34-15.1. Customer Protection Requirements.A Grantee shall meet or exceed requirements for customer protection established by the City of Monterey, whether adopted before or after its franchise was issued. The standards initially applicable are appended to this Ordinance as Article 2. The City Manager may from time to time propose amendments to the rules as necessary to ensure that high-quality customer service is provided by each Grantee. The City Manager shall provide a copy of amendments to the standards to every person holding such a Franchise and to every person which has a pending application for a cable Franchise at the time the draft standards are developed. The City Manager shall provide each such person the opportunity to submit written comments on the amendments to the standards. After reviewing the comments, the City Manager shall submit the standards to the City Council for approval.

34-15.2. Enforcement in Franchise Agreement.In the case of any Franchise issued after the effective date of this Ordinance, the franchise agreement shall provide for enforcement of specified customer service standards of a Grantee, which standards must meet or exceed the standards established by the City under Section 34-15.1.

34-15.3. Uniform Standards.The standards developed under Section 34-15.1 shall require a uniform level of service to all subscribers within the City at a reasonable cost. The standards may recognize the fact that different standards may apply to smaller systems or systems serving areas of low density which may not be required to meet standards reasonably applied to larger systems, because such smaller systems and systems serving areas of low density may not be able to satisfy certain obligations without substantially increasing costs to subscribers. Moreover, the standards may recognize that a cable system serving fewer subscribers may have fewer calls or demands for service from subscribers, which difference may justify certain differences in standards.

34-15.4. Failure to Meet Standards.Any Grantee which fails to satisfy the standards adopted by the City under Section 34-15.1 shall be given notice that it may be found to have failed to provide adequate service within the meaning of 47 U.S.C. § 546(c)(1)(A) or (B), as appropriate.

34-15.5. Right of Privacy.A Grantee shall maintain the right of privacy of any subscriber, programmer, or any other person resulting from any device or signal associated with the cable system. A Grantee shall not place in the building, structure, or any facility of any subscriber any equipment capable of two-way communications without the written consent of the subscriber, revocable at the discretion of the subscriber, and shall not use the two-way communications capability of the cable system for unauthorized or illegal subscriber surveillance of any kind. For purposes of this subsection, tenants who occupy premises shall be deemed to be subscribers, regardless of who actually pays for the service. Written consent, as required herein, shall not be required of any subscriber by a Grantee as a condition of receiving cable services.

34-15.6. City’s Rights Not Limited.Nothing in this section shall be read to limit the City’s right to adopt other consumer protection laws.