Can someone explain to me how cable TV service is not a monopoly? (1 Viewer)

[Adam Lenhardt]

I grew up on Time Warner (which isn't great), but am stuck with Comcast in Boston. Fortunately, I live with two other people (rent this high, I've got to!) so that eases the costs a bit (they don't know about our router, and we don't tell them). I agree that the shitty options and services would shape up immediately if they got some fresh blood in there. We subscribe to basic cable because it's $9 and you get $15 off if you subscribe to both cable and internet, thus saving $6 a month even if we don't use it. But they make the internet slower because we only use basic cable. Basic cable is bad enough in Boston where you have a wealth of local channels at your disposal. I can only imagine how shitty it is in the middle of nowhere. One thing about the unfeasible standard cable costs, you really learn to appreciate PBS...

 

[Scott L]

Just depends where you are. Around here we still have 1 cable company to choose from but the competition is a lil more fierce:

- DirecTV is $42 with more channels than cable
- Verizon FIOS is $45 for 15 Mbps/2 Mbps ($35 for 5/2)

V probably gives you some phone service deal thrown in.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

I have Insight. No complaints here.

 

[ChristopherDAC]

Yah, we deregulated all the natural monopolies, and broke up Ma Bell, and now -- because they are natural monopolies -- they're coming back again from the other direction, but not regulated this time. Deregulation has been a fiasco.
Rolling blackouts in California? A complete blackout in New York? Wildfires across the West? All produts of electric deregulation. [I kid you not, interstate power transfers, resulting in heating and drooping of power lines never meant to be used in that way, have caused a series of major wildfires in the past few summers.]
Bankrupt airlines, exorbitant CATV charges, decaying infrastructure, all are symptoms of the same disease.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Cable television is practiced as a monopoly. Before I quit subsribing years ago, I had seen my provider change constantly due to buyouts and mergers and takeovers. In the process, I went through a lot of providers and there was nothing anyone could do about it. I quit cable altogether just as Adelphia was coming online. I think that's the company that "serves" my area now. Don't know, don't care any longer.

High-def looks great over an antenna, anyway. What with PBS being just about the only channel I watch regularly (and is free and available here in Los Angeles from three channels: KCET, KLCS, and Orange County's KOCE), why pay for it? (Well, I do contribute to PBS, but that's different.)

Add DVD to the mix, and, frankly, there's nothing I really miss on cable. And I do like not being tormented by those outrageously large "station bug" logos on most of the cable networks (which, in some cases, were so large and distracting that I quit watching the channels -- Discovery Channel being one of them).

 

[MarkHastings]

I'm definitely one of the ones that the cable companies LOVE. I can't stand cable, yet I can't live without it. :frowning:

I need my FOX, Comedy Central, HBO, & HD channels, so I get socked with high prices and having to deal with lousy customer service.

On the birght side, when I moved, I had to talk to a Comcast rep. and they were trying to get me to switch over to cable phone and internet service. I LOVED being able to tell them that there was no way I'd ever buy that crap from them. I even told them that I wasn't happy about having to get cable from them, but what can ya do?

Some satisfaction, even if it didn't do a damn thing.

 

[Dave Poehlman]

It's actually against the law according to FCC to restrict someone from putting a dish where they want on their property. Or, it is for homeowners at least.

There was a recent article locally about a wealthy doctor who had to place his dish on a pole in the front yard of his million dollar house in order to receive a certain satellite channel he wanted. The neighbors complained to the city and subdivision but the FCC said he could stick his pole wherever he wanted.

As far as hating cable goes... count me in... $50 a month is ridiculous.. and that's without any "premium" channels. If there was some way to just get Nickelodeon for my kid, I'd be all over it.

 

[Greg_R]

The standard choices:

- DSL
- Cable modem
- Sat (Dish, DirecTV internet service)

DSL is slower but is much cheaper. Satellite internet is quite pricey and has very slow upload speeds.

The new Verizon FiOS service (fiber optic) kicks the #$%@ out of Cable modem and is cheaper to boot. Verizon is also rolling out TV services over the fiber but only in select markets. I'm hoping they will license DirecTV or Dish's feed instead of developing their own hardware (i.e. just stick the satellite LNB inside the optical network terminal).

I've been using FiOS for the past few months and it is great (way faster upload speeds vs cable and similar download speeds when locked at 5Mb/s). If you love the cable company you can call them and wrangle a deal. My buddy got them to drop the cost to $35 a month and increase the download speed on the cable to 10Mbps.

 

[SethH]

The key to that phrase is "on their property" which can be blur when dealing with apartments (as it was in the original post). In most apartments you cannot have a dish in any common area -- this means a shared porch or balcony cannot be used. Unless you have an individual balcony you're pretty much out of luck. Even having it rigged out a window usually doesn't work because it is hanging over property that is shared in most cases.

 

[Carlo_M]

Seth hit it right on the head. In my building, only the front units have balconies, and ironically those face the wrong way for dish users. We have built in windowscreens that we'd have to dislodge and then replace to hang a dish out (and my apartment doesn't face the right direction either). Trust me, if it could be done, it would have been, by at least one of the tenants (60 units total).

And in West Los Angeles, the apartment is the norm, the house [and homeowner] is the exception.

 

[Chris Lockwood]

In most areas, cable TV IS a monopoly, just like the electric company. I don't know why anyone is questioning this fact.

Most true monopolies, like this one, exist only because they are granted by governments.