The Salt Lake City Council is expected to consider approving a franchise agreement this evening that for the first time eventually could provide residents a choice of competing cable television service providers - either Comcast or Qwest.

Although it says it welcomes competition, Comcast maintains that the agreement the Council is set to consider will put it at a serious disadvantage and allow Qwest to "cherry pick" the best neighborhoods for customers.

"We're really concerned about the agreement because it looks like Qwest may get permission to only serve those areas where it believes there a higher-end revenue opportunities," Comcast spokesman Ray Child said. "On the other hand, we're required to provide service to the entire community and have had to invest a substantial amount of money to do so."

When a city approves a franchise agreement, it gives a company for a fee the right to market its services within municipal boundaries and if necessary use the existing rights of way to service customers.

Qwest intends to offer its cable service through a wholly owned subsidiary, Qwest Broadband Services. And it says its cable offering will include a minimum of 175 channels, including local stations that carry programming such as Utah Jazz basketball games.

The signals will be provided to individual homes using the existing telephone network that includes a mix of fiber optic lines and copper wires, said Qwest's Utah president Jerry Fenn.

As a new entrant into the cable television market, Qwest Broadband is asking the Salt Lake City Council to declare it exempt from any requirement that it provide service throughout the city, arguing such a requirement would be prohibitively expensive for a new provider with few customers.

Fenn, though, said Comcast's criticism that it intends to cherry pick customers is nonsense.

"We want to be able to listen to our customers and let the marketplace tell us where we should go," he said. "Comcast is doing the same thing. It doesn't offer its telephone service throughout the city and no one ever told them they had to build an entire network upfront."

Salt Lake City Councilman Clayton Christensen said he has reservations about Qwest's plans.

"We'll be happy to have them but I am concerned that only some neighborhoods will get the benefits of competition, while some won't. The whole evolving telecommunications market has been a real challenge to deal with as we've tried to determine what is fair for the city, as well as the individual companies."

Qwest isn't ready to announce when it intends to begin marketing its cable television services, Fenn said. "To compete with Comcast, though, we're going to have to offer prices that are competitive."