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Power Companies Offering Cable (TV, Net) Service
MankyD writes "CNN is running an interesting story about a power company offering cheap cable and broadband internet to its customers. What's even better is that they aren't looking to make a profit, just break even on the venture. They estimate that they've saved their customers $32 million. Furthermore, it's available in a rural area where the telecomms don't offer service anyways."
My house gets electricity and all the essentials, but no cable and no DSL. My options for internet have always been satellite and wireless. I opt for wireless only because it pings better. Both services generally suck and are subject to many downages and bottlenecks.
If our power company offered us cable internet service I'd be in an eternal bliss, because I could drop my horrible provider. I hope this idea spreads.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
The company that I work for, Cedar Falls Utilities was a 3 service utility (gas, water, and electric) that started to provide communications services (cable tv, high speed data, and dedicated facilities) in 1997. Broadband Bob has a report from Jan of 1997 here.
Joseph W. Breu
If you read the article about Glasgow, KY, the service is being provided by the city, so they have the voters to answer to if the price gets too dear. It makes sense that this would work out well in a small town; the big players may not be interested in serving them anyway. It'd be interesting to see what would happen if power companies all over were allowed to provide cable/internet-- it could introduce some real competition, instead of the oligopoly we have now. Or, at least, it would be an oligopoly with more players.
Always look on the briight side of life! (whistle, whistle)
unless you're stuck in a massive metro area where it's unprofitable to replace and/or add fiber lines in the entire city.
We had this in another town in Kentucky (Murray, which is probably on par with Glasgow) and were the 2nd town in the US (Canada being one large rural area seemed to have a lot more broadband at the time) back in late 1996, early 1997.
The only notable thing, is that as this sort of thing gets widespread, cable companies will have to either add more value to the service (free PPV perhaps, or more digital channels) or price it cheaper. Competition is a wonderful thing. I paid $25/month for a cablemodem capable of 512k down/256k up in a city that had competing cable tv, internet and even local/longdistance telephone service. The existing cable company (Charter) had to drastically reduce prices, hurry out their digital tier services, and price them competitively, as in the course of a summer the Electric Company had started offering a cable package with 10 more channels than the Cable Company, for around 12 bucks a month, compared to the cable company's 25. They're still fighting and the person who will end up winning, is the consumer.
My cable bill in Kentucky was 55/month. This included digital cable and a cable modem. Now I move to a large city, and I'm paying 50/month just for DSL, cable was just as expensive, and I can't afford the digital cable at all, as that's another 50/month. Things were much different in a small town with two providers, and they're doing very well, and I have hope that the idea will catch on everywhere else eventually and the cable monopoly will get bumped aside in favor of fair prices and better service.
I live in Tacoma, WA, and we have had something similar to the public broadband for quite a while. It's very nice, and I'm glad to see it spreading. I think broadband should be available to all, and perhaps they should ammend the constitution to make it one of the basic rights...
2 years ago (here in Memphis), when getting cable net access, you also got TV cable as well. Well, not anymore. I asked why, and it was explained that back then, the local TimeWarner had no way of offering either net or TV signals by themselves, so they just bundled it. They eventually sorted out the techical problems, and now they can only let you have what you only order.
Your "trick" only applies in areas where they haven't gotten complete control of their system.
The key word is "well run", which is something that both private companies and governments have trouble doing, especially on large scales. Private companies are immune from having inane and pointless structures that cause tons of waste, just because they're private. The market isn't magical, and it doesn't just fix this. The private sphere and the public sphere both boil down to people, and their motives. If their motives are corrupt (Private corruption "Lets bilk the entire population for everything they've got and we'll be filthy rich!" or Public "Lets just stay in office forever, and never change, I don't like change") then the result will be corrupt. However, if either have good intentions (Private "Lets offer a good product at a decent price, and make a living off of it" or Public "Lets provide something good for the public, to improve their lives") and they allow those intentions to guide them, the outcome isn't usually horrific. No one meaning well intentionally screws over the people they're trying to help.
I think the key to this is the size of the endeavor. A small business that knows its customer base intimately will be much more sensitive to their needs and demands. A large one that must meet a projected profit every quarter will be willing to sacrifice them in order to stay in good with the stock market. Similarly, a large government (ie, Federal in the US) will lose track of its vision in all its complex infighting. However, for a small city to do something like this? They're not going to set up a government endeavor just to screw themselves, since 14,000 people isn't a population worth exploiting to that degree.
