Thousand Oaks Awards Cable Franchise to Phone Company

Unleashing a cable TV war, the City Council on Tuesday awarded a franchise to GTE, a telephone company hoping to bring competition and better technology to cable television.

With Tuesday’s unanimous vote, Thousand Oaks could become one of the first cities in the nation to take advantage of new telecommunications legislation allowing telephone companies to enter the lucrative market and compete with existing cable providers.

Council members hope the competition will mean cheaper rates and a wider selection for their residents.

“It really does put Thousand Oaks on the cutting edge of this kind of technology, and we really are fortunate for that,” Mayor Andy Fox said.

“I think citizens welcome a choice,” added Councilwoman Elois Zeanah.

The franchise will also mean construction throughout the city as GTE Media Ventures Inc. lays its network of fiber-optic and coaxial cable in the next 18 months. GTE officials say they will move quickly to complete the work.

The new GTE venture--which will offer 78 channels by summer and interactive television by next year--boasts that it will eventually surpass the city’s current cable services in sound and image quality.

“We’ll start out with regular analog cable, but from there, we will offer digital services, which will give us interactivity,” said GTE spokesman Mike Raydo. “We have not decided what type of services we will offer, but we’re considering interactive banking and shopping, digital music and other services.”

Thousand Oaks is one of two cities in the nation--the other being Tampa, Fla.--that GTE has chosen to launch its $250-million foray into cable television. The company is also trying to obtain cable franchises in Oxnard, Camarillo, Santa Paula, Port Hueneme and Ventura County, and will eventually offer about 300 digital-quality channels, Raydo said.

“We haven’t determined the price yet, but one thing I will say is that we will offer competitive prices and higher quality services,” Raydo said. “I think people will pay for that higher quality.”

But Dan Deutsch, president of the city’s largest current cable provider, Ventura County Cablevision, disputes whether GTE will be able to out-muscle his company with its fiber-optic cable technology.

“Most definitely, the competition is going to be there, and it’s going to be good for the consumer,” Deutsch said. “I think it will come down to service and price, and we welcome that.”

Deutsch said Ventura County Cablevision, which serves 32,000 households in Thousand Oaks, already uses fiber-optic cable in many parts of Ventura County, providing 60 channels, a digital music station with compact-disc quality sound and pay-per-view programming.

Moreover, the subsidiary of Western Communications, which charges $24.54 per month for basic service, is already test marketing interactive television in about 1,000 homes in Agoura Hills, Calabasas, and Westlake Village.

“The technology they are looking to build is what we have in much of our system now,” Deutsch said. “It’s not in Thousand Oaks yet, but in Calabasas, Agoura Hills, Santa Paula, Fillmore and Moorpark, we already have that technology.”

Thousand Oaks’ other current cable provider is Falcon Cable, which serves about 4,000 households in parts of the city Ventura County Cablevision does not reach. Falcon representatives could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

GTE hopes to provide cable services to about 7 million customers in 66 markets by 2003, Raydo said. Contrary to myth, the company will not be able to use its current phone lines to provide the services, and will have to install fiber-optic coaxial cable throughout Thousand Oaks. That will require substantial construction.

GTE had been planning the move for some time in anticipation of the landmark deregulation of the telecommunications industry that was approved by Congress last week, Raydo said.

The overhaul of the Telecommunications Act of 1934 allows telephone and broadcasting companies to provide cable services in the same markets as their traditional services. It also allows cable providers to offer competing services in the same area.

President Clinton is expected to sign the bill this week.