Springs may get 3rd cable option

COLORADO SPRINGS GAZETTE -- JANUARY 17, 2007

Small company will ask council for franchise agreement

By WAYNE HEILMAN THE GAZETTE

A tiny Colorado Springs telecommunications company wants to become the city’s third cable television provider, using new technology to deliver programming.

PorchLight Communications Inc. plans to ask the Colorado Springs City Council on Monday to put a citywide cable franchise agreement on the April 3 ballot. The council must approve the request during its Tuesday meeting to put the agreement before voters in April.

“I absolutely believe there is room for three competitors in Colorado Springs,” said PorchLight Chairman Robert Athey. “With the rapid advance of technology, there will be more and more competitors providing a range of products and services to customers” in the Springs, he said.

Comcast Corp. and its predecessor companies have been the only cable television providers in the Springs since 1988, but voters approved a franchise in November by a nearly 3-to-1 margin for Springs-based Falcon Broadband Inc. Falcon plans to begin providing service in April to an area near North Academy Boulevard and Austin Bluffs Parkway.

Voters also approved a franchise in 2000 for Denver-based WideOpenWest Holdings Inc., but the company never laid any cable or hooked up any customers. It sold the franchise in 2003 to Champion Broadband Inc., a Castle Rock company started by WideOpenWest’s founders.

Federal law requires television providers to get a franchise from local government for cable television because providers install their lines along public rights-of-way. In Colorado Springs, such franchises must go to public vote.

PorchLight serves about 440 customers in four residential developments in northwest, southwest and northeast Colorado Springs. The company extends fiber-optic lines to individual customer homes to provide Internet access, telephone and home security services.

PorchLight already has begun extending its fiber-optic network beyond the four developments to offer Internet, telephone and home-security services. It wants the city franchise so it also can offer television service on the same network, Athey said.

Backed by “several major local developers,” whom Athey declined to name, Athey said the three-year-old company plans to spend $20 million during the next 7 to 10 years to extend its network throughout the city, starting at the four developments and moving inward.

PorchLight charges $127 a month for 200 television channels, 5 megabit-per-second Internet access, unlimited local and long-distance calling and home-security services. The company now buys satellite television service and resells it to its customers.

If PorchLight wins a franchise, it plans to provide television service using the same technology used for Internet access, Athey said. That technology will allow customers to choose their own menu of channels rather than packages of channels, he said.

Denver-based Qwest Communications International Inc., the state’s largest telephone company, also sought a franchise last year to offer television service in the Springs over its existing telephone lines but failed to reach an agreement with city officials.

Rep. David Balmer, R-Centennial, said he will introduce state legislation next week that would allow cable-television providers to seek a statewide franchise from the Public Utilities Commission and override local franchise requirements.

“This bill is all about bringing competition to the cable television sector,” Balmer said. “We saw competition come to the (telephone) sector a decade ago and it is time to bring it to television. Competition in the marketplace always results in lower prices.”

Rep. Larry Liston, R-Colorado Springs and a member of the House Business Affairs and Labor Committee, said he doesn’t like the proposed bill’s chances.

“I know that Comcast has a lot of friends and has hired people to lobby against it,” Liston said. “I’d say its chances are less than 50/50.”

The Federal Communications Commission also ruled in November that local governments have 90 days to decide whether telephone companies can offer television service. The commission’s ruling is expected to be appealed after a formal order is completed.

The city’s Telecommunications Policy Advisory Committee met Tuesday and discussed whether to recommend to council a City Charter amendment that would end the requirement for a public vote. Several committee members said they would oppose such a recommendation.

CONTACT THE WRITER: (719) 636-0234 or wayneh@gazette.com.

Ed Sealover contributed to this report.

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