I think it's time to end the government enforced cable monopolies...

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For almost five years now, the neighborhood a quarter of a mile away from me has been able to enjoy cable internet from our local, and only, provider. Meanwhile, I've had to settle for second rate brodband from DirecWAY (now Hughes Net), and now I get my broadband from a local small business that transmits via radio waves. Neither of these alternatives are even half the speed of the cable internet that others enjoy. I may get 1,600 kbps down, while my cousin with cable gets 10,000 kbps down. I called the cable company since our land butts up against the neighborhood that gets cable and they said it would cost around $8,000 to run cable a quarter of a mile. The government makes it so that no other cable competitors can enter the area, and there is no initiative for the current company to get my business unless I drop a ton of money. It's time to start getting some competition into the cable internet industries. It's time to deregulate the industry. It's time to have more than one cable provider in any given area. It's time to end this government enforced anti-competitive activity. Rates will drop, and more people will be able to enjoy truly high-speed internet.

<< End Rant>>

agreed!

Amen brother! Down with the man and up with competition!

That's like in my town.. On my side of the river, we can get high speed DSL.. 60 feet away, you can't.. It's rediculous.

I had a 16mbps connection in my old appartment, but that company doesn't offer service in the area. I was paying the same price for the 16mbps connnection as I am now for a 5mbps connection.

agreed,,,, 5 houses down, they get cable, and i can't. i have to settle for second rate dsl on OLD phone lines. sometimes its so bad when its wet out, that it is like dial up. I talked to the Rogers(the cable company) and they wouldnt run it to our house!

I wonder if there's some type of grassroots organization that hopes to abolish this problem. Maybe if we get a stronger libertarian voice in the government, then they'll do something about this problem. You can't expect the socialist democrats or the pseudo-capitalist neocon republicans to do it.

Couldn't agree with you more, 99. Verizon has just finally won the battle to bring FiOS to my county ... the government was kissing Comcast's butt for years and kept making stupid excuses.

We've never had any problems with our Verizon land lines (we have three) or cell phones (we have two). Our cable -- and especially our cable internet -- have been problematic for years and Comcast had no motivation to make things right.

FiOS isn't available in my neighborhood yet, but the moment it is, we're switching.

Thankfully I have one of the better cable companies operating in my area. Cablevision has done a splendid job with its Optimum Online service. They just upgraded everybody to 15Mb down/2Mb up and offer a 30down/5up option for just $15 more per month (which I have definitely taken advantage of).

I ran some speed tests as soon as we got upgraded and I'm pulling somewhere around 24Mb down and 4Mb up, so I'm definitely getting my money's worth.

It's great to live in the Northeast :black:

I agree with you 100%. It's not really government enforced per-se, it's simply that government has not approved for the opening of the market.

Right now the cable companies enjoy a monopoly in the areas they control, although there are a few areas of overlap. They have achieved and maintained this goal by convincing the FCC that since THEY have sunk all of the money into building and continuously upgrading their systems and infrastructure in their areas that no one else should be allowed to come in an use their infrastructure. So far, this has worked.

This is somewhat true with the phone companies as well. Where I live we have SBC/AT&T, but a few miles away it's Verizon. Now, I can NOT get Verizon as my home service, but I can get MCI or several other smaller providers. That makes no sense at all.

agreed.

i lucked out recently and comcast bought our cable company from at&t. they've made some great progress in our area. so much so that it would actually be part of my decision making progress if i were to move. of course a little more competition (they already have some from qwest here) may lower prices, so i'm all for that.

baggss said:

I agree with you 100%. It's not really government enforced per-se, it's simply that government has not approved for the opening of the market.

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I see what you're saying, but it's still ridiculous that it's allowed to go on. The last rationale I heard for it being this way was that the government didn't want cable running everywhere, but I don't know how true that is. If they were a monopoly since they offered the lowest prices, then that's a different story because they're a natural monopoly and therefore they should be allowed to exist. But right now, it's just anti-competitive, anti-capitalist garbage.

i'm lucky that comcast doesn't have a monopoly where i live, since the local power company also has internet cable and TV cable. i hate comcast with a passion for what they have tried to do here but they keep loosing market share and territory.

funny, the different impressions of comcast. they've been a godsend in our area.