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Naperville, IL city council approves Ameritech's 10th franchise
Naperville, Illinois, February 7, 1996
One of the fastest growing cities in the country has awarded Ameritech permission to offer residents a choice in cable TV.
The Naperville City Council unanimously voted to approve Ameritech's franchise agreement during its regular meeting Tuesday night. The agreement is Ameritech's second cable TV franchise in Illinois and 10th overall in the Midwest.
Located about 30 miles west of Chicago, Naperville is one of the 10 fastest growing cities in the country with populations more than 100,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The city's population, which grew 17.9 percent between 1990 and 1994, now exceeds 105,000.
"Thanks to a lot of hard work by our citizen's advisory committee and the city council, we have an agreement that will bring many benefits to the city of Naperville, our residents and our schools," said Naperville Mayor George Pradel. "Ameritech will give residents more programming options than they have today. We also have ensured that Channel 17 will be able to continue providing local programming and our schools will be able to take advantage of Ameritech's advanced cable system."
Ameritech plans to invest nearly $20 million to build a state-of-the-art, two-way video network for Naperville residents and operate its Naperville-based Regional Design Center, which employs about 100 people. Overall, Ameritech New Media expects to create about 1,000 jobs in the Chicago area alone over the next few years.
"We look forward to giving residents the choice in cable TV that they told us they want," said Donna Garofano, vice president of public affairs for Ameritech New Media, which is Ameritech's cable TV subsidiary. Recent surveys by Ameritech and the City of Naperville showed that four out of five residents want the city to give them an alternative to their current cable company.
"We worked closely with the city council and staff over several months to finalize a franchise agreement that complies with all state and federal laws and creates a framework for fair competition in the city," Garofano said. "The winner will be Naperville residents, who will have more choices, better customer service and competitive pricing."
Construction to start soon
Ameritech plans to begin construction of its video network within the next few weeks and expects to begin offering services to some Naperville residents beginning this summer. Ameritech will distribute door hangers to inform residents a few days before construction actually begins in their neighborhoods.
Ameritech expects to offer consumers an 80 to 90-channel package of video programming and information services, which will be called americast(TM). Being developed by Ameritech's joint venture with The Walt Disney Company, BellSouth, GTE and SBC Communications, "americast will be a comprehensive offering containing the widest variety of entertainment and information options available," Garofano said.
For example, Ameritech plans to include in its basic service programming that is not available today to Naperville residents, such as the Sci-Fi Channel, the Cartoon Network and the Golf Channel. Also in the basic package will be The Disney Channel, which usually is offered as a premium pay channel on most cable systems. Over the next couple years, Ameritech plans to expand americast to include hundreds of channels and add interactive services such as home grocery shopping, banking and games to make consumers' lives easier.
Ameritech's cable services will be provided by Ameritech New Media. Incorporated in April 1995, the Ameritech subsidiary has 10 cable TV agreements. In addition to the Naperville agreement approved last night, Ameritech has agreements with seven communities in suburban Detroit, with the Milwaukee suburb of Greendale; and with Glendale Heights, Ill., a Chicago suburb. The company also has received permission to begin building its two-way video network in Columbus, Ohio in advance of a completed franchise agreement. Ameritech also is involved in cable TV discussions with more than 30 communities across the Midwest.
Note: For more information, refer to the highlights of Ameritech's cable franchise for Naperville, IL
Ameritech, one of the world's largest communications companies, helps more than 13 million customers keep in touch. The company provides a wide array of phone, data and video services in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Illinois. Ameritech is creating dozens of new information, entertainment and interactive services for homes, businesses and governments around the world.
One of the world's leading cellular companies, Ameritech serves almost 1.9 million cellular and 750,000 paging customers, and has cellular interests in China, Norway and Poland. Ameritech owns interests in telephone companies in New Zealand and Hungary and in business directories in Germany and other countries. Nearly 1 million investors hold Ameritech (NYSE: AIT) shares.
