(A) Except in times of a natural or man-made emergency, or an appointment scheduled with the mutual consent of a subscriber, an MCS provider shall respond to the service inquiries, requests, and complaints of subscribers within such MCS provider's normal business or service hours, and within the time schedules detailed in divisions (B) through (G) of this section. Moreover, except in emergency situations, an MCS provider shall inform the customer whether the service call is scheduled for the morning, afternoon, or evening hours. If the service call has to be canceled or rearranged, then the MCS provider shall make every effort to notify the customer as soon as possible, and shall (unless the subscriber decides otherwise) re-schedule the service call for a time within 24 hours of the cancellation. The term service call as used in this section does not refer to initial installation.
(B) In the case of a signal or service interruption, an MCS provider shall respond to and make repairs as are necessary to resume the signal or service to the subscriber within 24 hours from the time the MCS provider first received notification of the signal of service interruption.
(C) In the case of a blank or no-picture situation of any given level of billing or service (except for pay-per-view events), an MCS provider shall respond to and make repairs as are necessary to return the multi-channel service within 24 hours from the time the MCS provider first received notification of the blank or no-picture situation.
(D) In the case of a defective, improperly operating, or non-operating piece of equipment, an MCS provider shall respond to and make repairs as are necessary to correct the problem within 36 hours from the time the MCS provider first received notification of the defective, improperly operating, or non-operating piece of equipment.
(E) In the case of repair to a piece of equipment in a subscriber's residence, or repair to the cable (coaxial, fiber or functional equivalent), the repair should be completed and the situation resolved at the conclusion of the first service visit. If the repair is not completed and resolved within 3 visits, and if as a result of the insufficient repair a situation remains wherein there is a visually or audibly detected degradation of a multi-channel signal, then the MCS provider must immediately and completely either replace all drop cable (coaxial, fiber or its functional equivalent), or isolate and correct the source of signal degradation in order to rectify the situation.
(F) In no case shall a subscriber's service request or inquiry go unresponded or unattended to for more than one work day from the time the MCS provider first received notification of the service inquiry or request. Moreover, except in emergency situations, all requests and inquiries shall be handled or corrected within 36 hours from the time the MCS provider first received notification. If a cancellation of a service call occurs, then the MCS provider shall re-schedule the call in a manner consistent with the guidelines expressed in division (A) of this section.
(G) In case of a dispute concerning the precise time that the MCS provider received notification, or the precise circumstances surrounding the MCS provider receiving the notification, or whether notification was received at all, the Council/franchising authority shall reserve the right and authority to settle such a dispute.
(H) Provided, however, that the MCS provider may rank service calls in order of severity. That is, total outages will take precedence over area outages; area outages take precedence over a single home and multi-channel problems take presidency over a single channel.
(Ord. 4-1994-20, passed 4-12-94) Penalty, see § 112.999