To summarize after all that rambling: public ownership is not always evil and inefficient, nor is private ownership always good and effective. Find a balance for the situation that provides the best outcome for society. Its not always going to be the market.
A dozen miles south of Boston, Braintree Electric http://www.beld.com has been providing power to my town for 100 years and started offering cable TV and high speed internet a few years ago. It's a town owned utility with a reputation for service reliability and low rates. Beld.net service has been excellent; it's easy to get the right person on the phone if you need to fix something, and you can go over and yell at them in person should the need ever arise -- it has not. AT&T Broadband is also available in town, and I don't know anyone who still uses it.
I live in Kansas City, and just about a month ago I got connected to this type of service, thanks to a local company called Everest that is owned by local utility company Aquila.
Things that make this service fantastic:
1) Price. No question. I consolodated my monthly phone bill (~$25) plus my monthly cable bill (~$75 for digital + two premium tiers) plus my high-speed internet bill (I was paying $125 for business-class DSL which was the only service provider with a static IP in my area) down to ~$100/month (in a single bill) to a single company
2) Services available. For $100/month I get 1.5 MB (256 kbps upstream) cable with a single static IP, digital cable with two premium tiers (I selected HBO and Skinimax), plus local phone service with $.10/minute long distance. Everest just released a new feature I'm interested in but haven't yet taken the plunge - integrated PVR service. For an extra $20/month you can get an upgraded box with 40gb HDD and Tivo-style PVR service.
3) Customer service. You can call their support number 24x7 and its answered immediately by a real person. Level-2 tech support people who know what they're doing.
4) Let me ditch a few companies I'm happy not to do business with: Time Warner Cable and Southwestern Bell (SBC).
All great stuff, in my opinion. This type of competition is just what these markets need, in my opinion... especially the cable TV market.
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There is no try at jedinite.com
There are many of these systems in place today, not only are they offering cable tv and internet but phone service as well. Glasgow was the model town for motorola to try out some of the new technology. Murray, KY was their next stop and they have come along way in the last two years since the initial install was made. Here is a link to the hardware used. http://broadband.motorola.com/catalog/productdetai l.asp?ProductID=211
I pay about $20 a month for phone service with callerid, call waiting, etc. Another $27 for extended basic cable which is about 70 channels and then $19 for internet access. If I were to go with the competeing companies in town I would be paying $40 a month for cable an additional $40 for cable modem service through them, *ahem* charter *ahem* overpriced *ahem*, plus a phone line and long distance through bellsouth, at least $30 before caller id, call waiting, etc. Did I mention because of this we only pay $0.07 a minute for long distance.
Now many people are seeing this as a very bad deal because the power company is supposed to be non-profit because they have a natural monopoly over the services. Well it doesn't have to be, the way our community handled this is that the electric company issued bonds to the community to pay for the project. In essence the community owns the service, anyone that has a problem with the service are invited to public meetings held about every six months. But the one thing you have to keep in mind is that with your local power company hosting all of your services you also have all your hard earned money going right back into your own community. Sure our previous service was based here but the profit leaves the area and goes to where ever their home office is.
What ever you do if you hear that your local electric company is considering this goto their board meeting and hear them out. It will come to a vote eventually and your vote could be the one to make it happen for you as well.
I work at www.getthewave.com, and we provide the net connection to www.netamu.com a local Utility, they have finished laying all the fiber and such. In under a year we have a little over 800 customers for the highspeed cable, and this is in a town of 2500 homes... The utility is now putting in the phone modules in their ICUs, so the telephones will be going over their fiber too. Screw qwest, and screw mediacom!! Hell yea.
I actually just spoke to power company technology representatives about this 2 days ago. They said that the technology is not yet ready, as the line noise from the electricity limits the distance the internet signal can carry unamplified, plus power equipment like transformers add even more noise and obstruction to the internet signal. Adding amplifiers and other equipment to solve these problems drives the cost up to the point of making it unviable in a competitive marketplace. Maybe someday internet over power lines will happen, but not today apparently.
Just thought since so many people brought up that this is ran on the MONITORING wires, and they wished it was over the powerlines, I'd put a link in here to a company that actually makes the powerline stuff:8 /28/pow er.line.access.idg/
http://www.mainnet-plc.com/
Some background info:
http://europe.cnn.com/2001/TECH/internet/0
have fun!