Slashdot Mirror
SBC Considering Buying DirecTV
Guppy06 writes "Throwing their hats into a ring that includes News Corporation, Cablevision, and General Electric, this NYT article (yadda yadda yadda) reports that #2 Baby Bell SBC is interested in buying DirecTV. After federal and state anti-trust authorities shot down DirecTV's purchase of EchoStar recently, their purchase by a corporation that already has its own state-mandated telephone monopoly is... "interesting" to say the least. Those of us who dislike government monopolies are left hoping either News or GE wins this one (if a sale even takes place)." One of the other suitors for DirecTV has been Murdoch's Fox.
Rupert Murdoch owns News Corp of which Fox (the network with the Simpsons) is a part. News Corp also owns many newspapers, the Fox News Channel, and lots of sports stuff. Just a heads up Hemos.
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
Hey, if SBC will put another DirecTV satellite in the Northern sky, so I can actually GET direcTV, I'm down with it.
Never underestimate the potential of Human stupidity. -Heinlein
It's amazing that a company like SBC would waste money on an investment like DirecTV. Surely they realise that it will be a losing proposition? If it happens expect to see a major write down from SBC in following 12 months.
Some people never learn.
One of the other suitors for DirecTV has been Murdoch's Fox.
As stated in the story...we already know that.
Doesn't matter to me. Until they let DirecTV show the Big 4 networks outside of just a few markets, it is just not worth it to switch from cable and lose The Simpsons (or, insert your favorite fox,cbs,nbc,abc show).
WideOpenWest is a good example of what a cable company can do when you get RID OF SBC-like overhead. Background: WOW bought the failed Ameritech cable unit from SBC some time ago - now they are profitable and offer rates half of the competitors.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
It's the only way phone companies can really strike out at cable companies. Makes it interesting though...what if they did broadband bonding where you could get data down both the sat and the DSL line? This could certainly make inroads in the rural customer segment.
Those of us who dislike government monopolies are left hoping either News or GE wins this one (if a sale even takes place)." One of the other suitors for DirecTV has been Murdoch's Fox.
I sure hope that Fox gets it, because I can't imagine the horror of News Corp running things.
Either way, both choices beat the crap out of option (C) which is Cablevision buying DirecTV. That would be like Oil companies buying the first cold fusion generator only to hold the patent and not allow anyone to use it.
Ok, that anology sucked a little, mod me down :-(
Here in Indiana, we've gotten horrible service from SBC. Over the last 3 years I've probably had about a dozen service calls required for our phone service, all of which were due to their system (nothing wrong inside our house). Their technicians failed to show up when promised, and at one point we had no phone service for over a week (and no, there weren't any unusual circumstances like extensive storm damage in the area). Granted, a satellite system should be less service-intensive, but I'm a happy DirecTV customer who doesn't want to send another dime SBC's way!
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
I mean, we all know that the phone companies are the devil, and the government sucks, but who ever heard of GE's attrocious business practices?
I think Fox is owned by News Corp., so they wouldn't be "another suitor", and if I remember correctly, it was Echostar buying Directv, not the other way around.
posted via satellite
SBC wouldn't know how to treat a customer properly if their existance depended on it. Unfortunately they can pretty much do what they please, as they have near monoploy status now. I would hate to see Direct-TV fall to them.
As for me, I'm now in a baby-bell free zone, and love it.
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
SBC = horrible. Horrible.
:(
Let's hope FOX is the winner. Yeah I might loose CNN or something, but if SBC gets my DirectTV I'll order Porn for the weekend and end up with soccer or something.
Grimwell - old, cranky, mean, obsessive
DirecTV is a great business. They are
sucessful pioneers, do good things and
make money. Why sell out? The management
and engineers of Hughes should say "no"
to a sale. GM stock holders should vote
no also. Just say "NO!"
Oh wait, they just layed off 2000 people! That should do it, and still leave enough for nice bonuses for the top dogs at SBC. And they need those bonuses becuase its getting pretty tough living on a measley $18M a year. And now they want to deregulate digital lines in Texas so that all the surviving competition can be wiped out.
This is surprising that the Canada is way beyong the state in having phone company offering digital satelite TV.
Bell Canada is offering this service for years with ExpressVu. It is to be expected. The cable co. wants to enter the phone market (they are still far from achieving it) so the phone co want to enter the TV market.
These days, if a phone co want to get more money, they have no choice in exploring new markets. The land line phone market is already saturated and deregulation meant that they get less money than before.
