Broadband Bill of Rights > Nice, but......

Nice, but......

said by Unit649:

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Not like they can comply with this without incurring costs, and I don't see them just laying down and accepting less profit either because of it.

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reply to Unit649
And you wouldn't?

reply to pkust
Ok how does any of this institutionalize a monopoly??? So Cable offers Broadband in your area so does Direcway, and even still you have many other options for internet service including dialup, same with Cable TV, you have a choice no matter where you're at you can get direct tv, dish network or your local cable provider. You wanna look at monopolies look at your phone company, your power company and your water company, with all 3 you have no choice and thats life well unless you want to move to a different community that has different providers of such services. I really am amazed by the ignorance in the "my cable company is a monopoly" statement. Lets look at the definition of a monopoly, a monopoly is a company that controls all access to said service and does not allow any other company to come in to provide competing services. Cable does not do this. Now yes cable companies are not required by law and do not share there networks with any other providers. This makes sense it allows said cable company to operate a more stable network without worrying about what another provider is doing to it. So looking at reality Cable is no more a monopoly than any other company or utility you use.

said by DJQuantum:

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Ok how does any of this institutionalize a monopoly???

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reply to Unit649
most dont hire anyone. its all outsourced. yes i said that ugly "O" word.
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You can never be too rich, too thin or have too much Bandwidth

reply to pkust
No cable franchise is exclusive, but in most communities there are not enough potential customers to warrant a second cable provider coming in and building a second infrastucture, two cable companies cannot share lines, as the services they offer would use the same bandwidth. If RCN/Comcast/COX wanted to come into your area, the government could not stop them, but they would have to run new lines, setup a new headend and setup new nodes. Unless you live in a city with at least 30,000-40,000 homes, it's not even worth it to the cable company.

reply to dvd536
My $15/hr Customer Service job was outsourced offshore to a company that I'm told pays their employees $2/hr.

Do you think someone who is making $2/hr is going to know anything other than what's on the script on the terminal in front of him/her?

Frankly, if a company is going to have a monopoly in a community, they should have to hire people from that community. Then you might start seeing quality customer service, until then, well, you get what the company pays for.

reply to retrogame
I live in a City (Hesperia) with a population of about 60,000 and Charter Pipeline is It. But then again Charter is It for the entire Victor Valley area (Victorville, Apple Valley & Hesperia) which has a combined population of about 200,000 people total. And that doesn't even include th surrounding county areas (50,000 to 150,000 there possibly). So It's Charter Pipeline or If You are less than 3 miles from a Verizon CO - DSL. It's either Cable, DSL, Dial-up or Satellite.

Edit: Our City has a Non-Exclusive Franchise agreement with charter too, But No one else will come in to the area at all.
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Charter Pipeline rules in Hesperia, CA, Verizon (ex-GTE) sucks.....
[text was edited by author 2003-07-05 13:59:18]

reply to DJQuantum

said by DJQuantum:

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You wanna look at monopolies look at your phone company

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reply to pkust

said by pkust:

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The main concern I have with regulatory ventures such as this is that it institutionalizes monopoly; these standards do not exist outside of an agreement that gives an exclusive franchise to Charter Communications (a monopoly by any other name is still an abomination in the marketplace). Regulation, even when it nominally is on behalf of the consumer, is still regulation, and, by definition, is a distortion of the marketplace. Defined credits for failure to meet QoS standards, regardless of intention, are arbitrary--and therefore artificial--costs. Artificial costs create additional economic obstacles that work against the consumer in the long run.

To make these standards work, there will have to be enforcement, which creates more legal red tape and more bureaucracy, the cost of which will ultimately be passed to consumers either through taxes (from the government side) or higher fees (from the cable company side) or both. Additionally, who is more likely to be able to successfully exploit a bureaucracy--the cable company or the consumer?

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said by pkust:

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Rather than regulating existing monopolies and oligopolies, we would be better served if government entities would work to remove barriers to competition; there should not be a deal with just one company, but with many. There should be no exclusivity, no franchise, but an open market. That is the capitalist ideal; that is what people should demand of both their governments and their service providers.

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said by pkust:

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As much as the city of Dalton is to be applauded for emphasizing the importance of good customer service, I question whether this approach will achieve the desired results. It is far more likely that a regulatory regime will increase costs to consumers while producing at best marginal improvements in service.

