§ 11-50B-4 — Municipal Authority to Furnish Cable Service; Rules and Regulations

Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, so long as a municipality has by virtue of the provisions of any franchise, jurisdiction, authority, or a right, to approve or disapprove the subscriber rates, fees, or charges of private providers of cable service furnishing cable service to subscribers in the municipality and has not either relinquished the same, or adopted procedures pursuant to which private providers of cable service are permitted to increase or decrease their rates to subscribers upon not less than 30 days notice freely, so long as the rates charged subscribers reflect all direct costs and indirect costs of providing the cable service, neither the municipality nor any municipal instrumentality whose organization the municipality has authorized, may exercise the authority to furnish cable service granted elsewhere in this chapter. Notwithstanding the foregoing, nothing contained herein shall preclude the municipality or the municipality which authorized the organization of the municipal instrumentality furnishing cable service, as the case may be, from prescribing uniform service rules and regulations governing matters such as, but not limited to, safety, the maintenance of records, and other matters within the municipality’s police powers, but all such cable service rules and regulations adopted by the municipality shall govern the provision of cable service by the municipality or municipal instrumentality as well as by private providers equally, and nothing contained herein shall be interpreted as limiting the authority of any municipality to impose and collect franchise fees, to regulate its streets and public ways, or to enforce its powers to provide for the public health, safety, and welfare.

Legislative History

(Act 2000-614, p. 1235, §4.)