I've had SBC downgrade my phone service gradually over the years. Can't complain about it: this company is not reachable by telephone. Can't even drive to their office to complain too: know one allowed in.
Can't get a competing company. SBC takes my service fees and uses them to lobby against allowing companies like AT&T to complete.
The states that regulate utilities should at least require the phone company to answer their phones....
Just because SBC operates as a monopoly in many local phone markets does not make the entire firm a monopoly. If it acquired DirecTV it would defiantly have to be a competitive firm as it entered the Cable/Satellite market.
The real benefit I see to SBC in this is that they want to encourage people to have satellite tv since satellite TV subscribers usually have DSL and not cable modems. They may try and cut you some deal if you sign up for both, a "switch away from your cable company" kind of deal.
Another weird side not is that I've seen in Fort Worth where SBC provides "cable" service to apartment complexes but their "cable boxes" are really DirecTV receivers and they just have one dish for the entire complex (or area, I'm not sure) and split the signal from it up to all of the apartments.
...
Yeah, like letting me go to the bathroom during commercials!
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
People who live outside the US already know the joys of NewsCorp's monopoly on satellite broadcasting - they run the Sky satellite networks and in many markets (e.g. the UK), they are the only satellite provider.
Now, I have a deep and abiding dislike and mistrust for the News Corporation, so perhaps someone who actually lives somewhere under their monopoly can share their experiences?
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Phone: SBC
Cell Phone: Cingular Wireless (SBC Owned)
Satellite Provider: SBC DirecTV
Internet Provider: SBC Yahoo! DSL
When SBC Gas & Electric and SBC Waste Removal become a reality, I'll just start signing my check over to them.
Public use of any portable music system is a virtually guaranteed indicator of sociopathic tendencies. -- Zoso
Great service, great support.
We've got a T1 and ISDN circuit from them
Their long distance service is horrendously expensive, so we only use them for the circuits.
McLeod USA used to re-sell the SBC service around here. With them getting in the way, it was horrible. But lately, SBC has been doing 'buy-backs' and we're getting better pricing that McLeod gave us (Which was much better than what SBC originally offered)
SBC around here used to be Ameritech, and Michigan Bell before that.
As it stands now, HDTV remains somewhat on the fringes of the television market, but with each new digital TV, this remains less and less true. And those subscribers that have DirecTV that upgrade their sets have few options:
1. they will need an IRD (DTV "box") upgrade that runs about $500. Plus they will usually need a new dish and someone to come out and re-aim it for them -- the football dishes are no charm to aim and get all of the DTV satellite constellation.
2. when they do upgrade their IRD they get three HD channels -- and no local stations. They can only get HBO, HD-Net and Discovery Channel in HD.
On the other hand, terrestrial based cable systems have made up a lot of ground. They offer most all of the old analog-based channels that once distinguished DTV, AND they also offer ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, HBO, PBS in their HD offerings. Add to that a sub-TiVo POD, HBO on Demand.
That says to me that DTV faces a major competitive disadvantage in the future. The only way that they can add more capacity is to launch more distribution satellites, and until they do, they cannot begin to match the HD offering that Time Warner and others are offering today. As it is now, TW already has a better picture with less pixellation on ALL channels.
Whoever gets DTV had better be aware of this, or they will face a major uphill battle as the transformation of TV from analog to digital takes place.
Could this finally open up NFL Sunday Ticket? The NFL recently re-upped its contract with Direct TV to offer its subscription-based NFL games package exclusively to Direct TV viewers. There is something fishy about this arrangement as it is very clear that Sunday Ticket would be many times more profitable if it were open to other cable systems instead of the 10% or so of NFL fans that even have the option of Direct TV. I'll bet Fox would have something to say about it.
First, to clarify the present situation: GE owns Hughes Electronics/DirecTV. It is not considered a "core asset", so they desperately want to get rid of it. First, Rupert Murdoch bid on DirecTV, and planned on spinning off all of his global satellite TV assets into a new company, Sky Global, upon completion of the sale. Then EchoStar, owners of Dish Network, made an unsolicited bid that was higher than Murdoch's, and he decided not to match it. Eventually, the EchoStar-DirecTV combination was rejected on monopoly grounds, because the government (rightly so) recognized that if satellite TV assets are privately owned, there needs to be more than one owner; ideally three or more, but even two is better than one.
The SBC deal brings up a new set of problems. There is no more fear about rural consumers losing the benefits of competition, because SBC does not currently own satellite assets. However, due to having a government-approved monopoly over local telephone service, SBC has a unique advantage in that it can never die; it has a core business that practically everyone living in its target market needs, and that no competitor is allowed to offer. Thus, it can leverage its telephone monopoly to offer satellite service at a loss if its needs to, until other competitors are driven out of the market, and then drive prices back up.
