| Absolutely nothing These bills are doing absolutely nothing for consumers, and it appears that most states, news outlets and consumers are waking up to this fact far too late.
Go ahead and call me a shill, but I disagree with the premise that there have been absolutely no benefits. There have been benefits been slight to moderate to consumers, but I grant that there is probably not enough benefits to be overjoyed.
Uverse service is slightly cheaper than Cox service in my area and they are offering $200 rebates. That's a modest prices savings, but more than absolutely nothing. [side note: I am still waiting for service after FOUR tech dispatches, engineers need to expand the completely full box down the street].
I have heard anecdotal stories of cable companies locking in consumers with 3-year contracts at much lower rates when u-verse or FIOS comes to town. I am not familiar with those contract terms, they may be dubious, but those price savings are more than absolutely nothing.
there's absolutely nothing in the existing video franchise system in most states that prevented either AT&T and Verizon from entering the TV space.
I recall that Verizon's was delayed for months in Philly due to the local city council. Not sure how much that issue is related to the video franchise system itself or another dispute.
I imagine that its difficult to forecast statewide product rollout costs when you have to negotiate with each individual city council in the state, I imagine that each city would want a better deal from the telco than their neighbor.. |
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Host:
Road Runner
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| Uverse service is slightly cheaper than Cox service in my area and they are offering $200 rebates. Nothing prevented U-Verse from deploying service to your area before reform.I recall that Verizon's was delayed for months in Philly due to the local city council. Verizon themselves admitted in a moment of candor that they were deploying FiOS very quickly before "reform." |
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Reviews:
 ·Verizon FiOS
| reply to hoyleysox
the real problem is that these franchise changes have come nowhere near living up to the PROMISES made by those lobbying for and getting these changes.
maybe there is some improvement in some places due to gutting existing franchise agreements, but I'm pretty sure that's accidental. |
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| reply to Karl Bode
I do agree that telcos are overstating the consumer 'benefits' of franchise reform, but maybe because they have a little impact on recurring costs.
I imagine that the costs imposed by local government tend to be more-up-front fixed costs associated with having a salaried telco rep go council-to-council performing dog & pony shows at city councils, but not so much recurring network programming subscriptions.
Fixed costs are anticipated to be spread out for years so would have be factored in less into the monthly price. Thus little price benefits from franchise reform.
I am no expert so please let me know if my unsubstantiated assumptions are false.
said by Karl Bode:Verizon themselves admitted in a moment of candor that they were deploying FiOS very quickly before "reform." The VZ rep states that they are not holding their breath waiting for _federal_ federal franchise reform, presumably because federal franchise reform is unlikely. He was not talking about state impact. |
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Road Runner
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1 edit | The VZ rep states that they are not holding their breath waiting for _federal_ federal franchise reform, presumably because federal franchise reform is unlikely. Carriers did try to have Ted "Tubes" Stevens pass federal reform, but failed. But they are admitting, in this report, that local franchise approval really wasn't delaying deployment:Obtaining local franchises instead has not limited the pace of Verizon’s video rollout, the company said today during an update presentation on its fiber-to-the-premises efforts. It really is all about using the promise of TV competition to get huge wishlists of perks. Particularly, I think the primary goal was to prevent local towns and cities from forcing them to deploy next-gen broadband services into rural areas. But some states are so dysfunctional and well heeled (like Wisconsin) that they included all kinds of other anti-consumer nonsense....in fact, in Wyoming the state franchise law eliminated laws that protected subscriber’s rights to prompt repairs, refunds for service outages, notice of rate increases or service deletions, and written notice of disconnection. |
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Reviews:
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| reply to hoyleysox
I wouldn't say shill.
I would agree there are benefits to having "updated" transport but...the costs are climbing.
I've ranted before on this, Verizon for example, has increased costs for HDTV services (STB rental increased 25-40%, restructure of channels to packages that cost more, additional fees and inconsistent billing practices/snafus).
