) to
the extent such facility is used in the transmission of video programming
directly to subscribers, unless the extent of such use is solely to
provide interactive on-demand services;
(4)
An open video system that complies with federal statutes; or
(5)
Any facilities of any electric utility used solely for operating
its electric utility systems.
Channel
means a portion of the electromagnetic frequency spectrum
which is used in the cable system and which is capable of delivering
a television channel (as television channel is defined by the FCC
by regulation).
City
is the City of Grand Junction, Colorado, a body politic and
corporate under the laws of the State of Colorado, and all of the
area within its boundaries, as such may change from time to time,
and any of its legally established enterprises.
City Council
means the Grand Junction City Council, or its successor,
the governing body of the City of Grand Junction, Colorado.
Demarcation point
means the patch panel, termination block or other termination
device provided by the grantee, if any, located within each I-Net
site, which represents the interface between the I-Net and the qualified
I-Net user’s local network or end user electronics. In all cases
the demarcation point will be clearly marked as such by grantee, and
will provide an identifiable interface for the end user electronics.
Designated access provider
means the entity or entities designated now or in the future
by the City to manage or co-manage access channels and facilities.
The City may be a designated access provider.
Director of Cable Services
means the person designated by the City Manager who is responsible
for the City’s administrative affairs arising out of or under
this franchise.
Downstream
means carrying a transmission from the headend to remote
points on the cable system or to interconnection points on the cable
system.
Dwelling unit
means any building, or portion thereof, that has independent
living facilities, including provisions for cooking, sanitation and
sleeping, and that is designed for residential occupancy. Buildings
with more than one set of facilities for cooking shall be considered
multiple dwelling units unless the additional facilities are clearly
accessory.
Expanded basic service
means the tier of optional video programming services, which
is the level of cable service above basic service, and does not include
premium services.
FCC
means the Federal Communications Commission.
Fiber optic
means a transmission medium of optical fiber cable, along
with all associated electronics and equipment, capable of carrying
cable service or institutional network service by means of electric
light wave impulses.
Franchise
means the document in which this definition appears, i.e.,
the contractual agreement, executed between the City and grantee,
containing the specific provisions of the authorization granted to
use the streets, alleys, public places, or other rights-of-way of
the City, including references, specifications, requirements and other
related matters.
Franchise area
means the area within the jurisdictional boundaries of the
City, including any areas annexed by the City during the term of this
franchise.
Franchise fee
means any fee or assessment of any kind imposed by a franchising
authority or other governmental entity on the grantee or a cable subscriber
or both solely because of their status as such. The term franchise
fee does not include: any tax, fee or assessment of general applicability
(including any such tax, fee or assessment imposed on both utilities
and cable operators or their services but not including a tax, fee
or assessment which is unduly discriminatory against cable operators
or cable subscribers); access capital costs which are required under
this agreement to be incurred by grantee for public, educational or
governmental access facilities; requirements or charges incidental
to the awarding or enforcing of the franchise, including, but not
limited to, payments for bonds, letters of credit, insurance, indemnification,
penalties or liquidated damages; or any fee imposed under Title
17 of the United
States Code.
GAAP
means generally accepted accounting principles.
Generally applicable
means, when referenced to ordinances, laws, or regulations,
legal obligations that are applied generally and not limited solely
to grantee.
Grantee
means Bresnan Communications or its lawful successor, transferee
or assignee.