There's a larger problem here that needs to be addressed, that of natural monopolies. Some services, most notably utilities that involve physical wires or pipes (water, oil, TV, phone, internet), are such that it would be absurd for two companies to compete in an open market. There is absolutely no reason why we should spend limited resources on building two sets of water pipes, or two sets of cable wires. Also, some of these services, especially oil, electricity, and water, are essential to life (modern or otherwise).
It takes the most die-hard corporate libertarian to argue that someone should be allowed to profit off basic human needs. And they'd be wrong. Municipal power companies have been enormously successful, if for no other reason than they have no profit motive; they only need to provide people with a useful service. All natural monopolies should be redesigned on that model. Whether city, county, or even state-owned, I want to see some (relatively local) level of government controlling electricity, energy, water, and telecommunications distribution.
Corporations are accountable to their shareholders. Their sole motive is to make a profit. Government is accountable to the people. Its motive is to provide for all citizens' basic needs, and (in our case) to ensure that corporations do not abuse their power. Which one would you rather control your wires?
SBC advertises "infinite service" and I know what that means: ... rinse, repeat.
I've had to call SBC twice about billing problems of their own making. Both times Customer Service says "we can't help you" and transfers me to Collections and Credit who says "we can't help you" and transfers me to Customer Service
So can they give this infinite service for my TV dish too?
as a regulated utility, I believe that their profits are all so regulalted; 10% is typical.
If this is correct in this case, if they lose say 1 million, then they can charge higher rates and end up make an extra 100,000 in extra profits.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
After federal and state anti-trust authorities shot down DirecTV's purchase of EchoStar recently, their purchase by a corporation that already has its own state-mandated telephone monopoly is....
I believe it was the other way around, EchoStar tried to purchase DTV. Small detail, yes, but worth pointing out.
puck
"Those of us who dislike government monopolies are left hoping either News or GE wins this one(if a sale even takes place)." -Umm...if you hate _only_ government monopolies, maybe there's some sense in that. But if you think there's a problem with unregulated monopolies you don't wanna be rooting for News Corp.; not that they are a monopoly, but they are an ultra-reactionary right wing entity. I always liked the Disinfo.com Fox News tee-shirts: http://www.cafeshops.com/cp/prod.aspx?p=disinfo.27 19244
Actually I do. I work for a GE subsidiary, NBC to be exact. :-)
Unlike most networks, FOX owns most of the TV stations that are affiliated with them
This is because about ten years ago Rupert Murdoch decided he wanted Fox to be on VHF stations exclusively, and set about buying his way into them. I can see why - I can't pick up UHF stations for shit in my apartment. I get to watch new Simpsons episodes if and when they air, but the *former* Fox affiliate still gets to air the syndicated episodes. And getting cable only solves that particular problem. The whole Time-Warner/FoxSports.net fiasco means that I'd get about 10,000 different ESPN's, but I couldn't watch The Best Damn Sports Show Period at any price.
Don't weep for my plight; I do enough of that myself.
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
I'm one of the "consumers" that ended up paying $4,500 for a SMART CARD PROGRAMMER. ($3500 to DirecTV's law firm, and $1000 to my lawyer.) I hired a lawyer because I AM NOT A THIEF, I'M A SECURITY PROFESSIONAL.
I bought a $35 device on a website for LEGIT purposes (smart card research for a major fortune 100 company) and I got SUED by DirecTV.
In the end, it turned out that paying the $3500 settlement would be cheaper and less risky than fighting it in court. You see, if I lose then I can lose my job and my security credentials, EVEN THOUGH I DID NOTHING WRONG. It's a civil case, not a criminal one, so things like "evidence" and "innocent until proven..." are meaningless. It's just simply a matter of how nasty a picture can their law firm paint of me? Can they make a bunch of non-tech old ladies think I'm a potential pirate?
I hope whoever buys DirecTV goes bankrupt. I will see them in the inner circle of hell. I wouldn't buy a product from any company affiliated with DirecTV if they were giving it away with free sex.
Umm...perhaps you didn't understand the original posters assertion.
Relative to the "left" bias of some news sources, of course fox will seem to the "right"...when in reality it's rather in the center, and IMHO, with occasional right leanings.
If the political left is screwing up alot these days, what do you want them to report? That they are doing well and are correct about things? Of course they'd sound very right biased under those circumstances...doesn't mean they are.
