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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."
think about it...they get everyone to sign up..get a box, have their TV on all the time, get that computer on 24/7 downloading MP3s they get profits from more electricity usage and they are providing a service to their customers at cost over lines they need anyhow.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
The utility company is owned by the city, so the money consumers spend stays in the town. The city has "made" $32 million that would otherwise have gone to the cable companies and/or ISPs.
;)
Try reading the article.
Actually, in this case there is no reason for them to do something like that. The company is owned by the town. Many communities all across the country still get their electricity from municipal companies or co-ops. These companies aren't really meant to be "for profit".
Now, what strikes me is that usually a government-owned venture is nowhere near as competitive as the private sector. The real question here is why the heck private companies are charging so much more than these quasi-governmental companies. The private sector SHOULD see very little threat from these ventures. The fact that it can be done this way at so little cost simply reveals how badly we are being gouged by our local cable and broadband providers currently.
Life is short: void the warranty.
That sounds like a good deal to me, actually, if you have some sort of broadband connection.
Also, in many markets, even if you only have one cable company (like in my area), you still have the option of going to DirecTV or another satellite TV provider. I decided to completely avoid my cable company, I get both TiVo and satellite for $45 a month. My DSL line costs me about $50 a month. I'm actually paying more than you, although I suspect I have more channels, more features (see below), etc. (No HBO, though.) I believe I can also get some sort of cable internet now, but I'm more likely to switch DSL providers to get a better deal there.
Anyway, my point is that there is some competition, even though there might be somewhat more competition in some places. "Gouging" seems like an excessive characterization considering what you are paying.
I should also note that I can record two channels at once and watch recorded material at the same time with "DirecTiVo" and I get local channels too, but that's fairly old news. I doubt I'd even be interested in a second cable company unless they could match those features.
"The worst spacial incident in recorded history occurred less than one day ago and you people are talking about power companies offering cable service?!?! My GOD, people, GET SOME BLOODY PRIORITIES!"
The people that died in the pursuit of science would be honored if we continued on our pursuit of science.
A few random points that poped in my head after reading this:
1) The telecom companies may have a point in their claims that it's anti-competitive. I mean, no private company would go into business with the goal of "breaking even". How is this much different from a monopoly selling their products at cost to drive out competition?
2) That being said, the power companies have great potential in the telecom business if, as mentioned in the article, cable/internet could be offered over power cables. The network in the article is run over power-monitoring wires, and i'm not sure how widespread this type of wire is... Cable (and broadband interenet to a lesser extent) are so widespread now, that it may not be a bad idea to offer them as city-sponsored commodities, like power, and hopefully even run them over power lines.
3) This is going AGAINST the trend of privatization of publicly owned ventures. That means that the only reason that this is cheaper is that the prices set by cable/telecom companies are inflated. This could lead to a huge drop in cable/internet prices... and the telecoms are trying to fight this through legal means. Fighting a new distribution model through courts - **AA anyone?
It's basically city-subsidized bandwidth. I got 2048x256 Mbit cable for $25/month, and later bumped it up to 4096x512 (basically uncapped) for $80. When I had to move up to Seattle for work reasons, this was one of the hardest things to give up (since I'm now paying the same price for 768x384 DSL - granted, Speakeasy encourages their customers to run web servers, etc, and I get 2 static IP's).
For businesses, Click! offers extremely competetive rates on connections up to an OC-48, and you can get one just about anywhere in the city. They're also expanding (slowly) into nearby cities, too (Tacoma has had a lot of internal neighborhoods become incorporated, so it's unfortunately not like they're expanding very far).
Do you really need reason for beer? Wingman Brewers
Basic cable channels (usually the off-air channels) are not necessarily free.
Local broadcasters have 2 methods that they can use to get their signals on your cable system. They can elect for a Must Carry (you have to carry them per FCC regulations) or a contract. The Must Carry is free. A contract of any sort is going to involve dollars.
We are currently in renegotiations with the local NBC and ABC affiliates. The ABC affiliate wants us to pay $0.25 per subscriber per month to carry their signal. The NBC affiliate wants us to carry their signal, roll out their HDTV signal in 30 days, still provide a channel for their weather broadcasts, advertising swaps, and what the cable industry calls Most Favored Nation (i.e. they get paid what the highest local affiliate charges us to carry their local signal - in our case $0.25 per sub per month).
HDTV alone is going to cost us about $10k a channel to add (the reason is that the UHF channel spectrum that the off-air broadcasts use is not directly transportable on a cable system without wastng channel space. The UHF channels don't match up directly with the cable channels). So, we have to either take their off air channel, upconvert it, and sell a box to the subscriber to get it. Or, we can waste channel space, and a normal HDTV ready TV would be able to watch the signal.
