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ATLANTA - BellSouth has won a 15-year cable television franchise for DeKalb County, one of the more populous communities of the metropolitan Atlanta area, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reporting.
The franchise, which sets the stage for a battle with two other cable TV operators, was approved unanimously by the DeKalb County commission.
The BellSouth franchise would cover an area with a population of 500,000. Two rivals, MediaOne and Scripps-Howard, were still negotiating renewals of their franchises with the county, the newspaper said.
The county commission's vote requires BellSouth to provide cable to 13,000 homes in the county, including an area where the regional telephone holding company has already laid cable lines for interactive service tests in nearby Chamblee, Georgia.
The Journal-Constitution said the service package would include a combination of cable TV channels plus more advanced offerings such as Internet access and video on demand.
The basic package would cost $23.95 a month. Additional channels, Internet access and the video-on-demand options would be available at $39.95 a month. Each use of the video service also would cost $3.95.
The newspaper quoted a BellSouth official as saying service could begin as early as this weekend.
BellSouth already has cable TV franchises in five other metro-Atlanta communities and has applied for approval in five more. It also has received the go-ahead for populous suburbs of in Alabama, Florida, South Carolina and Tennessee.
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