Newport to fight cable access problems

June Casagrande

NEWPORT BEACH -- Despite federal regulations that leave cities

virtually powerless over cable providers, local officials are seizing on

a rare opportunity to convince Adelphia to make good on its word to

provide reliable, high-speed data service.

In the four or five weeks since many of the city’s Comcast subscribers

saw their Internet access switch over to Adelphia service, complaints to

the city have increased nearly tenfold. Topping the list: slow downloads

and unreliable connections.

“The biggest concern for me is speed,” subscriber Kent Stoddard said.

“They advertised 512 kilobytes per second downloading speed. I ran three

different speed tests; our speed is averaging 150.”

Stoddard said a few weeks ago there were days when he was unable to

connect after 10 to 20 attempts. Connections have improved, he said, but

he hopes they will get even better.

Adelphia and Cox Communications are the two companies that provide

cable service to Newport Beach residents. When Adelphia’s Internet

service partner, Xcite@home, ceased operations more than a month ago, the

cable company began switching its subscribers to Adelphia’s own Internet

service. But at least 30 have been unhappy enough with the service to

turn to City Hall for help.

Some, such as Marian Bergeson, say their problems have come to an end.

“The transition was difficult, but everything seems to be working well

enough now,” said Bergeson, the former state and local political office

holder.

Her connection problem, she learned through tech support staff, had

been a combination of software conflicts and configuration issues.

Others haven’t been so lucky, but their timing is. The city is in the

middle of the process of updating its contracts with its two cable

service providers -- Cox Communications and Adelphia. The

Telecommunications Act of 1996, which opens cable markets up for

competition, leaves cities practically powerless to cancel contracts with

providers. But, through a city contract that allows cable companies to

lay their cable lines underground on municipal property, local officials

may have some leverage. For the first time in nearly 15 years, the

contract that governs service providers is up for renewal.

“This creates a once-in-15-year opportunity to put the community’s

needs directly to the providers,” Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff said.

The city plans to hire a company to survey residents and local

organizations about what they want from a cable provider. The results, he

said, will be presented to the companies along with the new contract.

Such contracts are usually good for 10 to 15 years, governing not just

current providers but any that may enter the local market in the future.

It awards the city 5% of the cable companies’ revenues in return for the

privilege of having cables on city land.

“This creates this opportunity to provide a little bit of public

pressure on the cable companies where we don’t have legal pressure,” Kiff

said.

An Adelphia spokeswoman could not be reached late Friday afternoon.

There has been no increase in complaints from Cox subscribers, Kiff said.

* June Casagrande covers Newport Beach. She may be reached at (949)

574-4232 or by e-mail at o7 june.casagrande@latimes.comf7 .