Seandhi
Seeing From a New Level
Premium
join:2003-04-19
Humble, TX
| If voters vote yes...
Municipal Utility Districts (MUDs) should be allowed to do whatever they want... as long as the voting public allows them to do so. These major media outlets need to have competition, and that's what the MUDs are providing.
However, if they are only charging 2 dollars less per month than the incumbents, where is the extra money going? Cable operators charge an amount amount to make substantial profits, and even at $2 less per person, there is a substantial profit being made. They should use that profit for further improvements and tax relief... but we're talking government here.
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Kaltes
Premium
join:2002-12-04
Los Angeles, CA
| BASIC cable (the $10/month version) isnt really all that profitable, and it wouldnt be offered at all unless there were laws forcing the cable companies to offer it.
Remember that any municipal venture will have a substantial bond that it must pay back. Once the bond is paid off expect municipal prices to drop EVEN LOWER than the already-low initial prices.
Incumbents are afraid because they know once word gets out about how great municipal broadband is and how effective it is at ensuring lower prices for a better product, these municipal ventures will spring up all over the place, and heck even prime time news stories might be run showing the disparity between cities with muni and without. |
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Karl Bode
News Guy
join:2000-03-02 | And stop covering the Kobe Bryant trial?  |
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Seandhi
Seeing From a New Level
Premium
join:2003-04-19
Humble, TX
| reply to Kaltes
If the government starts pushing prices too low, and if what you say is true about 10/month not being profitable, how will cable companies compete? Once they are pushed out of the market, then we just have another (worse?) monopoly.
On the other hand, I fail to see how the MUD can drop rates too low if tax payers will not be splitting the bill (as is stated in the article). This would just cause the cable company to be a little more fair to their customers.
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Trusted Computing will destroy the information age! Educate yourself at »www.againsttcpa.com |
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Karl Bode
News Guy
join:2000-03-02
Host:
Road Runner
PC gaming GAMES
PC gaming Tech
| Well for one thing, cable providers profit margins are INSANE. They could afford some pretty hefty price cuts before getting shoved out of any market....they could also spin off sports programming a-la-carte and save a bundle.....
Governments can't afford to push their prices too low, they aren't Walmarts..they're serving small communities at the moment. I think I've seen one instance so far where a muni engaged in questionable behavior, in Grant County, Washington:
»Competitive Conundrum
If the time comes when they are abusing their position and posing serious life or death threats to the incumbents on a broader scale, then perhaps examine leashing them somewhat. What's occuring on the state level here is a bunch of well lobbied politicians falsely assuming you can put equal regulatory restrictions on both incumbents and muni-upstarts and receive competitive parity; which simply isn't accurate.
Something these politicians forget is the fundamental fact that these muni's are being formed because communites are NOT being served and are being over-charged, plain and simple....I think that gets forgotten in the legalese.....the customer is always right, or so someone once said. |
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TheGhost
Premium
join:2003-01-03
Lake Forest, IL
clubs:
 ·AT&T U-Verse
 ·Comcast
| reply to Seandhi
$2 less on basic...
The $2 difference is for "basic" cable. I wonder if this is more like the "lifeline" cable which just includes most of the locals, a few shopping channels, and a few extras. The difference is $8 on advanced services.
The real benefit is that it might actually get some of the incumbents to upgrade their systems. I know that my community cable company (TCI/ATT/Comcast) has not done much. I moved in over 4 years ago and was told that digital cable and cable modems were "months" away. I signed up for cable TV and ISDN access, planning to upgrade when they came available. TV service was very poor (picture quality, outages) - worse than the cable adds against satellite, and ISDN was getting expensive. I ended up switching to DirecTV and DSL service.
I recently received a call from Comcast asking if I would like to "switch" to digital cable. They were very "hazy" on the details and it seems like they were trying to hide the true costs. It ended up that they would basically match the cost of the my DTV for the first year, but then prices would go up. They still did not offer cable modem service.
I doubt I will ever go to Comcast if I have a choice, even if I would eventually have to pay a bit more. They ignore communities like mine, yet have the major dollars to go after smaller communities that try and help themselves.
On a side note on lost jobs threat. I would imagine that they would still need people to service the area, especially if they were going to compete, and the new entrant (be it MUNI, whatever) would also need new employees. It seems like the MUNI would even have more LOCAL employees than a major player like Comcast, which centralizes facilities. |
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Seandhi
Seeing From a New Level
Premium
join:2003-04-19
Humble, TX
| I guess I have really been lucky. I have lived in two different cities, and both of them had pretty good cable service. I lived in Lubbock for 2 years, and the cable internet and tv was great. I now live in Houston, and IMHO Time Warner rocks. We have digital cable, and all of the digital channels are dvd quality. (The channels that appear on analog cable are not quite as clear) We also have Video on Demand, which is extra cool. My Road Runner service is also outstanding. I would really be reluctant for the government to come in and try to compete. Less government is good government.
The prices probably need to come down, but I think that Time Warner is offering top notch service.
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Trusted Computing will destroy the information age! Educate yourself at »www.againsttcpa.com |
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