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CC RES 2005-044 RESOLUTION NO. 2005-44 A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF RANCHO PALOS VERDES MAKING FINDINGS IN CONNECTION WITH THE SECOND SCHEDULED SYSTEM PERFORMANCE AUDIT OF 2000 CABLE TELEVISION FRANCHISE AGREEMENT WITH COX COMMUNICATIONS. WHEREAS, On October 17, 2000, the City Council adopted Resolution No. 2000-71, thereby entering into a non-exclusive, ten year Cable Television Franchise Renewal Agreement with Cox Communications ("Agreement"); and, WHEREAS, the Agreement includes a requirement that three system performance audits be conducted following the second, fourth and sixth anniversary dates of the Agreement. October 17, 2004 marked the fourth anniversary of the Agreement. Pursuant to Section 8.1(b) of the Agreement, the City and Cox Communications were required to meet within 90 days following the second anniversary date of the Agreement to review the performance of the cable.television system; and, WHEREAS, on December 21, 2004, within 90 days following the fourth anniversary date of the Agreement, the City Council agreed to the cable operator's request to continued the Second Cable Television System Performance Audit to February 1, 2005, in order to afford the cable operator additional time to provide staff with needed data to complete the performance audit. WHEREAS, on February 1, 2005,. the City Council reviewed the submitted data and staff's analysis of the cable operator's performance; directed the cable operator to provide staff with additional data regarding: 1) Service Level (% of calls answered within 30 seconds), Acceptable Use Policy and Service Appointments; and, continued the Second System Performance Audit to May 3, 2005; and, WHEREAS, on May 3, 2005, the City Council completed the second cable television system performance audit; and, WHEREAS, pursuant to Section 8.1(c) of the Agreement, within 30 days after the conclusion of the performance audit, the City may issue findings with respect to system compliance. If any noncompliance is identified, the City may direct Cox Communications to correct the noncompliance within a reasonable period of time. NOW, THEREFORE, THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF RANCHO PALOS VERDES DOES HEREBY FIND, DETERMINE AND RESOLVE AS FOLLOWS: Section 1: As required in the Cable Television Franchise Renewal Agreement (Exhibit C - Technology Implementation Plan), Cox Communications upgraded its cable network in December 2000 from a hybrid coaxial cable system to fiber optic technology with a total bandwidth of 750 Megahertz (MHz). In addition, Exhibit C requires the new fiber optic cable network to include greater system reliability, enhanced picture quality, the ability to support new services and future technologies, and an expanded channel capacity. The City Council finds as follows: • The cable operator has provided enhanced picture quality by continuously monitoring the cable network system for signal leakage. The cable operator has achieved an FCC Cable Signal Index (CSI) score of 99.77% in 2003 and in 100% in 2004. A perfect score means that no signal leakage was found to exist in the cable network system. • The cable operator has provided a fiber optic network capable of supporting new service and future technologies. Since the first performance audit, the cable operator has added three new products: High Definition Television (HDTV), Digital Video Recorder and Entertainment On Demand. • The cable operator has continued to expand its channel offerings. Since the first performance audits, the cable operator has added 4 new analog channels, 17 new digital channels and 3 high definition channels to its line up. During this same period, it deleted a total of 9 channels, 5 pay-per-view channels, two analog channels and two digital channels. • The cable operator has continued to provide the Emergency Alert System (EAS), which allows local government and law enforcement to send emergency messages to cable television subscribers via "text crawls" at the top of the screen or by overriding audio and/or video. The cable operator's EAS currently exceeds FCC minimum requirements. Section 2: Section 76.309(c) of Title 47 of the Code of Federal Regulations, which is incorporated as an attachment to the Franchise Renewal Agreement, contains standards regarding the cable operator's customer service obligations. The standards require a service level where customer calls are answered with thirty (30) seconds of the connection being made and that the cable operator achieve this standard ninety (90) percent of the time, under normal operating conditions. The February 1, 2005 staff report indicated the cable operator had met the federal standard in only two months in the last two years. The Council continued the performance audit for an additional 90 days based on the cable operator's assurance that the results for the first quarter in 2005 would show a marked improvement in the service level. At the May 3, 2005 meeting, staff reported that the cable operator had provided staff with data for the first quarter in 2005 showing that it was able to steadily improve the service level over the prior three months until it reached a high of 95.5% in March 2005, the highest level achieved over the previous two years. Therefore, the City Council directs the cable operator to provide staff with service level statistics at the end of each quarter to ensure that the federal service level standard continues to be met. Staff is hereby directed to report any deficiencies, including but not limited to the cable operator's failure to provide the requested statistics in a timely manner, to the City Council. Section 3: In addition to the state and federal customer service requirements that are incorporated as attachments to the Franchise Renewal Agreement, the City has required the cable operator to comply with some additional customer service requirements, which are included in Exhibit D (Customer Protection Standards) of the Agreement. The City Council finds that the cable operator was in compliance with the following customer service standards during the second scheduled system performance audit: Resolution No. 2005-44 Page 2 of 3 • Providing required notifications to new subscribers and continuing subscribers • Providing privacy flags • Offering all-inclusive pricing • Advertising the "limited basic" package • Posting information on the reader board regarding the procedure for filing a complaint. • Providing public education regarding "must carry" stations • Returning customer calls within 24 hours • Providing appointments with 24 hours for a service outage, within 3 business days for service-related problems and within 5 business days for installations. Section 4: Exhibit D (Customer Protection Standards) of the Agreement requires the cable operator to notify its high speed Internet customers of changes to the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) in the subscriber's bill a minimum of 30 days in advance of the change, rather than only being posted on a website. The AUP currently posted on the cable operator's web site directs High Speed Internet subscribers to refer back to the website on a regular basis to determine if there has been any changes to the AUP. In addition, the cable operator has used email notification sent a minimum of 30 days in advance to notify its High Speed Internet customers of changes to the AUP. The City Council finds that, although the Agreement requires the cable operator to provide written notice by mail 30 days in advance of the change, the current practice of notifying its High Speed Internet customers by email 30 days in advance of any change satisfies the intent of the Agreement and the cable operator is therefore in compliance with this customer service standard. Section 5: Pursuant to Section 8.1(c) of the Franchise Renewal Agreement, the City Council hereby issues the findings contained in this Resolution with respect to the second cable television system performance audit. PASSED, APPROVED, and ADOPTED this 17th day of May 2005. Attest: Mayor Cit Jerk State of California ) County of Los Angeles )ss City of Rancho Palos Verdes ) I, Carolynn Petru, City Clerk of the City of Rancho Palos Verdes, hereby certify that the above Resolution No. 2005-44; was duly and regularly passed and adopted by the said City Council at regular meeting thereof held on May 17, 2005. Clerk Resolution No. 2005-44 Page 3of3