Wednesday, February 28, 2001
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Wednesday, February 28, 2001 |
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'Upgrade cable or pay $700 a day' County fines AT&T for delays By DAVE HAMRICK
Fayette County has notified AT&T Broadband that it will start fining the company about $700 a day because it hasn't finished an upgrade of local customers' cable service. "They're not doing what they told us they were going to do," said County Manager Chris Cofty. The county will tap into a $25,000 security fund set up as part of its franchise agreement with the firm, Cofty said. AT&T had agreed to complete the upgrade by last November. The communications giant has held up completion of its project to replace its antiquated cable system in Fayette with state-of-the-art fiber optics due to a dispute with the state Department of Transportation over extra fees the DOT wants to charge for use of its right of ways. "They keep telling us they're close to a resolution. They told us it would be resolved by the end of last year or the beginning of this year, and now we're into March and they still haven't resolved it," Cofty said. AT&T spokesman Reg Griffin said Tuesday the company is "a little surprised" by the letter from the county. "We thought we had a good communication going with the county, and felt like theyunderstood the difficulties we were going through" with the DOT, Griffin said. "We feel like we've got those issues behind us now and are ready to get started again and get this thing rolling," he added. Griffin said the company just received the letter this week and is "looking into all of their concerns." Under the franchise agreement, the firm has 30 days to respond, giving it until March 26. "We will respond to the county as appropriate," he added. Cofty said during recent meetings, he pointed out to AT&T representatives that they could activate the higher quality service to anywhere from 35 percent to half of the local customers without using DOT right of way. "They said that would cost them about $100,000, and I said, 'I don't care. You need to provide service to Fayette County.' They said they would get back to us on that," Cofty added. "It's not our fault," Cofty said of the DOT dispute. "They signed an agreement [to improve local cable service] years ago, and they've waited until the 11th hour, and that's why they've had these problems," he said. "They tried to throw 100 crews in here and get this done in three months rather than go about it in a businesslike manner." Cofty said the county is fielding about 15 calls a day from disgruntled customers suffering under the old cable service. And on top of everything, the company recently announced a rate increase. A former vice president of the company is on record at a County Commission meeting, promising Fayette customers would not be charged a rate increase until they were receiving upgraded service, Cofty said. "Guess what happened ... it didn't matter," he said. "That's the way they're doing business. That's the way they're treating us down here," he added. "They need to get their ducks in a row and start giving the citizens what they've promised," he said.
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