Cable Competition

[laketrout]

Whats the deal with competition for providing cable? My comcast bill is ridiculous and the only other option I have is DirecTV (which I can't get since I live in a city with no view). I tried searching for competitors and there are none, is this not America or something???? Is this why comcast can charge ridiculously for their service?:|

 

[stnicralisk]

They get a contract with the city I believe. All of the cable companies are over priced.

 

[LikeLinus]

You live in a city with no view of outerspace?

Biodome!!!

 

[meltdown75]

what do you mean by "city with no view"? surely you can get satellite?

anyhoo, it's the same where i'm from. there is only one cable company. i thought there was competition in the US markets though. guess not?

edit: i should clarify - one cable company per area.

 

[aircooled]

Originally posted by: laketrout
the only other option I have is DirecTV (which I can't get since I live in a city with no view).

Your entire city does not have a view of the southern sky?? I can understand your yard, but not the city...

 

[FoBoT]

satellite

 

[dainthomas]

Originally posted by: aircooled

Originally posted by: laketrout
the only other option I have is DirecTV (which I can't get since I live in a city with no view).

Your entire city does not have a view of the southern sky?? I can understand your yard, but not the city...

Unless he lives here.

 

[PingSpike]

Blame the government. Despite our government creaming its jeans in an effort to introduce competition to the fairly benevolent Ma Bell monoply by forcing its breakup in the 80s and 90s, they recently decided to protect the cable companies local monopolies, even though its pretty much widely accepted that they are screwing everyone.

 

[sohcrates]

cable companies actually own and paid for the infrastructure...i think? so that means that they can charge whatever they want and wont sell their cables to competitors?

i thought that was the difference between them and phone services...cause phone lines aren't owned by individual companies?

 

[Ranger X]

I'm assuming you're talking about television and not broadband. You have only one other option and that's satellite. Cable companies pretty much have a monopoly over where you live and you have 3 options: bend over and pay for the cable bill, pay for satellite, or not get cable TV.

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: sohcrates
cable companies actually own and paid for the infrastructure...i think? so that means that they can charge whatever they want and wont sell their cables to competitors?

i thought that was the difference between them and phone services...cause phone lines aren't owned by individual companies?

Same situation with the telephone companies actually. They were forced to sell their own lines at a cost set by the government. While it made things more confusing for the consumer, it did in fact lower the cost of services.

(except for local phone calls, which used to be typically free and now have a small fee per minute in most places. This is because the traditional ma bell system subsidized local phone calls with the profits from long distance service. Once long distance was broken into its own segment, local exchange carriers were left with the expense of having to maintain all the "last mile" lines with little of the raw profit generation of long distance services, thus they had to start charging rates to compensate)

Regardless, overall services prices came down. A similar system could be done for cable companies, and in fact should be done imo.

 

[laketrout]

Originally posted by: PingSpike
Blame the government. Despite our government creaming its jeans in an effort to introduce competition to the fairly benevolent Ma Bell monoply by forcing its breakup in the 80s and 90s, they recently decided to protect the cable companies local monopolies, even though its pretty much widely accepted that they are screwing everyone.

What do you mean the government is protecting the company monopoly? Seems extremely un-American to have no competition.

btw - I live in an apartment where the view of the DirecTV is pretty much blocked by another apartment building. In addition, I have to jump through hoops ot get something installed on the apartment.

 

[darkamulets]

I guess laying their own networks pays off one way or another. I wonder if the FCC will be doing anything about that?

 

[duragezic]

Yeah. Talk about broadband cable monopoly. It costs us $52.95/mo to get crappy 3mbps/384kbps service. That's with NO cable TV whatsoever. We were getting screwed so badly we decided to add basic cable (about 25 channels) for $8 more per month. Having a full range of channels plus that broadband is $80-100 per month. Now I'm back at home and my parents pay at least $30 for just the broadband part, tho it's really slow, like 384kbps/128kbps... barely even broadband!

 

[laketrout]

I pay over $120 for comcast cable. And it barely works. I just can't believe I don't have an alternative. I would hope the FCC or government or something aren't holding back competition like suggested above... what would that benefit?

 

[BurnItDwn]

I have 2 cable companies competing here.
WoW internet and cable (www.wowway.com is their url) & Comcast

I have WoW and am very happy with what I get.

 

[laketrout]

Why you happy? Is it cheaper than comcast or something. Did you quit comcast? Did they hassle you at all to keep your service?