(a) As used in this section:

Terms Used In Connecticut General Statutes 16-333e

  • Authority: means the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority and "department" means the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. See Connecticut General Statutes 16-1
  • Community antenna television company: includes every person owning, leasing, maintaining, operating, managing or controlling a community antenna television system, in, under or over any public street or highway, for the purpose of providing community antenna television service for hire and shall include any municipality which owns or operates one or more plants for the manufacture or distribution of electricity pursuant to §. See Connecticut General Statutes 16-1
  • month: means a calendar month, and the word "year" means a calendar year, unless otherwise expressed. See Connecticut General Statutes 1-1
  • Video programming: means programming provided by, or generally considered comparable to programming provided by, a television broadcast station. See Connecticut General Statutes 16-1

(1) “Basic service” means all signals of domestic television broadcast stations provided to any subscriber, except a signal secondarily transmitted by satellite carrier beyond the local service area of such station, regardless of how such signal is ultimately received by the cable system, any public, educational, and governmental programming and any additional video programming signals or service added to the basic tier by the cable operator;

(2) “Cable programming service” means any video programming provided over a cable system, regardless of service tier, including installation or rental of equipment used for the receipt of such video programming, other than (A) video programming carried on the basic service tier as defined in this section, (B) video programming offered on a pay-per-channel or pay-per-program basis, or (C) a combination of multiple channels of pay-per-channel or pay-per-program video programming offered on a multiplexed or time-shifted basis as long as the combined service (i) consists of commonly-identified video programming, and (ii) is not bundled with any regulated tier of service;

(3) “Premium service” means pay-per-channel or pay-per-program services for which a subscriber pays a fee in addition to the fees for basic service and cable programming service; and

(4) “Video programming” means programming provided by, or generally considered comparable to programming provided by, a television broadcast station.

(b) If premium, cable programming or basic service to a subscriber is interrupted for more than twenty-four continuous hours, such subscriber shall receive a credit or refund from the community antenna television company in an amount that represents the proportionate share of such service not received in a billing period, provided such interruption is not caused by the subscriber.

(c) The Public Utilities Regulatory Authority shall adopt regulations, in accordance with the provisions of chapter 54, establishing a viewing time reliability standard for community antenna television companies and requiring such companies to file with the authority information on premium, cable programming and basic service interruptions not caused by subscribers. The authority shall approve a service interruption adjustment clause to be superimposed on the existing rate schedules of such companies. Such a clause shall provide for a credit or refund from a company to its subscribers if the level of service during a month falls below the company’s reliability standard due to interruptions of twenty-four hours or less.