Gross revenues
means any and all revenue received by the grantee, or by
any other entity that is a cable operator of the grantee’s cable
system, which may include affiliates of grantee from the operation
of the grantee’s cable system to provide cable services in the
franchise area. Gross revenues include, by way of illustration and
not limitation, monthly fees charged subscribers for basic service;
any expanded tiers of cable service; optional premium services; installation,
disconnection, reconnection and change-in-service fees; leased access
channel fees; remote control rental fees; all cable service lease
payments from the cable system; late fees and administrative fees;
fees, payments or other consideration received by the grantee from
programmers for carriage of programming on the cable system and accounted
for as revenue under GAAP; revenues from rentals or sales of converters
or other cable system equipment used to receive cable service; advertising
revenues; the fair market value of consideration received by the grantee
for use of the cable system to provide cable service and accounted
for as revenue under GAAP; revenues from program guides; revenue from
data transmissions to the extent these transmissions are considered
cable services under federal law; additional outlet fees; revenue
from cable Internet service to the extent this service is considered
a cable service under federal law; franchise fees; revenue from interactive
services to the extent they are considered cable services under federal
law; revenue from the sale or carriage of other cable services on
the cable system; and revenue from home shopping, bank-at-home channels
and other revenue-sharing arrangements. Gross revenues shall include
revenue received by any entity other than the grantee where necessary
to prevent evasion or avoidance of the obligation under this franchise
to pay the franchise fees. Gross revenues shall not include (1) to
the extent consistent with GAAP, bad debt; provided, however, that
all or part of any such bad debt that is written off but subsequently
collected shall be included in gross revenues in the period collected;
or (2) any taxes on services furnished by the grantee which are imposed
directly on any subscriber or user by the State, City or other governmental
unit and which are collected by the grantee on behalf of said governmental
unit. The franchise fee is not such a tax.
The parties intend for the definition of gross revenues to be
as inclusive as possible consistent with existing applicable law.
If there is a change in federal law subsequent to the effective date
of this franchise, such change shall not impact this gross revenues
definition unless the change specifically preempts the affected portion
of the definition above.
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Headend
means any facility for signal reception and dissemination
on a cable system, including cables, antennas, wires, satellite dishes,
monitors, switchers, modulators, and processors for broadcast signals.
Leased access channel
means any channel or portion of a channel of the cable system
available to the public in a manner consistent with
47 U.S.C. Section
532 for commercial
use by persons other than grantee, for a fee or charge.
Node
means an exchange point in the signal distribution system
portion of the cable system, where optical signals are converted to
RF signals.
PEG access channel
means any channel, or portion thereof, designated for PEG
access purposes or otherwise made available to facilitate or transmit
PEG access programming or services.
Public, educational, and governmental access or PEG access
means the availability of channel capacity on the cable system
for noncommercial use by various agencies, institutions, organizations,
groups and individuals in the community, including the City and its
designees, including, but not limited to:
(1)
Public access
means access where community-based, noncommercial organizations,
groups or individual members of the general public, on a nondiscriminatory
basis, are the primary users.
(2)
Educational access
means access where schools are the primary users having editorial
control over programming and services. For purposes of this definition,
“school” means any State-accredited educational institution,
public or private, including, for example, primary and secondary schools,
colleges and universities.
(3)
Government access
means access where governmental institutions or their designees
are the primary users having editorial control over programming and
services.
Person
means any individual, sole proprietorship, partnership, association,
or corporation, or any other form of entity or organization.
Premium service
means programming choices (such as movie channels, pay-per-view
programs, or video on demand) offered to subscribers on a per-channel,
per-program or per-event basis.
Residential subscriber
means any person who receives cable service delivered to
dwelling units or multiple dwelling units, excluding those billed
on a bulk-billing basis.
Right-of-way
means each of the following which have been dedicated to
the public or are hereafter dedicated to the public and maintained
under public authority or by others and located within the franchise
area: streets, roadways, highways, avenues, lanes, alleys, bridges,
sidewalks, easements, rights-of-way and similar public property and
areas.
State
means the State of Colorado.
Subscriber
means any person who or which elects to subscribe to, for
any purpose, cable service provided by grantee by means of or in connection
with the cable system and whose premises are physically wired and
lawfully activated to receive cable service from grantee’s cable
system.
Subscriber network
means that portion of the cable system used primarily by
grantee in the transmission of cable services to residential subscribers.
Telecommunications
means the transmission, between or among points specified
by the user, of information of the user’s choosing, without
change in the form or content of the information as sent and received
(as provided in
47 U.S.C. Section
153(43)).
Telecommunications service
means the offering of telecommunications for a fee directly
to the public, or to such classes of users as to be effectively available
directly to the public, regardless of the facilities used (as provided
in
47 U.S.C.
Section
153(46)).
Tier
means a group of channels for which a single periodic subscription
fee is charged.
Two-way
means capable of providing both upstream and downstream transmissions.
Upgrade
means an improvement in channel capacity or other technical
aspect of the cable system capacity, which may be accomplished with
or without a rebuild of the system.
Upstream
means carrying a transmission to the headend from remote
points on the cable system or from interconnection points on the cable
system.