Voters Approve 3rd Cable TV Provider in Springs

COLORADO SPRINGS GAZETTE--April 6, 2007

By WAYNE HEILMAN THE GAZETTE

Colorado Springs voters Tuesday overwhelmingly granted a franchise to a tiny telecommunications company as the city’s third cable television provider.

Porchlight Communications Inc. plans to begin offering television services to its 150 existing Internet access, digital telephone and home-security monitoring customers as soon as it completes a contract with city officials, said Bob Athey, the company’s president.

With all votes counted, Porchlight’s franchise was approved by a more than 3-to-1 margin with 78 percent of voters approving the agreement.

“We’re ecstatic,” said Athey while celebrating the approval with Porchlight employees at Southside Johnny’s restaurant. “It creates a whole new realm of opportunity for the citizens of Colorado Springs — lower prices, more options and gives a choice to consumers.”

Most of Porchlight’s customers are in developments, including the Gold Hill Mesa area near downtown. Porchlight also plans to begin offering service in an area near Flintridge Drive and Academy Boulevard, close to fiber-optic lines the company is leasing.

Porchlight wants to build a fiber-optic line to every customer’s home, which Athey
estimates will cost about $2,500 to hook up each customer.

Those lines would be used to provide television programming, digital telephone service, Internet access and home-security monitoring.

The company needs a franchise to place its lines that deliver cable television in city owned rights of way; Internet access is not regulated. Porchlight is not required to serve the entire city; instead, it will pay a slightly higher fee to the city.

Finding customers may not be a problem for Porchlight — Athey said more than 200 Springs residents have called or sent e-mails to the company in recent months asking when they will be able to get its services. The company can now give them an answer, he said.

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

Voters in November approved a similar agreement by a nearly 3-to-1 margin with Falcon Broadband Inc. Falcon, which serves 6,000 customers outside the city, plans to begin providing service by the end of the month to an area southwest of Academy Boulevard and Austin Bluffs Parkway.

Comcast Corp. and its predecessor companies have been the only cable television providers in Colorado Springs since 1988, although voters approved a franchise in 2000 for WideOpenWest Holdings Inc. The company never provided service and later sold the franchise.

Baja Broadband LLC, a North Carolina company that provides cable service to Fort Carson and seven cities in Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah, recently contacted Colorado Springs officials about a franchise, but company officials haven’t returned telephone calls seeking comment.

Qwest Communications International Inc. sought a franchise from city officials last year, but negotiations broke down in September and a company executive said in March that Qwest will await final approval of new federal rules making it easier for providers to win franchises.

Several local government groups sued the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday to block the rule.

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