Maybe it will slightly counter the leftist bias from ABC, NBC, CBS, AP, Reuters, and the other media outlets create 95% of all the news stories out there and yet fail to represent their viewers.
What Liberal Media?. Please mod parent -1 Troll.
you are in the market for it
you can get a waiver
you hacked it. I am not in any of the categories. "What you don't get is your local TV station's programming. So you miss your local news, and things like local information on the Weather Channel, as well as independent stations in your area. That's a long way from saying you don't get the Simpsons." If I went to DirectTV, I would not get ANY fox, abc, cbs, nbc. I ask them every month or two, and they confirm it. I'd rather get these east-west feeds anyway, as the local affiliates use bad equipment and pre-empt shows willy-nilly.
Since the local affiliates refuse to grant waivers, and we are not in one of the few markets that have networks on the satellite, i will not get Simpsons at all if I switch.
"All part of the Satellite Home Viewers Protection Act... More like the Big 4 Network protection Act!" It has nothing to do with networks. It has everything to do with protecting local affiliates. This "protection" should not be allowed, anyway. It is like passing a law to get rid of USA Today newspaper boxes in town to protect the local newspaper.
GM has been looking to spin off DirecTV for years now. They want to pare down to a core business (cars), that's why they sold the satellite division of Hughes. They were at first reluctant to let go of the rest, though many of us (I'm a stockholder) think the division wouild do much better on its own. It's certainly not doing well with GM; the stock has fallen for 2-3 years now. GM has appeared indecisive -- a problem with big automobile companies and another reason to pare down.
... depending on whether one wants to stay with the company longterm. I hope they don't screw their subscriber base that has taken so long to build. Murdoch does have a rep for greed.
Bummer the Echostar thing didn't fly. I think that honestly would have been good for consumers. It was the rural customers without cable alternative that were the primary snag, though you'd think something could have been worked out. I don't like the idea of one company owning both cable and satellite businesses.
Some time ago, Rupert's News Corp wanted to buy GM (the whole thing!) as a way to get to DirecTV. The price wasn't right IIRC.
That doesn't mean any old buyer is a good idea
What did the article author mean by "government monopolies"? I missed the gov't element here.
At my company we have SBC internet and webhosing. Their support for web access sucks to high heaven, but that is because they outsource it to another company who is incompantant. The webhosting is another outsourced service which I have been very happy with since I have to make the call when there is a problem or we make a change. I have yet to wait longer then 2 minutes unless there is a major outage, and then they have a recording saying what the problem is.(I think most of their problems are from their windoz servers, we use their Linux hosting.)
If SBC were to buy DirecTv, I would hope they used the same outsourcing stratagy that has worked for their webhosting. Their internet was so bad we cancelled a few weeks ago, and found out that the eaisiest part of SBC net access was the cancellation! What a precision team working in that department, it is such a shame thay are associated with SBC.
In the end it all comes down to what stupid desicion the new managment will make. And stupid managers are everywere!
no
Now, I have a deep and abiding dislike and mistrust for the News Corporation, so perhaps someone who actually lives somewhere under their monopoly can share their experiences?
To be honest, I actually like Sky's (in the UK) output. Other than the occasional price hike my main grumble is when they display a red button in the top of the screen to remind you that they have an interactive service - which often has little to do with the programme being shown (on Sky One at least, some of the other broadcasters who use the red button do so only when there is interactive content associated with programme). I don't see a need for the red button (we never needed to be reminded that teletext was available and most of the 'interactive services' are little more than a pretty version of teletext) but there's no way of permantly shutting it off.
As for competetion it would be nice, but there was competetion on satellite a long time ago (BSB), but they failed. There was again some hope that digital terrestrial tv (DTT) would provide competetion, but the first lot who tried failed, and now DTT is seen as way for people who don't want sky or cable to get a few extra channels.
All in all, while I think sky could be better in some respects, it's still pretty good and it could have been worse (BSB could have won and due to the technology used, it probably wouldn't have more than 10 channels - even if they switched to digital they still would only have had 10 transponders to play with). Anyway, it's not like Sky have a government mandate to force people to buy a subscription even if they just want to watch free tv (unlike a certain other UK broadcaster).
Tk
At some point, somewhere, the entire internet will be found to be illegal.
"Corporations are accountable to their shareholders" That is only one third of the story, and as such is rather misleading. Corporations are accountable to their shareholders AND customers AND workers. Without all 3, the corporation will fail. "Government is accountable to the people." In theory, but since it has a monopoly on power, this just isn't the case most of the time. Instead, it ends up being like a corporation that isn't accountable to anyone.
