I heard a rumour that, by law, cable companies will have to provide services to everyone even if they live in the boonies. To me that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Does anyone know the origin of this rumor, or it's veracity?
Cable Companies forced to provide universal service...?
- Thread starter ZandarKoad
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Many cable companies have franchise agreements with cities or townships and so on. For example, the city of Dayton OH has a franchise agreement, between Dayton and Viacom (taken over by TWC years ago) that says that any resident inside city limits will be given access to cable services. Meaning, they don't have to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to cover the cost of the cable company extending their plant.
Check with the franchising authority for the area you live in to see what stipulations they have.
Check with the franchising authority for the area you live in to see what stipulations they have.
It works kinda....sorta. Years ago there was a guy in plymouth mass (roughly the same sq mileage of LA) that lived near campgrounds. He wanted cable and they basically were going to bill him thousands upon thousands because they did wire the area...generally people don't bring tv's for cable when camping. I can understand the argument both ways but if something is so remote it's understandable that some places wouldn't be wired. Any digging in the north east means you have to contact the various local governments and this would be a project in itself.
FCC does have a clause however that does override franchise on serving "everyone" within a franchised area. If it's feasable, it has to be done if it's called for in the franchise. Say James lives in town but his road to his house is a mile long and no one else down that road, well of course the economics of building out to James would not be feasable and therefore serving him cannot be forced by the franchise agreement. I ran into a similar sitution a few years back and we offer to do it if he would pay for the cable, he said HELL NO!!!, it's in the franchise. FCC says otherwise which over rules the franchise.
(bold added is mine)
Years ago there may not have been many people who brought tv's for cable when camping. Today, many campgrounds provide cable at their sites. Also, drive through almost any campground today and you will see about the same ratio of dishes as you will driving through a residential neighborhood, perhaps more.
These are not campgrounds, these are RV parks and RV parks / campground combo's. Most of the RV parks that do offer cable as an option are ones that cater to snow birds in the south and the sun birds that go north during the warmer months. Services offered by cable in several of the parks I have been in has been basic digital and maybe a few premiums but nothing like digital or hd or internet or phone.
One are that most likely will be offering these services though to one or more RV parks is in the Grass Lake / Jackson Michigan area, comcast recently built a very large depot on Michigan Ave / US 12 just south of Cement City and there has been alot of activity down that way. Now keep in mind that this is still very much a heavily farm and rural area with urban sprawl being slower than Bush to get troops out of Iraq so why Comcast is putting alot of money into this area outside of Jackson leaves me to believe that there is going to be alot of development going on that the city and county has been talking with them about, if not then Comcast is throwing away money.