That, and the ABC contract says that if we roll out HDTV for any other local broadcaster, then we have to roll theirs out too.
Basic cable is something that cable companies are required by the FCC to carry. It isn't always as cheap as you might think.
Joseph W. Breu
This is great on paper, but the future implications are there for the company to make money off of the service. There will be a point where the company could make a profit right now, and as costs go down then they will grow ever closer to turning around this 'break-even' enterprise to a profit making division of it's company.
The rules of business are not being ignored, it's an investment for the future.
Oh know, someone is trying to provide a service for the community without gouging the community, quick call the guys from Enron.
You know not everything is about making money (I know its shocking isn't it), from the sounds of it, these people have the right idea, invest in cheap broadband access for the community and the payback could very well be a much bigger and better educated community for the future.
You know what founded the US? It was justifiable anger at taxation without representation, thats what led to the American Revolution, not capitalism.
Oh and one other thing, any organisation that exploits third world labour - often under age - is an evil organisation in my books.
It's good you considered this, but given this is being used for last-mile internet (as opposed to actual infrastructure, such as backbones), this isn't really an issue. Besides, if you disrupt power, you're going to take out most people's ability to access the network anyway.
Those who have backup power (and need it) ought to have concern for this, of course. They will probably not be using this as a solution anyway. (Probably should not.)
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Well, despite being marked as flamebait I'm going to bite and take your message as sarcasm instead.
The simple fact is that in some cases natural monopolies will occur. Electric service is the classic example of this. My dad worked for a local power company for years. Trust me, the idea is NOT for them to be a non-profit. They are allowed to make a modest profit-- and they DO! It's not Microsoft or Enron style profit, but it's a good clean simple profit that keeps the shareholders happy.
A utility is in the business of providing a service for a reasonable price. If they don't have a reaosonable price, people start voting politicians out. Politicians don't like that, so they make sure the rates are reasonable. And you know what.. it has worked JUST FINE for around a hundred years! At least, until the politicians started deciding to deregulate-- which combined with some other bad decisions allowed Enron to happen.
Think about our phone systems. Great, we now have all these baby bells that have remerged into 2 or 3 big ass companies. None of them are in the business of providing services for a modest profit, they are in the business of gouging their consumers (note: not customers) for as much money as they can! It was mentioned on Slashdot not even a month ago that with the advent of digital telphone switching and IP telephony it has become a LOT cheaper to operate a telecommunications company.
So why are we still paying high prices? Yes, they are lower than years past, but given the decrease in maintenance costs they should be about 10 times lower than they are now. Well, we're still being gouged because we are willing to pay it. We pay what the MARKET WILL BEAR. Telephone service is another natural monopoly. It's easier to just have one company handle it and to simply keep a leash around their neck. This is what AT&T was-- a GOVERNMENT GRANTED monopoly whose rates WERE determined by the government. The government COULD have chosen to simply regulate the shit out of AT&T. What exactly was so bad about them? They spent that money keeping people like Dennis Ritchie, Keith Thompson, and Brian Kerningham working! Working on things that (go figure) actually paved the way for IP telephony and other modern telephone systems as well as helped the entire computing community. Specifically BECAUSE AT&T didn't want to sell it because they had the telephone monopoly, they gave it away.
Shit, they were already on track to turning the telephone system into an entirely digital one. Why? Simple, because their rates were regulated and thus if they could provide the same service for less money then they'd make KILLER profits-- at least until the regulators caught up with them.
So someone please remind me why we're supposed to deregulate everything and allow the next Enron to happen? Why can't we simply learn from history. And just so you all know.. I consider myself to be a conservative. Not the religious zombie head-up-ass conservative that is so prevalent in politics these days. But hmm.. if we think about it.. isn't it actually the democrats that wanted the deregulation? AFAIK, Clinton was praised for his great energy policy which eventually led to Enron. And Reagan didn't make many friends keeping IBM together.. but look where we are today! IBM evolved into a company that makes a killing AND helps the computing community! Isn't that what business is SUPPOSED to be about?
-Dave
It's a local government, not a company. And a town of 14,000 is not rural.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
If this is a troll, it's a finely crafted one. Congrats.
If you're serious... well, thanks for cheapening the Bill of Rights, and everything else this country stands for.
Only on slashdot can a posting be rated "Score -1, Insightful".
if for no other reason than the simple fact that I hate Verizon and Time Warner. My electric company on the other hand has always been on my good side.