 swhx7Premium
join:2006-07-23
Elbonia | reply to baineschile
Re: Its back off the shelf Agreed. The problem is, there's nothing constraining them to be reasonable.
Is there competition in the cable business in any market in the USA today? And for internet, most cities have at best a cable monopoly and a telco monopoly.
Without competition, they will probably keep the tiers and caps so low that substantial fractions of the userbase will be paying overages or having to restrain internet activity. The solution is public ownership of the "last mile" and a larger number of companies competing to provide service to each household or business. |
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Reviews:
 ·VOIPo
| said by swhx7:Is there competition in the cable business in any market in the USA today? And for internet, most cities have at best a cable monopoly and a telco monopoly. Yes, there is. Here in Columbus, Ameritech built a cable system using their right-of-way back in the '90s, called Americast. It is completely separate from the Time Warner and Insight plants and they overlap with both in the metro. Once Ameritech (now ATT) decided they weren't a cable operator, they sold it to another company »www.wowway.com We are one of the lucky markets with another choice. |
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patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
kudos:1 | said by hamburglar_:said by swhx7:Is there competition in the cable business in any market in the USA today? And for internet, most cities have at best a cable monopoly and a telco monopoly. Yes, there is. Here in Columbus, Ameritech built a cable system using their right-of-way back in the '90s, called Americast. It is completely separate from the Time Warner and Insight plants and they overlap with both in the metro. Once Ameritech (now ATT) decided they weren't a cable operator, they sold it to another company » www.wowway.com We are one of the lucky markets with another choice. In Connecticut, Americast was just outright abandoned, I wish RCN bought the plant back in the day, but I guess SBC couldn't allow a competitor to their internet and phone services. |
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Reviews:
 ·WOW Internet and..
| Americast was sold off when Ameritech merged with SBC. SBC is the one that didn't want in the cable business. But what do you know. They're back at it again.
WOW should expand their areas and actually make use of their network instead of just staying where Ameritech built out. |
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 baineschile2600 ways to livePremium
join:2008-05-10
Sterling Heights, MI | reply to hamburglar_
There may be a "cable" monopoly in many cities, but there isnt a "video provider" monopoly anwhere. The dishes are everywhere in the US, and more and more areas have cable overbuilds (like WOW) and telco TV (FiOS and UVerse) |
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ominae
join:2003-05-11
Columbus, OH | reply to hamburglar_
said by hamburglar_:said by swhx7:Is there competition in the cable business in any market in the USA today? And for internet, most cities have at best a cable monopoly and a telco monopoly. Yes, there is. Here in Columbus, Ameritech built a cable system using their right-of-way back in the '90s, called Americast. It is completely separate from the Time Warner and Insight plants and they overlap with both in the metro. Once Ameritech (now ATT) decided they weren't a cable operator, they sold it to another company » www.wowway.com We are one of the lucky markets with another choice. It's still not a competitive heaven, though. I have lived in 2 different areas of Columbus (currently live southeast of 161 & Karl Rd. in the Forest Park area) served by Insight and wasn't able to get Americast (or WOW) to service me in either location, only Insight or AT&T. Still stuck with the duopoly.
My dad's house in Gahanna has service from both TWC and WOW, but is considered too far away for AT&T DSL. It's nice to have another option as TWC gave him a better deal since they knew WOW also serviced the area, but it just goes to show that when the consumer has options (competition) it usually leads to better service at a better price. I can guarantee you that there would be zero talk of metered billing or caps if people could take their business elsewhere. |
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 KrKHeavy Artillery For The Little GuyPremium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
 ·AT&T DSL Service
| reply to swhx7
said by swhx7:Agreed. The problem is, there's nothing constraining them to be reasonable. Is there competition in the cable business in any market in the USA today? For TV services, yes. For Internet services, not much. There's few broadband providers and then tend to price fairly comparatively.
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"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
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