Title
Franchise Agreement with Comcast - Discussion
History
As you are aware, the Comcast Franchise Agreement expired in 2003. The Village staff worked on a model franchise agreement with the Metropolitan Mayors group, Klein Thorpe and Jenkins and other municipalities and attorneys.
Comcast and the Village agree on every article with the exception of the undergrounding of utilities (Section 3.3). However, the current language in section 3.3 of the model franchise agreement does not work in communities that are high growth and who prefer undergrounding utilities.
Comcast maintained that they should not have to underground without compensation. That compensation is not a right for Comcast. The only company who was undergrounding and was reimbursed (because they are defined as a Utility in the State of Illinois) is ComEd. All others (Comcast, AT&T and others) are not afforded those same guarantees.
This all came about when we were embarking on the LaGrange Road project and beginning to plan for the 143rd and 159th widening projects. The Village knew that they might look at asking ComEd to go underground in certain areas. The Village didn’t get any push-back from the other companies at that time, just Comcast. When ComEd removes the poles, it only makes sense that the others to do so as well. There are efficiencies to doing this work altogether and that is exactly what they did on LaGrange Road.
Simply put, the issue is that Comcast wants to be treated as a utility, but they are not. Although, Comcast did pay for the undergrounding on LaGrange Road, Comcast wants to be paid its costs of undergrounding its wires when ComEd is paid to underground its wires. The Village does not owe Comcast any money in that situation. If the Village has to pay for Comcast to go underground, then the Village would have to pay AT&T to go underground too, as AT&T and Comcast are competitors.
The Village has been consistent in its position since 2010, Comcast has ...
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