Verizon Fios has added more speed (from 5/2 to 10/2, etc) when renewing internet contracts, added more channels (the HDTV channels have tripled), and more variety with music (they did make agreement with DirectTV afterall). But at a much bigger cost.
One need not have to spend over $100/month for communications/media. Instead, I see a consistent climb in fee increases planned every 18-24 months. The customer is the sole absorber of ALL costs.
I bet Verizon isn't even held accountable for th collections of "self-applied" regulatory fees and taxes it collects, but then at the end of each fiscal year, declares a loss to the government (Advertising losses, escalating benefit costs, depreciation...).
And look how in some markets they are tasking the local governments (aka Mass) to not repeal that waiver of Utility Pole Tax and instead threaten with stopping the FIOS rollout.
I think they should have cremated the MaBell beeyatch, rather than make her into mini-mabells... 
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Reviews:
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| reply to hoyleysox
Id call you a shill only because to get the same package I get with TWC id have to pay $50+ per month plus $7+ per box. To spend the same i lose ~40 of my channels and still have to pay the $7 per room per box.
The $200 in rebates are to make up for the "install" they are giving that basically free via rebates, don't forget you have to take ALL THREE SERVICES to get that $200 and its via Visa Gift Card, if you'll get it. Don't forget, you have to keep the service for 60 to 90days to get that rebate and then hope you don't go back to Cable because ATT will cut the lines going to your house and then cable will have to rerun the wires. TWC and others have reported this problem with ATT>
Also I my city has WOW and TWC and U-Verse, prices have NOT gone down with 3 providers. They're actually the same with WOW being a few dollars more for less. ATT is just flat out not an option if you want to save money. Especially with TWC giving Triple Play for $100 which includes RR Standard at 7megs down and 384 up.
ATT's triple play standard pack is 1.5megs for $35.95 (TWC only wants $29 for the 7megs.)
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| I don't have TWC anymore, I live in cox territory now. AT&T was slightly cheaper than cox.
I must have overlooked the all three services part, I just wanted broadband & TV. I would have to re-evaluate my decision knowing that. Its moot now because they couldn't get the Uverse to work, the AT&T techs were each nice enough to hook the Cox service back up after he couldn't get synch. |
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| U-Verse is crap. It depends on the distance and wiring just like DSL and if DSL didn't work or had issues U-Verse will be the same. |
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cwh
join:2006-05-14
San Antonio, TX | reply to Karl Bode
Nothing other than regulatory cost. These regulations very much favored keeping a cable video monopoly in place.
You can say what you want, but it is pretty obvious that u-verse video competition is benefiting consumers here. Cable is working harder to keep customers and offering some pretty good deals to lock in prices. These deals did not exist before u-verse. |
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Host:
Road Runner
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| Nothing other than regulatory cost. These regulations very much favored keeping a cable video monopoly in place. The laws could have been reformed without screwing consumers over. They weren't.You can say what you want, but it is pretty obvious that u-verse video competition is benefiting consumers here. In AT&T's former hometown of San Antonio? Not particularly surprising. How's, say, Gonzales, Texas going? |
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cwh
join:2006-05-14
San Antonio, TX | said by Karl Bode:Nothing other than regulatory cost. These regulations very much favored keeping a cable video monopoly in place.The laws could have been reformed without screwing consumers over. They weren't. I will disagree. I am paying far less for wired telecom services than before u-verse came to town.
You can say what you want, but it is pretty obvious that u-verse video competition is benefiting consumers here.In AT&T's former hometown of San Antonio? Not particularly surprising. How's, say, Gonzales, Texas going?
So it has been a little more than 3 years since u-verse rolled out in San Antonio, a city with a metropolitan population of about 2 Million people. Gonzales on the other hand has a population of less than 20k. Since the roll out started att has been deploying to the population centers. You call this cherry picking, anyone with any common sense calls it a reasonable business decision. You deploy where the people are. Right now ATT is opening markets that have populations of 100k in Texas(Corpus Christi for instance). They will get to Gonzales eventually, just like Gonzales eventually got DSL. |
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