Cerritos : Cable Franchise on Agenda

A long-awaited plan to build a $7.5-million cable television system goes before the City Council tonight. If the council grants a joint cable franchise to General Telephone Co. of California and Apollo Cablevision, some 16,000 Cerritos homes and 2,032 businesses could receive cable programming by January.

Basic service will cost subscribers $15 a month, plus another $9 or $24 a month for expanded channel service and one movie channel, according to a city analysis of the cable proposal. Those who sign up for the service during the construction phase will be charged a one-time fee of $25 for wiring their home or business to the system. Once the system is in operation, new subscribers will be charged a $45 wiring fee.

Cerritos, one of the last cities in the Southeast area without cable service, has had trouble in recent years attracting cable companies. Most firms were reluctant to apply because the city requires all cable lines to be underground, a far more expensive method than stringing cable from telephone poles. Last October, the council gave GTE and Apollo Cablevision, a tiny subsidiary of a San Luis Obispo-based construction company, T.L. Robak, the go-ahead to draw up a plan for a cable system in Cerritos.