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CountyCourtReEnters20thCentury CountyCourtRe?-enters20thCentury ; Watchmaster note: The Washington County Quorum Court voted 13-0 Thursday night to extend their old 1994 Cox contract for 7 more years. With no public discussion and showing little awareness of Information Age technological and legal requirements for cable providers, the Court chose to extend the same set of outmoded 1994 services into the county until 2011. They apparently have only a provisonal letter of agreement with Cox to mark any substantive changes in the contract. The letter of agreement allows Cox to bypass federal (FCC) provisions for use of the County's rights-of-way and make "donations" instead. (See revised County franchise and letter of agreement at CountyEmergencyFranchise2004, CountySeparateAgreement2004. TelecomWatch had urged the County Court to revoke the Emergency clause and allow more public input and consideration of the City's TTIP Task Force findings. The Task Force is putting together a strategy that would team up county, city, and regional groups in developing a collaborative telecommunications strategy. Unfortunately, the County's "emergency" extension of the old contract will close that window aligning a city/county/regional team. 'Background: Cox Cable "postponed" its decision to switch Fayetteville’s PEG access channels for some of its Washington County subscribers last fall. At the Telecommunications Board's October 16 2003 meeting, Cox representatives outlined the company’s customer support services and indicated that their channel lineup would remain unchanged from the pre-Oct 21 schedule for an unspecified time. Their are no provisions in the extended franchise to prevent similar arbitrary channels switching. (See ChannelSwitch |