Im not sure if this was caught but the following is incorrect. "After federal and state anti-trust authorities shot down DirecTV's purchase of EchoStar recently" Echostar was going to purchase direcTV.
Regarding availability of networks and local channels on DTV - I've been a DirecTV subscriber for a few years now. Local channels (all networks and independents) have been available here for about 2 years, IIRC. This is about 65 miles from a major urban area, though it is a rural location - nearest neighbor's a dairy farm, and neither cable nor DSL come out this way. Before the local channels were available, there were national network feeds for ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and PBS. Regarding ownership of one of the major players (no, not Fox:) - current owner of Hughes is General Motors (GM) rather than General Electric (GE).
I live in Ohio and we have always been served by Ameritech. Shortly after SBC bought Ameritech, they started a round of layoffs. Of course, following the layoffs, was horrible service. We had the same story as the Indiana fellow above. However, our Attorney General did something about it.
Ohio took Ameritech/SBC to court and won a $130M settlement. However, the Judge suspended all but $10M pending SBC's improvement in service. They made the improvement and were able to avoid the bulk of the fine. However, they then turned around and started to advertise a "25% improvement in service". They did not mention that this was court ordered and was necessary to avoid enormous fines. They should not have been allowed to advertise this.
I really hope that they don't acquire DirectTV.
peptidbond I was crazy once....
1) GM owns DirectTV, not GE.
2) EchoStar tried to purchase DirectTV, not the other way around. Yes, EchoStar is smaller, no, that doesn't make a difference.
3) Murdoch's Fox is part of News Corp.
4) SBC is not a state-mandated monopoly anymore.
Yeah, lose. Sorry. My wife is an English professor no less. I'm too busy making children to ask her to read over my /. posts though, so you'll have to forgive my poor typing.
RE: the other AC
Insightful? Got no clue. I paid the people with mod points to bump me. Somehow I'm going to acheive perfect karma and then take Bill Gates on kung-fu style...
Grimwell - old, cranky, mean, obsessive
When will telcos learn that branching out into other areas and buy buy buying isn't going to get them anywhere? They buy into things, they lose money and sell them off, they buy into things, they lose money and sell them off... unless there's some backroom accounting which justifies this crap, it seem pretty dumb, even to non-MBAs. SBC should perhaps take care of what they've already got before getting themselves into more complicated tasks (this comes to mind: the month it took SBC/PacBell to try to connect the phone line in my old apartment - in the middle of San Francisco - which they could never get to work, which pushed me into telling them to stick it up their arses and resorting to the use of a cell phone full-time)
RTFM; please, I beg you.
--If SBC buys DirecTV, I will cancel my subscription. SBC service SUCKS. (The Bell breakup was supposed to FOSTER competition and breakup the monopoly, remember?!)
--Seriously, I lived w/o TV for 2 years, I can do it again.
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
Funny how individuals who choose to organize into corporations get to avoid individual responsibility for the corporation's actions. But then that's the whole point of a corporation, right? To avoid liability. "Free association" has nothing to do with it.
I agree with the original reply. Show me where, given a government with a monopoly and a corporation with the same monopoly, the government will abuse it to a greater degree than the corporation, and you might have a case. I have at least SOME say in what the government does; I prefer that my right to vote be guaranteed by the Constitution rather than my portfolio, thank you very much.
Read my keyboard review.
Bummer the Echostar thing didn't fly. I think that honestly would have been good for consumers. It was the rural customers without cable alternative that were the primary snag
Oddly, those are the customers who are most avidly bitching about the blockage of the merger -- if they had been allowed to merge then the resulting company would have enough bandwidth to add pretty much every local in the US -- thus serving the rural customers better (since right now only the top markets get locals). Most rural customers don't even have the right to receive the national feeds because their local OTA signal is good enough (and, honestly, it probably is... but most people don't want to deal with antennas and the muxing necessary to do it right).
Personally, I'm happy to see that they didn't merge, because I do believe we need competition in the sat. broadcast arena, particularly against the cable companies. Of course, I also don't want to see either News Corp or SBC buy DirecTV, since both have a very bad reputation for customer service and decent business tactics. I'm pretty certain that either one would run it into the ground.
"The Nation" is an extreme left publication (one of those that actually lamented when the Soviet Union fell!).
No, the Nation did not lament when the SU fell.
