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Springs company wants to offer cable TV service citywide

COLORADO SPRINGS GAZETTE--March 28, 2007

By WAYNE HEILMAN THE GAZETTE

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

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,” PorchLight Chairman Robert Athey said. “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."

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

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, and it sold the franchise in 2003 to Champion Broadband Inc., a Castle Rock company started by WideOpenWest’s founders.

PorchLight serves about 440 customers in four residential developments in northwest, southwest and northeast Colorado Springs. The company extends fiber-optic lines to 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 current services, but 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 megbit-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 customers.