County Fines Comcast For Not Picking Up The Phone > Wow.

Wow.

I appreciate the posting. This is not exactly a hobby for some people.

And this whole saga goes to show that the "local franchises are necessary to ensure good customer service" argument just doesn't hold true.

I think it shows just the opposite. If the hands of the LFA weren't tied, they could impose meaningful consequences on meaningful metrics. But this is the only remedy the law allows (which isn't very effective).

Certainly competition is a better remedy - one which Montgomery County MD residents are begining to enjoy as Verizon continues deploying fiber.

Did you notice the number of complaints received by the county about Verizon?

I didn't help them wire it per se, but I did stalk follow the trucks around my 'hood with a camera, cheering, and shouting encouraging words, and begging for expediency.

Even though there are probably only 100 TV subscribers here, FiOS 'net has been available in some parts of the county for a few years - plenty of time to generate complaints (if there were any to be generated). But without exception, every single person I know who has FiOS speaks very highly of it.

reply to JTRockville

My point regarding Verizon's (lack of) complaints is: competition works better than regulation.

But I'm not sure how you've concluded that failed regulation based on meaningless metrics is iron-clad proof that all regulation is pointless. It seems to me that regulation is essential under monopolistic conditions, which is what we had in Montgomery County MD prior to Verizon's very recent fiber deployment.

So I'm not ready as you are to dismiss the concept of regulation, just because the meaningless metrics currently allowed by the FCC haven't been successful. But I do think towns should consider deploying municipal systems if they don't see any prospect for competition on the very near horizon.

MoCo style regulation is beyond the practical capabilities of 95% of the LFAs out there. Thus, to say that more regulation would work is not a viable option at least to those 95%. Extensive regulation also disincentivises(sp?) new competitors and so perpetuates the monopolistic conditions.

I don't dismiss regulation entirely, it's just that there is so much bad regulation out there the likelihood of an LFA getting it right is low.

I do think muni or at least a solid bb strategy is preferable to trying to squeeze good service out of most CaTV companies.

btw, thanks again for submitting some solid material.

reply to JTRockville
Compare apples to apples...how many FIOS subs vs Comcast subs.. Bring both those numbers THEN get respect. Instead you bring skewed numbers that only serve your own agenda.
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I'm not really sure what I am doing, but I'm doing it anyway!

Comcast keeps the number of local subscribers as a tightly held secret. So does Verizon.

When filing the FCC 1205/1235/1240's, Comcast estimates subscribers based on system size, and apparently they don't do such a good job of it because the county's CPA had to make adjustments to the last filing.

If you have accurate subscriber counts, please enlighten us.

reply to SD6

Not much of substance there. When the steps are something like enact legislation, form a blue ribbon commission, study the problem, enact legislation, ..., I skim through pretty quickly. Political stuff doesn't interest me much.

Well, I haven't seen a more substantial US bb strategy (or any US strategy). I think it's a good place to start albeit late.

I think the California Task Force has more of a sense of what they are going to do.

Got a link? I haven't heard anything it.

www.calink.ca.gov

Wow! That's thorough! Thank you.