Cable TV anti-monopoly rule struck down

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: AyashiKaibutsu

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: miketheidiot

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
great i have the choice of cable or antenna here.

Why not a dish?

in the past its never really been feasible since we are overcast 6+ months a year, which used to be a problem iirc. I'm trying to think, and i can't recall having ever known someone with one.

Overcast skies do not interfere with a dish. Only a torrential downpour or else heavy snow can make it cut out, and even then it's only momentary and it will be raining so hard that you'll run to the basement or else watch the lightning spectacle out the window.

IMO you should get a dish. :beer:

When I was living in New Jersey and had satellite, it would cut out any time it rained moderately (not a drizzly but not a scary downpour either)...

This is true, BUT:

1. Satellite is typically cheaper than cable plus you get way more channels.

2. Satellite has more bandwidth than cable, so you typically get better picture quality, especially in HD.

3. IME satellite is more reliable than cable overall. Yes, satellite will go down in very bad weather, but it's only momentary (usually 2 minutes tops), and usually only a few channels will go down (my provider has 5 satellites in orbit; I usually only lose my connection with one of them). If you get a cable outage you're often SOL for days or even weeks.

4. Satellite works *anywhere*. If you're locked into a contract you're never screwed. The only pitfall is huge trees that block your line of sight, but 99% of the time you can get around that no problem.

 

[seemingly random]

dsl became available ~two years ago in my area. Paying for 6mb and getting almost 7.

Had a satellite - big, big waste of money. Browsing was slower than 50kb dialup because of latency. File transfer was good until the connection reset - which was often and almost always over ~30MB. Installer said signal/alignment was the best he'd seen.

No cable available nor any in ~20 year future.

If there's so much competition, the 30% limit shouldn't be a problem.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: miketheidiot

i don't even want (or have) cable so its more of a rhetorical comment to begin with. Losing signal whenever the whether gets bad is a pretty big deal though and would probably be enough to pay more for cable.

the cable signal used to go out just cuz it got sunny in the afternoon. and then time warner or comcast or whoever told us we had to pay for a signal amplifier in order to get watchable tv service. wtf. directv it is.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: MovingTarget

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: MovingTarget

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: spidey07
A fair ruling. With all the competition there is today it's no surprise, this ruling. There are so many choices available to get pay-for-service TV this 30% crap should be struck down.

AT&T uverse, dishTV, directTV, competing cable companies, FIOS - there is so much competition that any rule limiting said competition is pure nonsense.

I completely agree.

To be fair, if you have all those services/choices available in your market, then the competition rule probably wouldn't have affected you. The rest of us would LOVE to have multiple cable companies or FIOS, but we don't. We are stuck with cable co #1, or a sattelite offering, with nothing to speak of even in terms of DSL.

Because most people are getting some sort of competition. The telecoms are actively getting into the video market, Teh telecoms may not be there, but are getting there, as the buildout does not occur overnight. But for most people that cant get DSL, they usually cant get cable either.

Competition, yes, but is that competition meaningful? For a lot of people, that answer is a resounding no. Also, there are many sections of the country that have had cable for years, but still haven't had the local phone boxes/lines upgraded to support DSL. We didn't have that availability until 2006 after being promised for many years by a relentless parade of companies buying our lines out - GTE, Centurytel, AT&T, etc. Cable had been available since the 80s...and the only choice you had was one carrier or sattelite. They were perfectly aware of this and priced accordingly. :beer: for competition!

I completely agree, for about 15% of the population that cant get cable or or dsl it is a problem. However most people are benefiting from competition in the telecom services.

 

[fskimospy]

All I want to know is why I can't opt to pay for the channels that I actually want to watch, and skip out on the rest. While two megacorporations letting you choose between slightly different packages for slightly different money is a little competition, it's still just two different flavors of the same turd.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: eskimospy
All I want to know is why I can't opt to pay for the channels that I actually want to watch, and skip out on the rest. While two megacorporations letting you choose between slightly different packages for slightly different money is a little competition, it's still just two different flavors of the same turd.

Bundles are good and bad. They are good because you can get alot of channels for a fair price, however you wind up getting alot you dont watch. Bundles plus single channel add-ons would be nice.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: eskimospy
All I want to know is why I can't opt to pay for the channels that I actually want to watch, and skip out on the rest. While two megacorporations letting you choose between slightly different packages for slightly different money is a little competition, it's still just two different flavors of the same turd.

Bundles are good and bad. They are good because you can get alot of channels for a fair price, however you wind up getting alot you dont watch. Bundles plus single channel add-ons would be nice.

I can see how for some people this works well, but I watch about 3 channels out of god only knows how many. When I'm watching around 5% of what they are offering me. I wish they would offer something like 10 channels, and you pick the ones you want. Something like that. (note: this will never happen for many reasons) I guess I'll just have to wait to stream everything over the internet someday in the not-too-distant future.

 

[her209]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: eskimospy
All I want to know is why I can't opt to pay for the channels that I actually want to watch, and skip out on the rest. While two megacorporations letting you choose between slightly different packages for slightly different money is a little competition, it's still just two different flavors of the same turd.

Bundles are good and bad. They are good because you can get alot of channels for a fair price, however you wind up getting alot you dont watch. Bundles plus single channel add-ons would be nice.

I can see how for some people this works well, but I watch about 3 channels out of god only knows how many. When I'm watching around 5% of what they are offering me. I wish they would offer something like 10 channels, and you pick the ones you want. Something like that. (note: this will never happen for many reasons) I guess I'll just have to wait to stream everything over the internet someday in the not-too-distant future.

Now you know why they are implementing bandwidth limits.

 

[Patranus]

It doesn't matter if Comcast has 99% market share.

The goal of anti-trust laws are to prohibit agreements or practices that hinder competition between companies. Just because one company might have a "monopoly" in terms of market share, that doesn't mean that the company is breaking anti-trust laws.

 

[Deeko]

I despise comcast, but its absurd to limit them to 30% "just because". The purpose of anti-monopoly laws has nothing to do with the companies dominating the market. Read a history book, kiddies.