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As been said, utility ride of ways, pole attachment and mainly cost dictates if other "cable tv choices" come into the picture.
Who I work for does not play a roll in my feelings and thoughts. I have been a customer of both satellite and cable and have installed both (mainly c band and cable, some FTA).

cablewithaview said:

As been said, utility ride of ways, pole attachment and mainly cost dictates if other "cable tv choices" come into the picture.
Who I work for does not play a roll in my feelings and thoughts. I have been a customer of both satellite and cable and have installed both.

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Among other laws, they were put into place by the [biggest at the time] cable companies themselves.

Cable companies are stinking, thieving, monopolizing pieces of garbage.

damaged said:

Cable companies are stinking, thieving, monopolizing pieces of garbage.

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As are the power and telephone companies.

There is no government sanctioned cable monopoly. Governments can't give exclusive franchise agreements.

Verizon can come into any community and go through the franchising process and ultimately get one. They don't want to do that... and for a lot of good reasons. The county where I live has a population of 400,000... and 72 different municipalities to deal with. That's 72 franchise negotiations... And those negotiations can often get testy as the local governments work to get stuff from the company. PEG channels, local data networks, service agreements, maybe even a call center. Verizon would much rather deal at the state level.

The cable company's argument is that we had to do it the old way, so why shouldn't Verizon? They're a huge company... why do they need special rules? It's the "level playing field" argument.

The question remains: why don't the big cable companies compete against each other? Simple... it's more profitable to invest the company's resources into new products for their existing market. It costs a lot of money to build a cable plant... spending that much money to compete against an entrenched company isn't a wise move. It's far easier and better to develop new services and increase revenue per customer (not to mention that there's still a substantial market to win locally... the people who have satellite or are happy with OTA channels).

There's a perception that Verizon is the knight in shining armor riding in to save people from the evil cable monopoly -- but let's not forget that the telcos are the true masters of the monopoly game. They're not getting in FIOS because they want to... they're doing it because they have to. Their telephone monopoly is being broken up... by the evil cable monopoly, no less. Even they don't know what the future holds... but with the core phone market drying up, not taking the chance would mean they're doomed to wither away.

Disclaimer: I work for a cable company. That said, I'm thrilled with the plans for FIOS. Satellite forced cable to develop a host of new and exciting products... FIOS will do the same, only more so because, frankly, the new competitor is considerably more formidable. Satellite has inherent limits -- no realistic internet option, no good VOD solution, no phone service, etc. FIOS has no apparent limits. Even for a low-level call center grunt like me, it's an exciting time to be in the telecommunications business. I may not always like my current job, but I can't think of any other industry I'd rather be in right now.

Splicer said:

As are the power and telephone companies.

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Never said they weren't, but it seems people so not know how to read, this thread is about cable companies, not telcos or power companies.

hilltopper said:

There is no government sanctioned cable monopoly. Governments can't give exclusive franchise agreements.

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I never said anything about government approved monopolies, that is why they are called 'near monopolies', if you guys would be honest and do research instead of towing the company line, and putting words into my mouth.

damaged said:

I never said anything about government approved monopolies, that is why they are called 'near monopolies', if you guys would be honest and do research instead of towing the company line, and putting words into my mouth.

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Alas, I wasn't thinking of you at all here. Instead:

GaryPen said:

Cable comapnies pay municipalities franchise fees to grant them exclusive rights as the cable TV provider in those municipalities. Mini-monopolies, if you will, sanctioned by the local governments

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hilltopper said:

Alas, I wasn't thinking of you at all here. Instead:

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Apologies to you then.

One of the other things we have remember is that technically the argument can be made on both sides. The cable co's built the bandwith...in relation to other things someone can make the argument that it's like a private road...they charge what they want and they get what they want....now to grant access to someone that will compete with them well that sometimes doesn't really make sense...

Laying down cable and rewiring a town for a whole new cable co would be costly...I know only one town that has competition in cable and that's because they have their own electic company (they offer other services)

However I think the real differences are going to be taken down....cable internet is here and dsl is here as well...satellite can be nearly anywhere and FIOS is growing...there's also the controversal BPL....

Personally I don't like it when the cable co's market too much and overpromise...for example when digital cable came out I wanted a box...they said they pass them out at 6am at the local office...no waiting list or reserve

I got so ticked that I wrote a letter to their regional vice president that was nasty...within a few days I got a call that two boxes were on hold

I think the rules really do have to be rewritten in this day and age. Like carrying over the air tv made sense when it was local stations but over the air we have a few spanish channels, a home shopping one and one that's nearly all infomertials...what's the point of forcing a company to waste bandwith on that? Then they have to maintain a community access area whereas satellite doesn't. Cable I think can do nearly anything satellite can and more but it would be 2 to 3 times the price.