Negotiate a Fair Partnership with Time Warner Cable

October 31, 2005

We, the residents of the greater Binghamton area, strongly advise the Binghamton Mayor and City Council members to either revise or reject the proposed franchise agreement with Time Warner Cable (TWC) because it seriously underserves the public, places unfair financial burdens on the subscriber, and fails to capitalize on the remarkable opportunity this cable contract affords our community.

We are very disappointed that the draft contract currently under consideration does not include any of the following items:

▪ Customer privacy clause and service standards
▪ Requirement that all subscription tiers include all public, educational, and governmental (PEG) programming
▪ Free cable/modem connections to all public, parochial, and private schools
▪ Bandwidth Capacity set-aside for PEG and non-commercial uses
▪ Digital PEG
▪ Free monthly promotion of PEG programming
▪ Video-on-demand PEG and web streaming
▪ Origination Points from BU, BCC, and other local sites
▪ Pubic access production studio (Rod Serling Community Media Center)
▪ Define gross revenues as the revenue generated by cable services only
▪ Non-recapture clause, which would restrict TWC from passing through franchise fee to subscribers
▪ Accountabilitysubmission of audit trail with franchise fee payment
▪ Elimination of the property tax loophole

It is imperative that City officials recognize the publics overwhelming disapproval of the draft contract, and acknowledge that the only entity advocating rapid passage of this contract is TWC.

We, the undersigned, feel that the current draft contract must be either promptly revised to include the above items or tabled until the City allocates sufficient time to investigate and discuss in more detail each item mentioned above. Since there is no legal liability, fee, charge, or termination of service for tabling the contract, we strongly recommend this course of action until the proposed franchise agreement reflects a deep understanding of how a fair partnership with TWC could greatly benefit our community.