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is there a way I can force them to provide service since I am only a mile from a city? I don't mind satellite, but I want the fast cable internet.

jyech said:

is there a way I can force them to provide service since I am only a mile from a city? I don't mind satellite, but I want the fast cable internet.

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Check with your City or County government. There should be a franchise agreement in place with the cable company. That agreement will have the rules regarding hookups that the cable co. will have to abide by.

Voyager6 said:

Check with your City or County government. There should be a franchise agreement in place with the cable company. That agreement will have the rules regarding hookups that the cable co. will have to abide by.

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Exactly. There is likely some sort of coverage or distance guaranty that they have to follow.

raoul5788 said:

Exactly. There is likely some sort of coverage or distance guaranty that they have to follow.

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No there is not. Its up to the service provider to see whether it is cost effective to keep extending their cable plant out in the rural areas.

You can start a petition with the others to try to get it built out there, but the most likely scenario is that if you want it bad enough you will be paying half the construction costs (which is very expensive). If they built feeder to every house in rural areas that wanted it, they would be bankrupt in a month

markbone100 said:

No there is not. Its up to the service provider to see whether it is cost effective to keep extending their cable plant out in the rural areas.

You can start a petition with the others to try to get it built out there, but the most likely scenario is that if you want it bad enough you will be paying half the construction costs (which is very expensive). If they built feeder to every house in rural areas that wanted it, they would be bankrupt in a month

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So you are saying that cable franchise agreements don't have any requirements for coverage?

raoul5788 said:

So you are saying that cable franchise agreements don't have any requirements for coverage?

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There are thousands of franchise authorities in the US. Some agreements have build-out requirements, some don't. Given the stall in FiOS deployments, even in areas that do have requirements obviously they're not followed all of the time.

JosephB said:

There are thousands of franchise authorities in the US. Some agreements have build-out requirements, some don't. Given the stall in FiOS deployments, even in areas that do have requirements obviously they're not followed all of the time.

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So you go to the town and find out if there is anything in writing regarding coverage requirements. If there are, make them live up to them.

raoul5788 said:

So you go to the town and find out if there is anything in writing regarding coverage requirements. If there are, make them live up to them.

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Yep, this is the only recourse. It sounds like he may be outside of the town itself, so the franchising authority might be the county government. It may also be the case that he lives outside the franchised area and in that case would be SOL. I doubt that would be the case, though. Most likely Charter will simply want at a minimum half of the construction cost reimbursed.

Charter is like any other company. They simply want to make a profit. If it costs $20,000 to run cables and amps out to one particular persons house, how could they EVER make any profit? So, they have to see that there's enough customers in an area to off-set their costs to build out to it, and so that they can eventually make a profit.

The smarter thing to do if it's important to a person, is to NOT even move into a particular house if it doesn't have available the services they need. Or, to at least know ahead of time what all your options are for a particular property that they are considering moving into.

primestar31 said:

The smarter thing to do if it's important to a person, is to NOT even move into a particular house if it doesn't have available the services they need. Or, to at least know ahead of time what all your options are for a particular property that they are considering moving into.

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Everytime I talk to someone who is in the process of moving, or looking to buy a new home, I tell them to CHECK what internet and or television service is available at their location BEFORE they move, and if they call me I will check to see if there is a line of site to install a Dish.

It never fricken fails, they get some deal and don't bother to call me until after the ink is dry on their lease or purchase agreement, then they call me up and B**CH when I have to break the news to them that the only thing available is satellite internet, or they are treed out or on the wrong side of the building to get a Dish.

An employee of mine just did a bone headed thing a month ago. He was moving into an apartment, and I told him atleast 10 times to get it in writing that he can install a satellite Dish because I was going to get him an employee complementry account with Directv so he could get free service. The landlord says yes, but then changed his mind a week before he was to move in because they signed an exclusive agreement with the WOW cable company. I told him he should threaten the landlord not to move in, but ofcourse nobody ever wants to do that.

So you saved $50 moving into this place, but now have to spend $100 on Cable TV.

Or the best ones are the ones who call me looking for internet, and I run their address with all the providers and tell them their only option is Hughesnet or Exede Satellite Internet. Then the customer tells me they are going to call around to see if they can find anything cheaper.

Im like heres my number to call me back.

Sure enough, a few hours later they call me back