City Finalizes Cable Contract

The City of Cambridge signed a final license with its cable television company last week, meaning that most local residents could be watching HBO and MTV in their homes within a year.

After a year of extensive negotiations, the comprehensive, 230-page agreement with American Cablesystems Co. of Beverly, Mass. permits the franchise to proceed full speed ahead on the construction of a Cambridge cable system.

And University administrators may decide tomorrow whether Harvard dormitories and buildings will be linked up with the city's 123-mile cable system, said Professor Alfred A. Pandiscio, associate director for the University's video services, who has been studying the feasibility of Harvard joining the cable network.

Construction of the cable system has already started in North Cambridge after American Cablesystems was able to obtain a waiver from the state enabling it to begin construction before the signing of a final agreement.

"Construction is planned in the area around Harvard in the late summer and early fall," Pandiscio said.

After households in North Cambridge are hooked up, the rest of the city will be linked to the system from east to west. Initially, Cambridge was connected to the satellite downlinks and antennas in Arlington. A supertrunk is now being extended from Arlington down Mass Ave.

The first 240 residents will turn on cable television in their homes in April, Cambridge's cable commission predicts.

Cambridge, one of the last Massachusetts communities to license a cable system, has been looking forward to the long-awaited arrival of American Cablesystems, which has 300,000 subscribers nationwide and operates in 22 Massachusetts communities.

"The agreement outlines what is one of the most modern cable systems in the state," said Edward C. Casey '76, a Cambridge official overseeing the cable licensing process. "The city is lucky," Casey said yesterday.

Three cable packages will be offered to subscribers under the agreement: Neighborhood Net for $3.95 a month, will provide local programming and live coverage of municipal events; New England Focus for $6.95 a month will add several stations from other cities; Consumer's Choice for $10,95 a month, will offer 52 channels including MTV I and II, USA Network, Movietime and Nickelodeon.

Subscribers to the last two packages will also have the option of purchasing any of 11 other cable channels, such as HBO, Disney, and New England Sports Network (NESN), each of which will cost an additional $9.95 a month.

American Cablesystems will be spending $18 million to lay 123 miles of cable in the city. Nearly 90 miles of cable will be strung on telephone poles, but the rest will be buried underground because some areas, such as Mass. Ave., do not have telephone poles.

Recent developments make it possible to lay the cable by digging a corridor only six inches wide, Casey said. The city will be monitoring the construction carefully, and has required that the cable company provide advance notice of construction to Cambridge residents.

Local Access

The licensing agreement sets aside eight channels for public access, which will enable Cambridge citizens to produce and air their own television programs. American Cablesystems will provide video equipment and studios, and will also provide training to Cantabs interested in using the equipment.

Cambridge officials have said that one channel will be used for education, another as a community bulletin board, and another for community news.

Normally, public access channels are run by the cable companies themselves, but Cambridge officials set up the Cambridge Public Access Corporation (CPAC), a non-profit corporation, separate from both the city and the company, to control public access programming.

The CPAC is funded by the cable company, which must pay three quarters of one percent of its gross revenues to the corporation. Cambridge City Manager Robert W. Healy will soon choose 13 out of 52 applicants to make up the CPAC board.

"We're pretty excited about this," said Casey. "We've waited a long time for it.