Internet Provider: SBC Yahoo! DSL
How was the changeover? I'm debating whether or not to go from straight SBC DSL to SBCYahoo!DSL. I guess I want to know whether it's worth it to do it now or wait until the email "Congratulations, you are now an SBC Yahoo! DSL customer"
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
DTV is one of the best utilities.
SBC is one of the worst.
I actually had SBC doing customer service for DTV (complicated arrangement reselling video service to my apartment building, and renting on-site service from Pac Bell, of all things).
I would call SBC only during bankers' hours, get nobody who knew how DTV worked, take days trying to get an answer, and not even pay my bill with a credit card. I could call DTV, not mention SBC, and get things done in seconds, 24/7.
They are polar opposites in terms of customer service, and clearly it's because one values it and the other considers it a costly disease.
I was considering getting DTV at my house, but now I will hold off until I find out if this deal goes through, because DTV with SBC on it is utterly not worth the money.
the switch away from your cable company deal isnt as appealing as it might seem. I have comcast cable in my area, and it sucks. Thats why we switched to DirecTv years ago, and are quite happy. However, for internet, we have comcast cable internet, and it works quite well. As bad as Comcast may be, its cable internet is far better than the DSL around here. Guess who's dsl that is? Yep, SBC.
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=2, Troll=1, Redundant=1, Insightful=6, Overrated=1, Underrated=1, Total=12. (not mine)
Ohio AG: We got a ruling that says if you dont improve your service by X% amount, you can't report your profits to SBC, your parent company.
SBC/Ameritech: Consider it done!
Needless to say, here are my experiences with SBC/Ameritech in the last year:
Scheduled appointment to get resedential phone line installed in new home build. Missed appointment by 2 months. Called, bitched, nada. Filed complaint with PUCO (Public Utilities COmission). Phone line installed in 2 days.
Co-worker's SBC DSL line hangs his internet connection whenever he picks up the phone to make a voice call. SBC claims it's not a problem.
Friend got SBC/Yahoo! DSL service through promo. When he talked to SBC, they said he was close enough to the CO that he could get 1.5/384, instead of the standard 768/128. Service started on 768/128 speed. Called and now is told he can't get the faster speed. Upload rate is more like 80k a second to *anywhere*.
SBC started printing 2 different 'amount due' figures on each resedential phone bill. This has to confuse older people.
SBC is running radio ads now bitching about how Sprint/MCI is lobbying them out of long distance service in Ohio. SBC effectively crippled CoreComm from offering reasonable service here.
After moving to my house and getting a phone line installed (the 2 month wait), I could have gotten SBC DSL service. I waited 4 months to get cable modem service. When a geek will wait for broadband, you know something's not quite right ;)
See above for a diagram linking all the major music labels / just about everyone else to 'defense' contractors. Gotta love those frenchy Canadians.
Echostar was trying to buy (or merge... whatever) DirecTV, no vice versa.
Crimy, they could at least throw us a bone with some Chance or Community Chest cards.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
SBC is the most inept group of idiots on planet earth. They can't keep a DSL line operating properly to save their lives. I've DOCUMENTED dozens of cases where end users had nothing but months upon months of problems with SBC/ASI.
The line quality is poor, the quality of service is POOR, the support is POOR. You can NOT get anyone on the line that has anything close to a clue and you spend hours and hours each month on hold fighting with them about OVER BILLING issues.
It's common to get charged for additional DSL accounts on your phone bill, then you get charged for installation on the non existant account, then they charge you for repairs to the ghost account, and so on. When you call and spend hours fighting with them over it and getting shuffled all over the place, they finally promise to take care of it but when your next bill comes you find that ANOTHER account got added on.
It's like a dog chasing it's tail, there is no way you can win with these idiots.
I have three customers (I work on PC's) who called SBC when they could not connect.
(The problem was the SBC went down, NOT the customer. Had the customer waited a few hours the system would have come back online.)
SBC told them to disconnect their NAT routers and install their trashy CD. When these people followed SBC instructions verbatim, their computers were left in an unusable condition.
When they send out some "terbaccy chawin" redneck with his butt crack prominently displayed to repair the damage the phone support people caused, the computers would not even boot up anymore. The end result is that the end user would lose everything on the hard drive because the "tech" would so badly damage the system that he would end up sticking the OEM CD in and wiping everything out.
These people have NO business touching computers or anything else.
They can run wires, "Uh, red wire to red terminal, green wire to green terminal..." but that's the limit of it.
I personally had nothing but total hell with these people with a DSL account at my office, it took me a year to get them to stop billing me for it AFTER they disconnected it. They were charging me for FOUR (4) DSL accounts at my office at the rate of $600 a month when I only had ONE (1) account at the $79 a month rate.
