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."

Comments

cool....

[the_2nd_coming]

now there is a reason to move back to the country...cheap calbe TV and internet access.

I am trying to get my township here to open up the cable market....Time Warner is gouging us...for basic cable and internet I pay 84 bucks....my wifes friend who lives near by in another town has 2 cable companies to choose from and pays $79 for digital calbe, free HBO that comes with the digital cable, more basic channels, and internet access. I looked tha the company website...for whay I have with Time Warner, my wife's friend would pay $54.

Not a power-line network

[Autonymous Toaster]

I was somewhat disappointed that the article doesn't describe a broadband network over existing power lines - that would really be something! But it is about using lines that were already in place for power-use monitoring, which is nearly as good.

In particular, anything that provides additional connection options for small appliances with embedded operating systems is always welcome. In this specific case there are some protocol issues concerning communication with Glasgow residents of that type - a difficult (for outsiders) "accent" if you will, but one day it will be possible to exchange the latest news and information on toast (just as an example) with one's peers. That will be a good day.

RTFA - 1st paragraph even

[tshak]

Because the city-owned electric utility provides cable TV and Internet access over wires that also monitor power usage in the town of 14,000. The utility isn't trying to profit from the service -- just recover its costs.

Yes, just break even.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no shareholders. The power company is owned by the city. Local goverment is running this operation and are going to be their own customers. There's no incentive to rip anyone off.

This is an excellent idea to treat internet and cable TV as what they are - utilities - and charge fairly for them. Bravo to them, I wish I could live in such a town.

I would subscribe to cable TV if I could get it for $17 a month (price quoted in the article). I disconnected my cable TV 2 years ago after the constant price hikes.

As it is, AT&T is now bombarding me with offers for packages that cost $90 a month. NINETY DOLLARS! That is a significant proportion of my disposable income. For something that I'd watch for about an hour a week and is stuffed with commercials? And they wonder why I haven't taken them up any of their offers yet..

Putting all your eggs in one basket

[Sophrosyne]

I Love new technology, and I think its great that power companies are making the most efficient use of their technologies.
My issue is putting all your eggs in one basket... A few years back when there was a giant ice storm in Quebec, we were reminded of how dependant people have become on electricity. Now lets just say that using the power grid to access information becomes popular- power grids are already very central to survival in the modern age.
if something happens to the grid you're not going to have power, so it wont matter if you can access the net; slowly the infastructure can be repaired and the chances of taking out all power lines at once is very slim. On the other hand if you were to take out a couple power stations you could disrupt the flow of information, as well as disrupt the lives of people for a considerable amount of time. It would be much harder to replace a power plant than wires and transformers.

Re:Nothing new here....

[joeboo]

Let me preface this by saying that I work for the local muni.

Mediacom, who is the local competitor to our local municipal cable/data product is trying to get the law changed in Iowa to prevent the formation of new Communications utilities and severly limit the ability of the already formed utilities to do business. The link to the legislation is here.

In Iowa, like most states, there are open meetings and open records laws. Mediacom has, in the past, requested and received all of our financial data including customer counts, contracts with providers, etc. We, on the other hand, can not ask them for any of that information which results in an unlevel playing field.

Our product costs less because we don't have to pay off stock holders and the like. All that we have to pay off is our municipal bonds that were floated on the creation of the utility.

Awesome... but the power company?

[Ajaxamander]

This sounds incredibly cool, especially since I'm the one who pays both the Cable and the Electric bills at my college rental, however, at least in our area (University of Michigan) our power is from a huge Detroit conglomerate, DTE Energy, and even getting our electricity taken care when we moved in was more than they could handle. The previous tennants had defaulted 2+ months in a row, and the power company handed us a bill for $414, while a technician went to turn off the juice. Frankly, I would love to pay less for our internet, but I don't trust the power company further than I can spit.

Private Telecoms Go WAAAAAA!!!

[quakeroatz]

The big brother argument (municipalities cannot control digital content) by private telcos is pure drivel. If big brother (CIA, NSA, FBI, etc.) really wants to monitor your usage they'll walk into your ISP with a carnivore system and log your activity.

Everyone knows how cheap fiber and net access REALLY are... Cents per gig.. or pehaps fractions of cents. Consumer net access is currently overpriced, overhyped and slow. If local Hydro can provide cheap, fast internet to everyone with power, let them!

i like this section

[Anonymous Coward]

" Among its contentions: Municipal telecoms hurt a town's tax base and may violate the First Amendment by placing the distribution of media content under government ownership. "

Violate First Amendment by placing distribution of content under government ownership? Aren't libraries city-owned?

Its sad how hard business owners will try to keep hold of their profits rather than doing what's right for society..

Failure to take advantage of the medium

[sporktoast]

This (AP) article on CNN.com is exactly the sort that could benefit from being on the web. As it is, it is not much more than an electronic reprint of a newspaper-style article. The only "improvements" made are that it is heavy on cruft, what with the ads, partner tie-ins, subscription offers etc..

There's a little generic warning and associated icon at the bottom: "All external sites will open in a new browser. CNN.com does not endorse external sites." That might be helpful if it referred to a practice that was actually being used somewhere on the page. But the only "external" links seem to be to affiliates and advertisers. I guess the old media paranoia about letting us get away is still pretty strongly in effect.

Sorry, that's enough *vague* bitching. Here are some specifics:

What I really want to complain about is that there quite a few interesting details that were merely summarized, and not further explored; and that there were any number of jumping off points that could have been made active.

How about at least a link to the American Public Power Association, or one of the utilitis mentioned as an example? Or better yet, fill in some of those details. Which eleven states prohibit public power companies from offereing teleco services, or force them to charge artificially high rates. (If I live in one, I want to start writing letters!) How about a list (with links, maybe?) of the "511 publicly owned utilities now provide telecom services" mentioned in the "fact box"?

So much potential in this web medium is still wasted. Most news stories on the web just look like a slightly slicker and more colorful version of 1994, back when "old media" "didn't get it".