Frederick County reentering negotiations with Comcast

Frederick County residents in rural areas say they are frustrated that county officials have not intervened more to help them secure internet services with Comcast, especially with the perceived necessity of internet service in this day and age.

Their push for internet comes at a time when the county has started renegotiations on an agreement with Comcast that’s nearly a decade old.

County Executive Jan Gardner said that at the time the franchise agreement was signed — when she was president of the Board of County Commissioners — the county wanted to avoid becoming a cable customer service arm that would directly assist county residents with complaints about cable services. As the county prepares to enter into negotiations with Comcast, Gardner said, she’s not interested in the county taking on that role.

Franchise agreements

The previous board of commissioners signed the franchise agreement with Comcast in 2007 after the broadcast company purchased the now defunct Adelphia.

The agreement provides Comcast access to county rights-of-way for cable installation. In return, the county can broadcast on three cable channels.

Under the agreement, the county could choose to collect fees for residents in the county’s unincorporated areas. But Gardner said the commissioners chose not to, because it would create an expectation that the county would assist in customer service complaints, such as getting service.

Some county municipalities collect franchise fees from Comcast under their own franchise agreements, Gardner said. These franchise fees are levied on Comcast, but rolled back and charged to the subscribers. Should the county charge franchise fees, the agreement doesn’t specify if they would need to be directed to the general fund or a particular purpose.

“Collecting money would mean a greater ownership,” Gardner said.

County residents who live within areas where Comcast has built out its cable lines can get Comcast internet. This is because Frederick County’s franchise agreement mandates that Comcast provide cable service — which allows access to internet, television and phone — to those residents only.

But if potential subscribers in an area with fewer than 25 homes per cable mile from the nearest active cable plant request services, then the costs to add the necessary cable lines are split between Comcast and the prospective customers.

The current franchise agreement doesn’t require Comcast to pay for those cable extensions. And it’s not yet negotiated if Comcast will be required to expand its footprint under a new agreement.

Frederick County’s agreement doesn’t prevent other companies, such as Verizon’s Fios network, from taking root in the county, Gardner said — they just haven’t so far.

Verizon does not plan to expand Fios to Frederick County, spokesman John O’Malley wrote in an email to The Frederick News-Post. The company wants instead to focus on areas with existing franchise agreements with Verizon.

Montgomery County has signed franchise agreements with not only Comcast, but also Verizon and RCN Corporation for cable services.

All three corporations may build on Montgomery County rights-of-way. The county has opened the Office of Cable and Broadband Services, which specifically assists in resolving problems related to cable services. The office employs more than a dozen staff members whose duties vary from oversight of the franchise agreements to investigating and mitigating subscriber complaints, and maintaining channels for use by Montgomery County government and subsidiaries.

The office handles approximately 1,000 complaints a year, which are split evenly among the providers, said Marjorie Williams, the office’s franchise manager.

Montgomery County collects franchise fees which amount to 5 percent of the overall gross revenues from all three providers, Williams said. The county also charges an additional 3 percent of the providers’ overall gross revenue to pay for channels used by the county for local broadcasts. Both of these fees are tacked on to subscribers’ bills.

“We have residents that aren’t thrilled about the fees,” Williams said.

The office expanded about eight years ago, when Verizon began building out in Montgomery County, Williams said.

Typically, when Gardner receives a complaint for service — usually once a month — she forwards it to Josh Bokee, a Frederick city alderman and a director of government affairs for Comcast. Gardner said a complaint might not just be the quality of the service, but a county resident seeking an option other than Comcast, such as Verizon Fios.

Bokee directed questions to Comcast’s public relations department.

Gardner said that even with the impending negotiations — which consultant CBG Communications is helping with — she does not want to launch an office like Montgomery County’s, which would entail hiring additional staff members. The revised agreement, under the new form of charter government, would be routed through the Frederick County Council.

Council President Bud Otis said he had not heard anything about the agreement.

“Generally, our staff has been happy with the arrangement we’ve had in place,” Gardner said. “I would not say every consumer is happy with it. I think we got what we intended to get from the contact.”

County residents

press forward

Linda Schilling has campaigned Comcast and Frederick County elected officials for more than a year to extend cable and internet service to her rural home outside Thurmont. But she was told that her home is three-tenths of a mile outside Comcast’s current range. She can walk less than a minute down her wooded road to where a Comcast line is located. Some of her nearby neighbors take advantage of Comcast.

She and her family use HughesNet satellite service, which imposes a data cap, and is not ideal, Schilling said.

In an interview, Schilling expressed frustration with the franchise agreement. Schilling’s home falls in an area where she, and her neighbors, under the terms of the franchise agreement, would be required to pay for a cable extension. Comcast has quoted her different numbers for the extension, but always thousands of dollars. She said she never received a quote in writing from Comcast.

Schilling is angry about the situation, especially because her two children, who both attend Frederick County Public Schools, are often assigned work that requires a computer and internet connection. The school district is slowly advancing to a “one to one” system, in which students are assigned a personal device, like a laptop or tablet, just for their use for lessons throughout the day.

Schilling said her children could burn through in a single day the amount of data the family is allotted by HughesNet.

“We’re talking about technology. Technology advances all the time,” Schilling said. “Something that worked back in 2007 no longer works in 2016.”

Tami Hardesty, Schilling’s neighbor, said she was surprised when she moved from outside the city of Frederick last year and was only allowed the single option for Comcast. She too signed up for HughesNet, which she said did not meet her expectations.

She finds HughesNet slow, Hardesty said.

“I kind of felt like I was in a corner,” she said. “I didn’t have anything else to go with.”

HughesNet representatives did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication.

Over the years, other areas of the county have made the same plea to Comcast and county government.

In 2008, for example, Gambrill Park residents signed a petition requesting that Comcast offer internet access to the area.

Comcast spokeswoman Jamie Debole emailed a statement in response to a request for comment:

“Nationally, Comcast has built out broadband to over 99.5 percent of the homes we pass, and that number continues to grow. We want to serve as many customers as is geographically and economically feasible, and continuously evaluate opportunities to deliver our innovative technology to new and existing customers. However, there are some low-density areas where it is not economically feasible to build out.”

Internet access

Maryland jurisdictions, both rural and suburban, have prioritized expanding broadband internet access for a while, said Michael Sanderson, executive director of the Maryland Association of Counties.

“I think there’s a move toward, and not just in county governments, seeing reliable internet access,” Sanderson said. “It’s increasingly a fundamental service for a fully functional family and community — for education and emergency and a variety of things like that. This is not a conversation that’s unique to Frederick County.”

A bill from Delegate Mark Fisher, a Calvert County Republican, would have required that all franchise agreements signed across the state include mandated wired broadband service. The bill didn’t make it out of the House of Delegates Economic Matters Committee.

“There’s one thing that we all know: Everything needs a wired broadband connection, whatever that might be,” Fisher said at the committee hearing in February.

In 2014, a contingent of federal lawmakers, including U.S. Sens. Ben Cardin and Bernie Sanders, wrote to the FCC, requesting that the commission reclassify broadband internet as a utility, which it eventually did. This was a measure to ensure “net neutrality,” the principle that service providers should provide open access to the web, without discriminating against certain applications or digital content.

“Broadband is a more advanced technology than phone service, but in the 21st century it performs the same essential function,” the lawmakers wrote. “Consumers and businesses cannot live without this vital connection to each other and to the world around them

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