The City of Rio Rancho and Cable One entered into a 25 year non-exclusive franchise agreement in 1981. A copy of the franchise agreement is below in PDF format. The agreement is set to expire in January 2007. Cable One has approached the city with a request for a long term extension onto its contract. The City Council of Rio Rancho authorized the City Administrator to enter into negotiations with Cable One for a contract extension back in July of 2002 when Cable One submitted thier first request for an extension. At that time The City Council indicated that they would like to see a 4-5 extension on the contract rather than a long term extension due to the rapidly changing technology. The City Council also directed the City Administrator to ensure that performance audits are included in any negotiations prior to a further extension. Cable One withdrew that request for an extension.

City of Rio Rancho and Cable One franchise agreement (PDF)

The digitial cable Internet service is available at two levels and the price depends on whether the household is a cable subscriber. The cost for the cable Internet service is identified in the following table.

The comparitive cost of service with Comcast which services Albuquerque, Corrales, and Bernallilo is identified in the following table.

The comparison cost per kilobit of transfer speed between Cable One and Comcast for each of their residential Internet services is in the following table.

The 2000 census information shows that two years ago people were using the Internet for life activities. According to the U.S. Census Bureau report, "Home Computers and Internet Use in the United States: August 2000", 51% of the population have home computers and 41.5% have Internet access. These numbers are two years old and are generally regarded to be 10% higher now. So what do people use the Internet for at home? According the same report which is two years old, adults 18 years and over use the Internet in the following manner.

Specific Use	Percent
E-mail	87.7
School research or courses	24.0
Check news, weather, sports	52.5
Make phone calls	6.4
Information search	64.2
Job search	19.8
Job-related tasks	33.7
Shop or pay bills	39.8
Play games, entertainment, fun	4.9
Other	9.4

A comparison of the basic cable TV service between Cable One and Comcast illustrates that Cable One offers fewer channels than Comcast. Of those that are not offered in the basic channel lineup of Cable One, several are offered through their digital service.

The table below compares the cost of Cable One basic and digital service to that of Comcast.

Provider	Basic	Digital*
Cable One	35.25	48.20
Comcast	40.80	55.75