FCC 76.1603 Revised as of October 1, 2006
Goto Year:2005 |
2007
Sec. 76.1603 Customer service—rate and service changes.
(a) A cable franchise authority may enforce the customer service standards
set forth in paragraph (b) of this section against cable operators. The
franchise authority must provide affected cable operators 90 days written
notice of its intent to enforce standards.
(b) Customers will be notified of any changes in rates, programming services
or channel positions as soon as possible in writing. Notice must be given to
subscribers a minimum of thirty (30) days in advance of such changes if the
change is within the control of the cable operator. In addition, the cable
operator shall notify subscribers 30 days in advance of any significant
changes in the other information required by Sec. 76.1602.
(c) In addition to the requirement of paragraph (b) of this section
regarding advance notification to customers of any changes in rates,
programming services or channel positions, cable systems shall give 30 days
written notice to both subscribers and local franchising authorities before
implementing any rate or service change. Such notice shall state the precise
amount of any rate change and briefly explain in readily understandable
fashion the cause of the rate change (e.g., inflation, change in external
costs or the addition/deletion of channels). When the change involves the
addition or deletion of channels, each channel added or deleted must be
separately identified. For purposes of the carriage of digital broadcast
signals, the operator need only identify for subscribers, the television
signal added and not whether that signal may be multiplexed during certain
dayparts.
(d) A cable operator shall provide written notice to a subscriber of any
increase in the price to be charged for the basic service tier or associated
equipment at least 30 days before any proposed increase is effective. The
notice should include the name and address of the local franchising
authority.
(e) To the extent the operator is required to provide notice of service and
rate changes to subscribers, the operator may provide such notice using any
reasonable written means at its sole discretion.
(f) Notwithstanding any other provision of part 76 of this chapter, a cable
operator shall not be required to provide prior notice of any rate change
that is the result of a regulatory fee, franchise fee, or any other fee,
tax, assessment, or charge of any kind imposed by any Federal agency, State,
or franchising authority on the transaction between the operator and the
subscriber.
Note 1 to Sec. 76.1603: Section 624(h) of the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C.
544(h), contains additional notification requirements which a franchising
authority may enforce.
Note 2 to Sec. 76.1603: Section 624(d)(3) of the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C.
544(d)(3), contains additional notification provisions pertaining to cable
operators who offer a premium channel without charge to cable subscribers
who do not subscribe to such premium channel.
Note 3 to Sec. 76.1603: Section 631 of the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C. 551,
contains additional notification requirements pertaining to the protection
of subscriber privacy.
[ 65 FR 53617 , Sept. 5, 2000, as amended at 66 FR 16554 , Mar. 26, 2001]
CiteFind - See documents on FCC website that
cite this rule
Want to support this service?
Thanks!
Report errors in
this rule. Since these rules are converted to HTML by machine, it's possible errors have been made. Please
help us improve these rules by clicking the Report FCC Rule Errors link to report an error.