Chino Hills Municipal Code Art. V Subscriber Rights

Grantee shall comply with the FCC customer service guidelines contained at Section 76.309 of Title 47 of the Code of Federal Regulations, and such additional standards that may be imposed by ordinance, and each of the following requirements:

A. The grantee shall maintain a local, toll-free or collect call telephone access line ("access line") which will be available to its subscribers twenty-four (24) hours a day, seven days a week;

B. Trained, knowledgeable and qualified customer service representatives will be available to respond to customer telephone inquiries during normal business hours. Which shall be a minimum of forty-nine (49) hours weekly, from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, and at least four additional hours one evening per week or on Saturdays (or such other times as are approved in writing by the City Manager);

C. During nonbusiness hours, the access line may be answered by a service or an automated response system, including an answering machine. Inquiries received during such hours must be responded to by a trained company representative during the next business day;

D. A business and service office located within the city shall be open Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and adequately staffed to accept subscriber payments and respond to service requests and complaints. Additionally, grantee will staff the business and service office at least four additional hours one evening per week or on Saturdays, other locations and hours are permissible as are appeared in writing by the City Manager;

E. Telephone answer time by grantee's customer service representatives, including waiting time, shall not exceed thirty (30) seconds after a connection is made, and a busy signal shall not be obtained more than three percent of the time. If the call needs to be transferred, transfer time shall not exceed thirty (30) seconds. These standards shall be met no less than ninety (90) percent of the time under normal operating conditions, measured on a quarterly basis. Grantee shall have equipment and perform surveys to measure compliance with these telephone answering standards. The results of the surveys shall be submitted to the city quarterly;

F. Grantee shall provide and maintain an emergency system maintenance and repair staff, capable of responding to and repairing major system malfunctions on a twenty-four (24) hour basis;

G. Grantee shall render efficient service, make repairs promptly, and interrupt service only for good cause and for the shortest time possible. Scheduled interruptions insofar as possible, shall be preceded by notice and shall occur during periods of minimum use of the system, preferably between midnight and 6:00 a.m.;

H. Under normal operating conditions, grantee shall respond to subscriber requests for service within the following time frames no less than ninety-five (95) percent of the time measured on a quarterly basis:

1. System Outages. Within two hours, including weekend days, of receiving subscriber calls which, by number of calls, identify a cable system outage of sound or picture of one or more channels, or a loss of any other cable service, affecting five percent or more of the subscribers of the cable system,

2. Service Interruptions. Within twenty-four (24) hours, excluding Sundays and holidays, after the interruption becomes known,

3. Inferior Reception Quality. Within forty-eight (48) hours after receiving a request for service identifying a problem concerning picture or sound quality;

I. Grantee shall be deemed to have responded to a request for service under the provisions of this section when a technician arrives at the service location, if necessary, or otherwise begins work on the problem. In the case of a subscriber not being home when the technician arrives, response shall be deemed to have taken place if the technician leaves written notification of arrival;

J. The appointment window alternatives for installations, service calls, and other installation activities offered to a subscriber will be either a specific time or, at a maximum, a four-hour time block during normal business hours. A grantee may schedule service calls and other installation activities outside of normal business hours or outside the parameters of response time outlined in subsection C of this section for the express convenience of the subscriber:

1. A grantee shall, in accordance with Section 1722(b) of the California Civil Code, inform subscribers of their right to service connection or repair within a four-hour period, if the presence of the subscriber is required, by offering the four-hour period at the time the subscriber calls for service connection or repair. Grantee also agrees to notify all subscribers by mail of their rights under Section 1722(b) at least annually during each year of the franchise,

2. If the service connection or repair is not commenced within the specified four-hour period, except for delays caused by unforeseen or unavoidable occurrences beyond the control of a grantee, the subscriber may bring an action in small claims court against the grantee for lost wages, expenses actually incurred, or other actual damages, not exceeding a total of five hundred dollars ($500.00) in accordance to state law;

K. Standard installations will be performed within seven business days after an order has been placed. Standard installations are those that are located up to one hundred fifty (150) feet from the existing distribution system.

1. If the grantee cannot perform the standard installation within seven business days of request by a subscriber, the subscriber may request and is entitled to receive a ten dollar ($10.00) credit. If the grantee fails to provide the ten dollar ($10.00) credit and the request was made by the subscriber within forty-five (45) days of the installation request, the city may direct the grantee to issue the credit.

2. In the event that any services to any subscriber are interrupted for forty-eight (48) or more hours in any seven-day period, except for acts of God or other circumstances beyond grantee's control and outside the system, and except in circumstances for which the prior approval of the interruption is obtained from the City Manager, grantee shall provide a twenty (20) percent rebate of the monthly fees to affected subscribers;

L. Grantee shall have equipment and perform surveys to measure compliance with the telephone answering standards set forth in this section. The results of the surveys shall be submitted to the city quarterly. After one year of submitting telephone-answering surveys to the city, grantee may request that it be relieved of the requirement of submitting such surveys. The City Manager, or his or her designee, may relieve grantee of the survey requirement if he/she finds, based on the surveys and the level of customer complaints, that grantee is in full compliance with telephone answering standards.

(Ord. 140 § 1 (part), 2000)

All personnel, agents and representatives of grantee who have contact with subscribers and/or the public, including subcontractors, shall wear photo identification badges. Grantee shall provide a list of current employees, contractors and subcontractors to the city upon request.