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reply to zoom3148
Most of the towns around here just renewed the franchise agreement with Charter, Comcast, Adelphia, etc... didn't even bid on it. I think the main thing is Charter's cable rates for digital cable and the channel offerings are more competitive than most cable companies and they probably wouldn't see many people move over and stay. Just a quick note, a population of 60,000 means you probably have about 20,000-25,000 possible accounts (houses/apartments). Auburn has 16,000 people but only 5,000 living areas. Each home/apartment can only have one account, so that's the number the cable companies are going to care about.

reply to retrogame

said by retrogame:

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No cable franchise is exclusive, but in most communities there are not enough potential customers to warrant a second cable provider coming in and building a second infrastucture, two cable companies cannot share lines, as the services they offer would use the same bandwidth. If RCN/Comcast/COX wanted to come into your area, the government could not stop them, but they would have to run new lines, setup a new headend and setup new nodes. Unless you live in a city with at least 30,000-40,000 homes, it's not even worth it to the cable company.

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reply to Unit649
Fact is, the providers themselves asked for this.

How can I say that? If the providers had done their job and provided good service in the beginning, then none of this would be neccessary. If you go from, "There is a problem and we are working on it" to "Well sir (even though we know it's our fault), let's check your network settings and reboot your modem 10 times. If that doesn't work, well you are the only one having this problem (that we will admit to) so it must be just you and I'll roll a truck in 2 weeks."

If the cable companies want more regulations, let them continue on their present course and they will find themselves with more rules they will have to follow.

Most cable companies truck roll just about everything. Here at SBC we do a good amount of troubleshooting, but far less is done by most cable providers.

reply to moonpuppy
stop complaining and find an alternative. just because your local officials are working against their constituency, shouldn't prevent you from finding another source of broadband access. if you want video you don't need cable companies. if you want broadband you don't need comcast. you can get it from cable's broadband competitors - your local phone company (isdn,dsl,adsl, etc), starband, direcpc or direcway. just because comcast brings the biggest bang for the buck (read fastest speeds for lowest price whether you subscribe to cable or not). and, exclusive cable franchises are ILLEGAl - the franchise agreement (should someone ever read it) will say the following "this non-exclusive franchise is granted to....).

reply to Outsourced
I'm sorry to hear that you've been outsourced but how long ago was this. All my experience with the company being an x ATT employee and now Comcast is that they are bringing all deparments back to the company and running them locally. AT&T outsourced everything in Washington state where I'm at and about 2 years ago they started bringing it all back due to the Comcast merger. We are doing the last of it here very soon which is hiring over 200 people to do Billing/Collections for Washington here in the state. Here in Washington state everything is local all call centers/departments. I work in Tech support and take great pride in working for such a great company. I have over 12 years of computer experience including Network Administration and Network design and implementation on multiple platforms, topographies, and NOS's. Everyone here in my department goes through extensive and ongoing training on support our products and everyone I work with comes from there own knowledgable backgrounds. Eventually all of Comcast will be this way it will just take time to clean up all the mess that they aqquired with the old AT&T systems.

Nope. Comcast just signed a deal with Convergys for outsourced technical support.

»biz.yahoo.com/bw/030605/55261_1.html

reply to gpancner

said by gpancner:

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stop complaining and find an alternative. just because your local officials are working against their constituency, shouldn't prevent you from finding another source of broadband access. if you want video you don't need cable companies. if you want broadband you don't need comcast. you can get it from cable's broadband competitors - your local phone company (isdn,dsl,adsl, etc), starband, direcpc or direcway.

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reply to pkust
pkust,
I agree with you somewhat. But your argument that cable is a monopoly does not hold water. There are no monopolies in telecom anymore. Cable is the closest thing left, but doesn't really qualify - I'll expand.

I get my T.V. from Dish Network (and before that DirecTV). Both far superior and less costly than Charter. Even the service calls are faster (how that is I don't know).
Just because your local cable co has decided to roll out BB, and no one else has, should they be punished or held to a higher standard? BB is not an inalienable right. Life goes on without it. For that matter Cable T.V. is a luxury. There are still people in this country who cannot get broadcast T.V.