States Waking Up To AT&T, Verizon 'Franchise Reform' Con > Just another chapter in the "Book of Duh"

reply to openbox9

Re: Just another chapter in the "Book of Duh"

DirecTV, Dish, OTA, and possibly a cable company. Care to qualify your "no" response?

OTA technically cannot be included in the argument, as its about franchise reform. There are no franchise agreements between OTA stations and the counties/localities they serve.

Nor can Dish/DirecTV, as they dont sign franchise agreements either. This topic is about video providers involved in the franchise process. Cable, and IPTV providers. Stay on track.

A vast majority of people only have access to either NONE, or only ONE provider that would be involved in the franchise process. A minority of people live in an area where there is competition from multiple companies involved in this franchise reform.

Now to answer your off topic question..

No view of the southern sky, as I refuse to chop a hole in the beautiful canopy I've got.

40mi to nearest OTA transmitter, 50+ to the rest. Too far a distance unless I spend big bucks for a tower and a massive aerial, and even that would get me 4 channels, none of which are involved in the video franchise reform debacle.

No cable, it stops 1/2mi away, and thats only cause they just got finished building a school, and had to extend the plant.

No IPtv providers in the area.

Cheers.
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Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say.

openbox9 got served.

reply to aSic
Much better response than "no" regarding franchise requirements for different providers. However, the topic of this thread revolves around lowering cost and pitting competing providers against each other to find the best deal. My point is that since we're discussing video, there are multiple options available to a vast majority of consumers.

reply to morbo
Hardly. Removing one word from my previous post nullifies most of aSic 's response.

reply to aSic

reply to openbox9
I tend to agree with you on this. People do have other choices than the franchise provider their state / county / town approves. Generally most if not all of us can get Dish or DirecTV. In my area, there is competition between Comcast and AT&T. In many areas there is competition between a franchised cable company and an incumbent telco (usually AT&T or Verizon).

It appears cable companies also lobby to impose extra taxes on satellite providers. The lobbying problem isn't just about getting a better deal for a franchise, its also about imposing higher costs on alternatives.

DirecTV has a site, to help customers petition to stop new taxes which are often lobbied by cable and telco franchises at - »www.stopsatellitetax.com/
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"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use."

reply to openbox9
Actually I think deleting your entire post would "almost" nullify it. Just leaving your name there would still make it pretty valid though.

reply to openbox9
Try telling Comcast that they're competing against Dish and DirecTV.

Earlier this year I canceled video services from Comcast in favor of going with DirecTV. When I tried pitting Comcast against DirecTV to get a better deal from Comcast, their response was that DirecTV could offer better prices because they didn't have miles and miles of cable to maintain, rights-of-way to deal with, and pesky counties and municipalities to prevent them from "helping" the consumer (helping themselves to the consumer's wallet is more like it). No price competition. No specials. Nothing other than an "I'm sorry, we don't compete with DirecTV" response.

Perhaps your experience has been different, but right now Comcast doesn't seem to be affected by satellite providers... only something like the availability of FIOS seems to get them to change their tune when it comes to charging customers a premium for average to sub-par service.
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Trusting the Democrats to fix our economy and give us health care is like trusting the fox with keys to the henhouse, a brand new gas stove, and a pantry full of goodies for side dishes. In the end, all will be dead and nothing but lies will be told.

reply to baineschile
How many people live in areas where two cable companies compete against each other for business?

With the deployment of other services like FIOS, I would venture to guess that more people do today than 5 years ago, but I'd still say it's a safe bet that most people don't have access to two or more providers with franchise agreements that cover a specific area.
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Trusting the Democrats to fix our economy and give us health care is like trusting the fox with keys to the henhouse, a brand new gas stove, and a pantry full of goodies for side dishes. In the end, all will be dead and nothing but lies will be told.

reply to aSic
Actually, the competition on the video franchise side has nothing to do with these bills. There is DirecTV, Dish Network, & Your local Cable Company almost everywhere. In many places there is your phone company. The big problem is that the last two are playing the same money game with you. You can get some savings from the satellite provides sometimes. It's really all a mess if you ask me. Too much money is being spent by the consumer.

reply to NOVA_Guy
I've never done business with Comcast so I can't comment on their retention policies, but I will say that with my previous Mediacom experience, they were more than willing to throw around "intro" and "retention" discounts...at least for a while. Eventually, unbundling my services simply became more economical and I ended up with Dish for TV and Mediacom for my HSI. Mediacom did offer me a welcome back offer after I cancelled their TV service, but it wasn't enough to entice me back.

reply to aSic
yea move out in the middle of nowhere and expect to be the first to get service. How long has cable been 1/2 mild away.

You can't prove a negative but if cable has little competition except satellite what keeps them from rasing their price. AT&T may not have lowered prices but they may or may not have slowed price increases. I suspect you would still have slower internet speeds if AT&T had not started Uverse.

Other then reusing the existing cable all the equipment for Uverse is new and how long has U verse been available. How long has cable had to build their network.

This crowd want instant gratification for $10 a month when you get your company up and running drop me an ad. I can only get TWC my choices are to move or put up with it or drop the service.

reply to NOVA_Guy

Re: Just another chapter in the "Book of Duh"

reply to WhatNow
Sat has probably kept CATV prices in check. Cable TV or sat are the only options both here (Denver) and at home (TX Hill Country).

On the U-Verse side you can outrun U-Verse tiers with well-made DOCSIS 1.1. Insight offers 20 Mbps down, 1.5 Mbps up service that does just that.

Conversely, here Comcast has decided to upgrade their infrastructure to DOCSIS 3. It helps that DOCSIS 3 adds effectively two high-end residential tiers to the internet offering, pushing ARPU up a smidge. Competition in this area doesn't quite exist yet; Qwest tops out at 7 Mbps minus overhead for their DSL. Upstream speeds are around 700k.

reply to jjeffeory
I can haz sat-TV over IP?

Seriously though, most places at this point in time CAN'T get more than one terrestrial pay-TV option. By terrestrial I mean non-sat, and by pay-TV I mean not OTA. If you don't have fiber, VDSL or the rare coax overbuilder in your area you simply aren't going to get any choice but the MSO.