A nonexclusive 25-year franchise agreement has been granted between the City of Purvis and Telepak Networks to construct telephone lines and furnish telecommunications services. The Purvis Board of Aldermen approved the agreement at its March 6 meeting.
Purvis Mayor Roger Herrin said the need for the agreement came about by accident.
“I was around town one day and saw that they were digging to put in fiber-optic cable,” he said. “We decided to look at the current agreement and saw that they had not been paying on the franchise fee. They were really apologetic about it and we had no hard feelings, but we just to make sure that everything is going smoothly.”
Herrin said the state minimum of 2 percent franchise fee is included in the agreement.
“It’s not going to mean a lot of money coming in from the franchise fees,” he said. “But every little bit helps.”
Also include in the Telepak payments is the lesser of 5 percent of gross revenues from the sale of a basic video services tier to city subscribers or the lowest percentage payable by al third-party provider of video services to city subscribers.
