CenturyLink tells Minneapolis it's meeting requirement to make service available in low-income neighborhoods

Last May, when the Minneapolis (MN) City Council became the first local government in the region to allow CenturyLink to compete with Comcast for cable customers, it left two questions unanswered. First, would CenturyLink offer its services to low-income neighborhoods — or just the wealthier parts of the city? Second, would Minneapolis get sued?

A report to a council committee late in March looks like the first question has been answered. At a recent meeting with CenturyLink, city officials were told that the cable service offered by the company was available in all 13 city wards. On the second question? While the city hasn’t gotten sued yet by Comcast over the agreement with CenturyLink, that doesn’t mean it might not still happen. The terms agreed to by CenturyLink and Minneapolis — while similar to those between the company and St. Paul and many other cities — are in conflict with state law. Minnesota statute requires that any cable franchise granted by a local government or cable commission include a requirement that the entire jurisdiction be served within five years. That was meant to make sure companies don’t cherry pick customers — investing in higher-income areas that might be more likely to purchase expensive adds-ons. But requirements that date to the era when cable companies often had monopolies in a jurisdiction have been determined illegal by Congress and the Federal Communications Commission. Today, local governments are not to impose rules that are a “barrier to entry,” and rules like mandatory build-out timelines put tremendous costs on potential competitors that have no guarantee of gaining enough customers to repay their investment.