| This is true (told from the Adelphia debacle) but you need to look from WHERE a company such as Verizon's customers are coming from... companies like Cablevision are NOT going to just sit there and let marketshare slip away..! However, looking at the pure numbers, its much, much cheaper to take business away from satellite tv providers than it is other cable companies (provided the cable companies aren't shooting themselves in the foot by not innovating and competing, or ahem, cough cough, RAISING prices).
The next turf war really begins at the end of the year 2006, to Q1 2007, to see which, if any cable companies RAISE their rates. Lets not forget its not purely a broadband war, its a war for VIDEO and value-added wired/wireless voice & data as well now. See other threads about the alliance between sprint & cablevision.
Now if I were a TRUE cynic, I'd believe that satellite providers are dirtying the waters a-bit with subtrofuge and piracy of their own networks (aka FTA access and grey market cards/hacking) as a stop-gap measure, if you can't keep customers why let someone else profit from them when you can figure out a way to bring those people back into the fold later-- or make like a weasel (RIAA) and sue them later. Nothing happens in a vacuum without thought, reason or rhyme. |
