SALISBURY — City leaders say they do not want to lose any Fibrant customers due to a TV rate increase that will appear on the Aug. 1 bill.
For customers who do not want to pay the increase — between $2 and $12 a month based on the TV package — customer service representatives will help them find a cheaper package, City Manager Doug Paris said.
“Your customer service reps are ready?” Councilman Brian Miller said. “Because I don’t want to lose a single customer.”
Paris assured City Council on Friday during his proposed budget presentation that help is available at 704-638-5300 to answer customers’ questions about their new video package, switch to another package that fits their budget or make any other changes to their account.
Fibrant is introducing new video packages in June to comply with programmers’ requirements, Paris said. Fibrant will offer five video packages instead of six, and customers will be placed into the closest corresponding package.
Not all channels in current packages will remain, as some channels will be moved based on contractual requirements, Paris said.
Packages may have additional channels. Essential, the most popular package, currently has 120 channels. The new corresponding bronze package will have 154 channels.
The cost to provide premium content like HBO and Showtime also has increased. As a result, all premium channels will increase by $2. Customers who lease additional Amino DVRs will pay $2 more, with no charge for the first one.
The rate increase will not affect Fibrant Internet or phone customers. City spokeswoman Elaney Hasselmann said the city will have a campaign and education effort to make sure customers know about the video rate increase.
Starting July 1, Fibrant will upgrade all residential Internet customers to 50 megabits per second up and down, free of charge.
“With this upgrade in Internet service, we will offer the highest base residential internet speed in North Carolina,” Paris said.
The city continues to operate the high-speed broadband utility in challenging market conditions, he said. For the first time, the city expects to end the fiscal year on June 30 with no internal loans to Fibrant. Paris did not include any internal loans to Fibrant in his proposed budget for the coming year.
Fibrant owes the city’s water-sewer reserve fund more than $7 million from previous loans. Last month, Moody’s downgraded the city’s bond rating out of concerns for the debt and risk taken on by Fibrant.
Moody’s said Fibrant has under-performed since its 2010 launch and will have a difficult time meeting subscriber and revenue projections. The bond-rating firm said the city has no plan for paying back principal to the water-sewer reserve fund and fails to include repayment of the loans in the Fibrant budget. So far, the city has been paying back only the 1 percent interest on the internal loans.
City officials disagreed with Moody’s downgrade and pointed out that Standard & Poor’s, a competing firm, upgraded the city’s bond rating twice last year, saying Salisbury’s overall budgetary performance has been strong.
Paris said Fibrant has been working with programmers to comply with continually changing requirements.
“Since we began this utility, we have not recommended a rate increase,” he said.
As the video tiers change, the small rate increase will offset Fibrant’s increased cost of programming.
Fibrant is also now required to pay all local broadcasters to retransmit their programming, Paris said. The current monthly cost to local broadcasters is $2.84.
“We are recommending that we transfer the retransmission fee to our customers, like our competitors,” he said.
Fibrant competes with private providers like AT&T and Time Warner Cable to sell high-speed broadband services to people living in the city limits.
Contact reporter Emily Ford at 704-797-4264.