(Ord. 140 § 1 (part), 2000)

Grantee shall provide written information on each of the following areas at the time of installation of service, and at least annually, to all subscribers and at any time upon request by any resident of the city:

A. Products and services offered;

B. Prices and options for programming services and conditions of subscription to programming and other services;

C. Installation and service maintenance policies;

D. Instructions on how to use the cable service;

E. Cable channel positions and identification;

F. Customer service telephone number and office hours;

G. Billing and complaint procedures, including how to resolve subscriber billing disputes;

H. Credit procedures;

I. Employee identifications;

J. Service call response time scheduling;

K. Time allowed to pay outstanding bills;

L. Grounds for termination of service;

M. Steps grantee must take before disconnecting or terminating service, and the steps necessary to have service reconnected after involuntary termination;

N. The subscriber's right to speak with a supervisor and, if none is then available, that a supervisor shall return the subscriber's call within one working day;

O. The appropriate regulatory authority with whom to register a complaint, including any rate complaint, and how to contact such authority;

P. Instructions on the channel compatibility problems that occur when using a set-top channel converter to view scrambled or encrypted programming, including that subscribers may not be able to use special features and functions of their TV receivers and videocassette recorders;

Q. Instructions regarding the availability of remote control equipment from other sources, such as retail outlets, and a list of the models of remote control units currently available from retailers that are compatible with grantee's converters.

(Ord. 140 § 1 (part), 2000)

A. Grantee shall demonstrate compliance with all of the standards contained in (or referenced by) Section 5.52.480 by providing quarterly customer service reports to the city. The reports shall provide the following information:

1. Volume of phone calls received by the customer service department;

2. Percentage of time trunk lines were busy, and the abandonment rate;

3. Average time to complete out-of-service calls, and all other service calls;

4. Average time to complete new installations;

5. Detailed customer complaint and outage reports.

B. Grantee shall maintain a written log or an equivalent stored in computer memory and capable of access and reproduction, for three years indicating the time and date of all service interruptions, requests for cable service or repairs, and responses to request for cable service or repairs.

(Ord. 140 § 1 (part), 2000)

A. Grantee's complaint handling procedures shall be designed to accomplish the following:

1. Receive and acknowledge any complaint made in person or by telephone within fifteen (15) minutes, regardless of the time the complaint is made;

2. Acknowledge any complaint received by mail within three business day of the date such complaint is received;

3. Complaints not resolved within twenty-four (24) hours of receipt shall be listed in a log of "Delayed Action on Complaints" which shall give the detailed reasons for nonresolution within the twenty-four (24) hour period;

4. Provide the complainant access to the grantee's senior management personnel on a basis convenient to the complainant in the event resolution is not immediately obtained by grantee's personnel normally assigned to handling complaints;

5. Provide complete information to the complainant regarding his or her ability to take his or her complaint to the grantor's representative if it is not resolved by the grantee;

6. Grantee shall include notices of proposed rate adjustments in its regular billings at least one month prior to the public hearing on the rate request.

B. Grantee shall establish procedures receiving, acting upon and resolving subscriber complaints to the reasonable satisfaction of the City Manager. The grantee shall furnish a notice of such procedures to each subscriber at the time of initial subscription to the system.

C. Grantee shall maintain a written record, or "log," listing date and time of customer complaints, identifying the subscriber and describing the nature of the complaints and when and what action was taken by the grantee in response thereto; such record shall be kept at grantee's local office, reflecting the operations to date for a period of at least three years, and shall be available for inspection during regular business hours without further notice or demand by the City Manager.

D. As subscribers are connected or reconnected to the cable system, the grantee shall, by appropriate means such as a card or brochure, furnish information concerning the procedures for making inquiries or complaints, including the name, address and local telephone number of grantee's employee or agent to whom such inquiries or complaints are to be addressed and furnish information concerning the city office responsible for administration of the franchise with the address and telephone number of the office.

E. Grantee shall provide written notice to each subscriber at intervals not to exceed one year of the procedure for reporting and resolving subscriber complaints, including the subscriber's right to complain in writing to the city of grantee's failure to resolve a service complaint which is preventable and reasonably with grantee's control. The proper address of the city and grantee to which complaints may be directed shall be included in said notice.

F. In the event that a customer complaint is not resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the customer or the grantee, either the customer or the grantee may request that the matter be presented to the City Manager for a hearing and resolution.

G. In the event that the decision by the City Manager is unsatisfactory to either party, the City Manager may submit the complaint to arbitration under the rules of the American Arbitration Association. In such a case, the decision of the arbitrator shall be final. The losing party shall pay all costs associated with the arbitration process.

(Ord. 140 § 1 (part), 2000)

A. The grantee shall not scramble or otherwise encrypt signals carried on the basic service tier. Requests for waivers of this prohibition must demonstrate either a substantial problem with theft of basic tier service or a strong need to scramble basic signals for other reasons.

B. The grantee shall comply with equipment compatibility rules and commercial availability of navigation equipment rules of the FCC.

C. The grantee shall offer subscribers the option to receive an A/B switch at the time of initial cable service installation and shall provide subscribers with written information as to how to use such a switch. The grantee may charge a reasonable price for said switch. Upon subscriber request, the grantee shall provide an A/B switch after the initial installation of cable service. If the subscriber requests installation of such a switch (to receive broadcast television without cable hookup), the grantee may charge reasonable fees for such installation and equipment.

(Ord. 140 § 1 (part), 2000)

In the event that the system fails to meet any performance standards for a full three-month period, grantee shall reduce all subscribers fees by twenty-five (25) percent until all performance standards are met. The City Manager shall notify the grantee during the first month of the three-month period that the system has failed to meet performance standards.

(Ord. 140 § 1 (part), 2000)