They did the same thing to me at my house, I had DSL there and they were charging me $300 a month for TWO (2) DSL accounts that I did NOT have, I only had ONE (1) account at $49 a month. It took a year to get them to stop billing me. I've never gotten my money back either. They would cut my phone off when I would refuse to pay the over charges, so they robbed me.
They did the same exact thing to another man that I know. Over billed the hell out of him and never gave him his money back.
These people are criminals, they are the Al Capones of the communications industry. They are common thieves, thugs, criminals.
It's no wonder they have all their offices out of state and in big brick buildings with high security.
I personally would strangle a few of them if I could get my hands on them. They have to hide like that because they know that MOST people would strangle them (or worse) if they could get to them. I remember about 25 years ago they had open offices with human beings, you could go in and sit across a desk from a real person and talk nicely with your bill(s) in hand and get things straightend out like civilized people.
Their hiding in brick buildings is akin to a mugger wearing a ski mask when he robs you..
God forbid these idiots consider operating a satellite system, they can't keep a simple DSL system operating properly or provide any manner of support for it.
If SBC takes control of DTV you can expect satellites to rain down from the skies. They could fsck up a wrecking ball with a rubber mallet.
And as it stands, DTV security is an absolute joke, they are hacked 6 ways to Sunday, pretty much free satellite TV for anyone that wants it. Let SBC have a whack at it and the entire planet will be watching DTV for free!!
SBC/ASI/DTV ??? Get your hard hats out and some satellite crash insurance...
DirecTV was NOT trying to purchase Echostar. Echostar was trying to merge with the up-for-grabs DirecTV. Echostar initiated the deal.
>What Liberal Media? [thenation.com].
A lot of people mistake the media for being liberal. When they are really democrats of all colors and shapes. A lot of people still think democrats are liberal when there are probably only a handfull of liberal democrats in office. The democrats and republicans both support dismantling "progressive" social programs such as medicaid to the poor. The only diffrence is by degrees and truth be told it aint much.
Fox's idea of telling both sides is to tell you why the Republicans are right and then tell you why everyone else is wrong.
Whenever a left wing idea is raised on Fox the presenter immediately shouts it down or pour derision on it. Right wing loons like Ann Coulter are treated with absolute respect however.
The fact is that right wing idealogues are so intollerant of any other ideas that merely to hear a left wing view makes them get into a lather. Thats why they have to have their own parallel media where the range of views is Bill O'Riley to Rush Limbaugh and the standard of journalism is set by Matt Drudge.
Rupert understands that producing 'news' for such people is a lot cheaper that real journalism. One shouting head, no matter how well paid is a lot less expensive than a news staff.
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It is no secret that CNN has been moving rightward to try to stem the flow to Fox. However CNN is not prepared to become a full time Republican propaganda machine, it can see why the head of news should not be sending Karl Rove political advice on dealing with the media.
CNN has also backed off its rightward drift after they started to lose viewers to MSNBC as a result.
Another element in the mix is Al Gore's 'Republican Echo Chamber' speech where he showed that its not only the GOP who are prepared to work the refs. It is notable that since Trent Lott was dispatched as a result of that speech there have been absolutely no stories making it out into the mainstream media by way of Matt Drudge, the Washington Times and the Murdoch press. This is not for lack of trying, their current project is to smear Kerry in case he gets the Democratic nomination for President.
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When something is privately owned there is incentive to make customers happy and preserve the asset (land, water, infrastructure, etc...). The people most concerned pay directly for the service. "Public" assets and "businesses" end up with a bunch of glorified clerks making decisions about things and being completely insulated from the effects. Try telling your local government clerk that you pay their salary with your taxes and you want better service. They'll laugh you out of the place. Do the same with a local business and the manager's or owner's response will likely be to thank you for providing them with feedback.
Contrast the service you get from any government utility/service with that of a private business. You'll find that the only poor service private businesses are those that are about to go under or have secured for themselves a special priviledge granted by the, you-guessed-it, government.
"Natural" total monopolies don't exist naturally. The "private" and public forms are created by those representatives you are so proud of having a vote for. Thank them for the service level of companies like SBC and Verizon. If utilities, etc... were really "natural" monopolies, then there would be no need for laws backed by force to protect them.
In a free scenario, as long as they provided good service and pricing, it wouldn't pay for anyone to pay the cost to compete with them, but let them get to the point where it takes months to provide (usually lousy) service and it wouldn't take long for someone to see the opportunity to replace them. It's the customers that lose when the government destroys the efficiency inherent in a price/market based situation. Perhaps you should invest in a good book on basic economics?
