Section 477A.6. Public, educational, and governmental access channels.

  1.  Not later than one hundred eighty days after a request by a municipality in which a competitive cable service provider or a competitive video service provider is providing cable service or video service, the holder of the certificate of authority for that municipality shall designate a sufficient amount of capacity on the certificate holder’s communications network to allow the provision of a comparable number of public, educational, and governmental channels that the incumbent cable provider in the municipality has activated and provided in the municipality under the terms of a franchise agreement with a municipality prior to July 1, 2007. If no such channels are active, the municipality may request a maximum of three public, educational, and governmental channels for a municipality with a population of at least fifty thousand, and a maximum of two public, educational, and governmental channels for a municipality with a population of less than fifty thousand.

  a.  The public, educational, and governmental content to be provided pursuant to this section and the operation of the public, educational, and governmental channels shall be the responsibility of the municipality receiving the benefit of such capacity. The holder of a certificate of franchise authority shall be responsible only for the transmission of such content, subject to technological restraints.

  b.  The municipality receiving capacity under this section shall ensure that all transmissions, content, or programming to be transmitted by the holder of the certificate of franchise authority are provided or submitted to the competitive cable service provider or competitive video service provider in a manner or form that is capable of being accepted and transmitted by the competitive cable service provider or competitive video service provider, without requirement for additional alteration or change in the content, over the particular network of the competitive cable service provider or competitive video service provider, which is compatible with the technology or protocol utilized by the competitive cable service provider or competitive video service provider to deliver services. At its election the municipality may reasonably request any cable service provider or video service provider to make any necessary change to the form of any programming, furnished for transmission, which shall be charged to the municipality, not to exceed the provider’s incremental costs. The municipality shall have up to twelve months to reimburse the cable service provider or video service provider. The provision of such transmissions, content, or programming to the competitive cable service provider or competitive video service provider shall constitute authorization for such holder to carry such transmissions, content, or programming, at the holder’s option, beyond the jurisdictional boundaries stipulated in any franchise agreement.

  2.  Where technically feasible, a competitive cable service provider or competitive video service provider that is a holder of a certificate of franchise authority and an incumbent cable provider shall use reasonable efforts to interconnect the cable or video communications network systems of the certificate holder and incumbent cable provider for the purpose of providing public, educational, and governmental programming. Interconnection may be accomplished by direct cable, microwave link, satellite, or other reasonable method of connection. A holder of a certificate of franchise authority and an incumbent cable provider shall negotiate in good faith and an incumbent cable provider shall not withhold interconnection of public, educational, or governmental channels.

  3.  A court of competent jurisdiction shall have exclusive jurisdiction to enforce any requirement under this section.

2007 Acts, ch 201, §7, 15