ELDRED, NY — Town officials last week approved agreements with two companies that plan to provide cable television service to the town over the next 15 years.

Both agreements are non-exclusive, allowing the companies the use of public roads and other rights-of-way, while providing the town with insurance coverage involving their installations and construction.

 Highland will receive a fee of 5% of gross revenues from town subscribers, but gross revenue definitions differ. Both fees are paid to the town annually.

A new provider is current telephone/satellite provider Frontier Communications. A spokeswoman said the company plans to construct “state-of-the-art” cable access currently marketed elsewhere as FIOS. However, total access will initially be geographically limited to customers within 4,000 feet of a “digital subscriber line access multiplexer,” installed by Frontier and capable of providing cable service to subscribers; that means access to a fiber-optic cable, while much of Frontier’s existing cable is an older copper system. She added that there are no current plans to convert the entire system to fiber-optic cable.

Frontier’s agreement defines gross revenues, from which the town’s 5% is drawn, as “all revenue of any kind or nature, less related bad debts, up to a maximum of two percent (2%) annually of cash, credits and property received.”

The existing provider is Time-Warner Cable, now owned by Charter Communication and doing business as Spectrum. Charter has an agreement to do business in New York, based on Charter’s agreement to provide broadband (fiber-optic) service state-wide, within a specified timeframe.

Earlier this year, the NYS Public Service Commission (PSC) found Charter in violation of that agreement and ordered the company to dispose of operations in the state by the end of the calendar year.

Charter spokesman Kevin Eagan said the PSC action was based on a single issue, that of “line extensions.” He said the PSC order has since been extended twice, currently to January 14, 2019. He said Charter has an obligation to its customers and partner and will continue doing business as usual. He said talks with PSC have produced a “productive dialogue,” but should negotiations fail the company “will go to court if the need arises.”

Charter’s agreement, which provides for service to town buildings, was also amended to include service to the town’s new highway garage, attorney for the town Michael Davidoff added.

Eagan said he would investigate Supervisor Jeff Haas’s request that service also be provided at the town’s two principal fire stations, in Yulan and Highland Lake.

The franchise agreements were adopted unanimously.

In other business Councilwoman Kaitlin Haas said the recent meeting of local law enforcement officials with the National Park Service regarding funding for river-related law enforcement work “didn’t accomplish anything.”

 “It was two hours and it led in circles,” Haas said. “Nobody was happy there.”

Separately, Haas reported that the floor for the new highway barn had been poured and that “We’re waiting on [the general contractor] Verticon for the next step.”