11-1942. Fees and charges; emergency alert; damage; undergrounding; wireless facilities; definition

A. Except the license fee on gross revenue authorized by section 11-1943 and excise taxes as provided in subsection B of this section, a county may not levy a tax, rent, fee or charge, however denominated, on a video service provider for the use of the highways to provide video service or levy a tax, fee or charge on the privilege of engaging in the business of providing video service in the service area. Taxes, rents, fees and charges include all of the following:

1. Access channel support except for in-kind services, goods or payments as provided in subsection C of this section.

2. Rental, application, construction, permit, inspection, inconvenience and other fees and charges related to a video service provider's use or occupancy of the highways, including the use authorized by subsection D of this section except that a county may impose on a video service provider some or all of the fees and charges described in this paragraph. A video service provider shall offset the fees and charges imposed pursuant to this paragraph against the next license fee payment made pursuant to section 11-1943.

B. Any excise taxes otherwise authorized by local law to be levied on the business of providing video service or in relation to use of the highways to provide video service may be levied on a video service provider if the taxes are levied only on gross revenue and the rate of the taxes is subject to this subsection. This subsection does not authorize the imposition of excise taxes on interstate telecommunications service. The license fee and any excise taxes levied on gross revenue constitute a franchise fee within the meaning of the term in 47 United States Code section 542(g). The total of the rates of the license fee and of any excise taxes on gross revenue levied or assessed by a county for the privilege of providing video service and related use of the highways to provide video service may not exceed a rate of five percent.

C. Subsection A of this section does not prohibit a county from levying fees and charges on a video service provider or its affiliates pursuant to section 9-584 or chapter 13, article 1 of this title without an offset against license fees.

D. A county may not require a video service provider to provide in-kind goods or services, make in-kind payments, assessments or obligations or pay a fee in addition to the monetary license fee levied or assessed as provided in section 11-1943, except for any of the following:

1. A local law may impose and enforce obligations equally and uniformly on all video service providers that are operating within the boundaries of a county and on all holdover cable operators that hold a local license that remains in effect under section 11-1914, subsection A. Under the local law, a county:

(a) May require all video service providers to provide channel capacity for the video service provider to transmit programming over which the video service provider exercises no editorial control except as authorized by 47 United States Code section 531(e). The channel capacity shall be limited to one of the following:

(i) Not more than two channels of public, educational or governmental access programming in the basic service tier of the video service network and not more than two channels of noncommercial governmental programming, at least one of which may be programmed by the federal government, in the digital programming tier of the video service network.

(ii) Not more than two lines of access programming with each line of programming carried on up to two standard definition channels and two switched digital high-definition channels.

(b) Shall specify the programming and the video service provider may require that the channels regularly display an unobtrusive logo or other suitable identifier of the video service provider, if the county requires channel capacity pursuant to subdivision (a) of this paragraph.

(c) May require all video service providers to incur costs and expenses to provide, maintain and operate facilities and equipment of the video service network, including facilities and equipment for signal carriage, processing, reformatting and interconnection for all of the following:

(i) To connect the video service network or cable system, as it may be relocated from time to time, to transmit programming to and from existing locations of public, educational or governmental access facilities and to allow monitoring of access programming at the facilities.

(ii) To transmit public, educational and governmental access channels to subscribers with the same prevailing quality, functionality and identification as other channels.

(d) May require all video service providers and incumbent cable operators to provide at no initial or recurring charge the basic service tier of video service to one outlet and one receiving device at each building occupied by the county if the building is not more than two hundred feet from the nearest technically and commercially feasible point of connection on the video service network.

2. A county may retain nonreceiving equipment that it owns without charge for the equipment's use and at the county's expense, including equipment previously provided by an incumbent cable operator.

E. A local law may not impose any obligation on a video service provider under subsection D of this section that is more burdensome than the least burdensome requirement under any local license with a service area within the boundaries of the county that was in effect on February 1, 2019.

F. None of the annual fair market value of any channel capacity provided pursuant to subsection D, paragraph 1, subdivision (a), the annual costs and expenses incurred pursuant to subsection D, paragraph 1, subdivision (c) and the annual fair market value of basic service and line extension provided pursuant to subsection D, paragraph 1, subdivision (d) may be offset against the license fee levied or assessed under this section.

G. Notwithstanding subsection A of this section, by a nondiscriminatory local law that imposes and enforces the obligations equally and uniformly on all video service providers operating within the boundaries of a county, a county may require that a video service provider bear all of the reasonable costs that are associated with repair and restoration of damage caused to private property or highways by the repair, replacement, installation, construction, maintenance or operation of the video service provider's facilities in the highways and that are imposed on a competitively neutral and nondiscriminatory basis in relation to costs borne by telecommunications corporations under section 9-582, subsection C.

H. On application, a county shall issue to a video service provider or its affiliate a permit to attach allowed Wi-Fi radio equipment to the video service network in the highways within the boundaries of the county. The permit shall allow installation, operation and maintenance of allowed Wi-Fi radio equipment. A county may require that all of the allowed Wi-Fi radio equipment at a single location fit within a fifteen-inch cube and be contained entirely within a ground-mounted pedestal or be connected directly to and mounted at the same height as one of the video service provider's aerial horizontal conductors. This subsection does not do any of the following:

1. Prohibit a county from requiring a video service provider to place underground aerial facilities to which allowed Wi-Fi equipment is attached.

2. Prohibit the imposition of a tax, rent, fee or charge on revenue from services provided through allowed Wi-Fi radio equipment.

3. Affect the authority of a county to manage the highways within its boundaries or to exercise its police powers, including review and approval of an application before issuing a permit.

4. Affect any authority of a political subdivision, including an agricultural improvement district or any other special taxing district, the county or any other person controlling utility poles in the highways to deny, limit, restrict or determine the terms and conditions for the use of or attachment to the utility poles or attachments to other poles of the political subdivision, county or other person by a video service provider.

I. This section does not prohibit a video service provider from agreeing with a county to provide in-kind services or goods or make in-kind payments in the service area that are otherwise prohibited by this section if the agreement with the county is not entered into as a condition of operating in the service area under a uniform video service license issued pursuant to this chapter. The agreement may authorize the video service provider to retain license fees and taxes collected from its subscribers in the amount of any offset to license fees specified in the agreement.

J. For the purposes of this section, " allowed Wi-Fi radio equipment" means radio equipment that uses only unlicensed radio spectrum and that enables wireless communication with a communications network for unlicensed services such as Wi-Fi service.