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
Strange how Mr Anonymous defends the republican echo chamber against the smear charge by repeating yet again a notorious GOP smear. As has been repeatedly demonstrated on slashdot, Gore never claimed to have invented the Internet. It was a GOP press release that made that claim by deliberately taking a quote out of context.
As for working for a campaign, it is strange how GOP Anonymous Cowards appear to try to shout down any disident views.
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Correct but out of context, the true quote begins, 'in my time in Congress'. A congressional initiative is a funding initiative. The Internet was invented by Vint Cert, Tim Berners-Lee, myself et. al. The Internet was created through a government grant which Gore took the lead in getting funded. Gore's quote was deliberately and maliciously taken out of context by the GOP.
The very fact that you keep trying to peddle such smears shows how little confidence you have in both your arguments and the empty suit you call a President. It also shows how willing you are to deceive both yourselves and the voters.
Small wonder that so few other countries are willing to support the US in war with Iraq, the problem is that Bush simply has no credibility and that is the result of his own deceptions and evasions. In two years the failure in the Whitehouse has turned a historic budget surplus into a historic deficit, started a war but failed to finish it with the capture of either the Taleban or Al Qaeda leadership, lost a majority in the Senate through sheer incompetence and alienated every other major power with the sole exception of the UK. About the only campaign pledges he has kept are giving out huge tax 'cuts' for the hyper-rich which are not really cuts at all but transfers of the tax burden to future generations and not having any blow jobs in the oval office.
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And whose campaign pledge was all about taking responsibility? Yep the empty suit in the Whitehouse who has tried to evade responsibility at every turn.
Bush can't even keep his Harken oil lies straight. One minute its the SEC lost his filing, the next it is his lawyers to blame.
Perhaps those lawyers were also to blame for the gap in his military records when he went AWOL for 14 months?
It takes a very special type of coward to manage to both dodge the draft by getting Daddy to pull strings and then actually desert to boot.
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Yet another GOP fib, first off the President lost the popular vote, secondly he was the one who went to court to steal the election by stopping the votes being counted. The man is a fraud, deal with it.
As for the opinion polls the failure in the Whitehouse claims not to govern by, Clinton was actually more popular at this point in his term, despite the Lewinsky scandal. Bush I was phenominaly popular and look where it got him.
He's been quite forthcoming and honest about the Harkin thing, which is why it is ancient history, gone over and dismissed during the Texas years
He has refused to answer all questions on the Harken scandal. Every question has been referred back to the SEC 'investigation' run by his Dad's appointees.
And the reason we are going back to Harken is that Bush made his money at Harken through precisely the same fraudulent stock and accounting tricks used at Kenny-boy Lay's Enron.
Bush served his country during the Vietnam War. Like a huge number of people, he served stateside
His commanding officer states that he did not report for duty, there are no records of him serving anywhere else. That is called being AWOL.
One would think that the GOP would have at least given you instructions on how to sign up instead of having to be an AC all the time. As it is it looks like I might be having this argument with myself as a way of bringing to people's notice the corruption, cowardice and incompetence of the failure in the Whitehouse.
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Typically, when government takes over a "problem" they tend to make it much worse. Traffic congestion? Roads are almost all owned by governments.
True, privately run roads might be better, but can you imagine how much the tols would be? And people scream about gas taxes now!
Pollution/environment?
Oh, yes, Before the government got involved, industry was just clamoring to fix the enviromental harm they've caused over the last two hundred years.
Post offices vs. the private Federal Express...
Hmmm... I can send a letter in two-three days for $3.85, picked up with your mail, delivered to any address in the US, or Fedex in two days for >$10.00 (depending on distance), but you have to drop it off & delivery to a residential address is extra. Sure, one is guaranteed, the other isn't, but for 99% of deliveries, do you really need a time guarantee? And before you say "but the post office loses (or damages) packages", ship packages daily as part of a previous job. We shipped probably 1000 packages during the time that I was there & never once had one lost or damaged (though we packed everything to prevent damage). Admittedly, that's not a huge sample, but it's big enough.
And, while I have less experience with Fedex, try comparing the service from the Post Office with that of Airborne Express (an equally valid comparison by your standard). I'll take the post office any day.
the examples could go on for hours.
And so could my responses. But since you're clearly an idiot, let's just drop it here, ok?
BTW, thats GM that owns Hughes
You get porn on DirecTV???
Who knew life could be this funny?