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4 <br />telephone and internet services. CenturyLink represents that it desires to upgrade <br />its existing legacy communications system and to install certain new facilities and <br />equipment in the City and intends to operate a cable communications system in <br />the City. See Staff Report, Exhibits 2 and 3. <br />16. CenturyLink further represents that upon completion of its cable service headend, <br />it will be capable of providing cable communications service to a portion of the <br />City over its existing facilities, but currently has no market penetration in the <br />cable communications service market in the City. See Staff Report, Exhibits 2 <br />and 3. <br />17. The NSCC reviewed CenturyLink’s franchise application, published a notice of <br />intent to franchise and held a public hearing all in compliance with applicable <br />law. See Staff Report, § 1. <br />18. Comcast of Minnesota, Inc. (“Comcast”), currently holds a non-exclusive <br />franchise with the City, and, Comcast, through its predecessors in interest, has <br />continuously held a franchise with the City since 1983. See Staff Report, § 3 <br />19. CenturyLink will be the first facilities based franchised cable operator to compete <br />against the incumbent provider in the City since the initial cable television <br />franchise was granted in 1983. See Staff Report, § 3. <br />20. Section 621(a)(1) of the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition <br />Act of 1992 was amended to provide that “. . .a franchising authority may not <br />unreasonably refuse to award an additional competitive franchise.” In support of <br />its mandate, the Conference Report noted that “[W]ithout the presence of another <br />multichannel video programming distributor, a cable system faces no local <br />44