Thousand Oaks Paying for Study of Cable Complaints

Growing complaints of fuzzy television reception and lengthy service delays by customers of Falcon Cable TV in a Thousand Oaks neighborhood have prompted city officials to spend $18,000 to determine the source of the tube troubles.

The complaints include television pictures covered with “snow, lines and herringbone patterns,” as well as volume problems, said Lynn Bickle, who has organized her Wildwood Park area neighbors to complain to the city about the problems.

The city is paying for the study because under 1984 federal deregulation of the cable industry, cities must provide evidence that cable firms are technically deficient before they can award franchise rights to other companies, said Carol Williams, a public works employee responsible for monitoring the city’s two cable company franchises.

‘91 Expiration

The current cable franchise agreements with the city expire in 1991, Williams said.

The majority of Falcon’s customers live in the Wildwood Park area, where cable lines are 12 to 20 years old, said Paul Radefeld, Falcon Cable’s general manager. “That is by far the biggest problem,” he said.

Since January, the city has received complaints from more than 60 of the 4,000 Falcon customers in Thousand Oaks, Williams said. “Most of those people have called three and four times,” Williams said.

That contrasts with almost no service complaints in previous years from either Falcon or Ventura County Cablevision, the city’s other franchise holder, Williams said. Together the companies provide service to about 90% of Conejo Valley residents who, because of the area’s geography, cannot receive television broadcasts from Los Angeles, she said.

In the meantime, the City Council has authorized spending $18,000 on a cable consultant to find the source of the reception problems in the Wildwood area. That work, which will include the testing of television signals in homes and from cable trunk lines, will begin later this summer, city officials said.

Radefeld acknowledged that there were problems with cable service earlier this year. But since then, the firm has spent about $150,000 replacing cable lines and making other improvements, he said.

Under the franchise agreement with the city, Falcon must rebuild its Thousand Oaks cable system by June, 1990, Radefeld said. That work will probably begin next year and will meet the deadline, he said.