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FCC To End Exclusive Cable For Apartments
spiffyman writes "The New York Times is reporting that on Wednesday the FCC will end exclusive contracts to provide cable service to apartment buildings. Commission Chairman Kevin J. Martin is quoted as saying that cable prices have risen 'about 93 percent in the last 10 years' and that the FCC hopes to see more competition out of this move. This is a step in the right direction. In my apartment, for example, I have (dead) outlets for one cable company but am forced to go with the higher-priced firm. Moves like this will help those who live in areas where competition — even minimal competition — exists. The article also discusses the impact this may have on low- to middle-income families, who disproportionately live in apartment complexes."
Across the road is the company I've wanted. They have excellent packages at good prices, but the one for my block has poorer packages and a poor reputation for service. I'm hoping this means both can compete, along with AT&T, for my block of flats, which should give me better options and service. Though I still smell a fish. There's been competition between cable and satellite for years, but prices are still rather steep.
Cable is such a swindle I haven't give it much thought. The FCC screws up often enough, it's about time they did something right.
ISR TV watches you, &c. &c. &c.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Sure they do.
Um, not like I want to defend cable companies and their pricing, but "93% in 10 years" is to my mind an inflammatory way of saying "an average of 6.7% per year over the last 10 years." Given that overall the consumer price index has averaged about a 3% increase per year over that period, cable prices are bad, but not as bad as the quote makes it sound. Then again, entire industries (credit cards, for example) owe their existence due to people's inability to compute compounded interest, so perhaps the wording should be no surprise.
...don't riot.I'm surprised if they even vote in an election, rather than for American Idols.
I am seriously impressed with the song performed by Jackson Browne, years and years ago: Lawyers In Love. At first I thought it was funny. Now I don't think it was intended to amuse.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I wish they had done this before I got an apartment. The one I had used a cable company called Optel. It was the most horrible thing I ever experienced.
They used an old (like from the early 80s) satellite dish to cable converter within the complex. The equipment was so old that all of the channels including the premium ones were mono. When I called to complain they acted like I should be thankful that I got any signal at all.
Then they disconnected me instead of my neighbor who had moved out and refused to fix it for an entire week because they only send a tech to the complex once per week no matter how many people are broken or why they are broken and of course the tech had just been there disconnecting people.
When I finally moved out they continued billing me until someone else moved in (yes, I called them and told them I was leaving). I didn't find out about it until they sent a collections agency after me.
For that fine level of service I had to pay $115/month.
When cable companies are still monopolies in many areas? Sure you can say "satellite", but in many areas, there are obstacles to the south, not to mention landlords who don't like satellite dishes on their property. I once had a landlord that would refuse to allow such a dish, though I have heard the law has changed since then. Anyone have more info?
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
Does this mean on Thursday I can get a different cable company?
But there are a few problems:
1: Areas where these limitations are in effect typically have low competition anyway, due to the stranglehold the dominant company has in the area.
2: Getting landlords and property managers to figure out how to work out the details between different cable/satellite/phone companies will be a comedy of errors at best.
3: Landlords/property managers will come up with (or be told by the existing contracted company) bull such as "You're not allowed to do that because they have to run more wires through the wall" or "You can't do that because you'd have to mount an ugly satellite dish on the exterior of the building" (even if not true).
It's a step in the right direction, though I think they should simply ban the bundling of these services to your rental agreement entirely. Having a choice is one thing, but getting the money back (because you're opting out of the bundled service) is another. How will you know that the $50 you get back on rent every month is accurate?
the next logical step would be the Internet providers...
Disproportionate: "Out of proportion, as in size, shape, or amount."
/should/ live in the burbs? I rather like my low-footprint urban lifestyle, thanks. Don't miss lawn-mowers at all.
How do you mean? Low- to middle-income people are the vast bulk of the population. Do you mean disproportionate to some fantasy that everyone lives in the burbs? That everyone
This is a joke. I live in MD near Washington DC and live in an apt complex (I can feel the weird stockers already!). This will do nothing to help the problem. In the handful of places that have more then one cable option fab for them, but almost everywhere in the US the county signs an exclusive deal with the cable people... Not the apt owners.
Until the FCC does something to make it faster for cable peoples to get into an area and makes it so the county can't sign an exclusive deal... Well lets just say I won't be holding my breath.
Pete/Petri "damn, my chainsaw is clogged with 1's and 0's again." --clyde
The FCC should look to end exclusive cable contracts for cities. City governments should not have the power to restrict freedom of contract between individuals and cable companies.
Property owners should be free to decide whose cables run into their property, and this includes landlords as well as individuals.
Just what the world needs, cheaper access to TV ads.
The Generation
I'd say something witty here, but I'm not that bright.
Ending these exclusive contracts is a good idea and I'm glad the FTC is doing this. The only problem is I don't see this really having an impact on Cable prices. The problem is a vast majority of people still won't have a choice since cable companies already divide up local areas.
For example the apartment I live in doesn't have an exclusive contract but the ONLY company I can get cable with is Comcast. Same thing is true at my Parent's house and they live 2000 miles away in another state. We won't see cable prices decrease until we start to see multiple cable companies competing for business in the same city. The large cable operators would rather just divide up the country into local monopolies than actually compete on price.
My parents service is another good example of how these companies work. Their cable company Time Warner decided to trade their city for another city with Comcast. Out went their former internet service and in came Comcast with the exact same package only $20 more, with P2P throttling. Their city doesn't have an exclusive franchise agreement with any cable company, and any company would be welcome to come in and establish a second franchise. No one wants to bother since they can all make more being little local monopolies sucking their customers dry.
Mobile home parks? Same principle applies.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
In using the number of channels for basing rates I think those where a cable company gets kickbacks for sales or carrying a signal (like shopping channels), and those channels where the cable company is selling and inserting local advertising, should counts as a minus one. In both cases they're serving their own interest, generally not that of subscribers. And the selling of advertising without having to maintain news departments or do much in the way of serious community service, seriously undermines the viability of broadcasters that may be trying to do the right things. (Those are becoming scarce, but that's another discussion)
If cable is going to be advertising supported, they should provide all of the basic channels for free (except for installation fees).
I hope the choice as to which cable feed goes into an apartment is made outside somewhere. I don't think a property owner or tenant should have to put up with a bunch of extra holes in walls and more clutter from wires. In places that are already built it may be difficult to cleanly add the wiring though.
I'd really like to see cable work without cable boxes. Millions of those powered up 24/7 wastes quite a bit of energy, and subscribers only get access to one channel at a time instead of all of them.
Why anyone with low income would waste it on cable (not to mention the time wasted watching it) is beyond me.
Look up the limey equivalent of the FCC for help with your situation.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The problem with cable/satellite is not the lack of competition by service providers (though I'm not thrilled by that). The big problem is the lack of competition by content providers.
Back in the 80s, anybody with an uplink could start a cable channel. They still can, but they have no hope of finding any local cable companies to carry them. All their bandwidth is used up by big media companies who have gamed the system so that cable companies have to carry all kinds of crap, and pay premium prices for it. Until that changes, you'll be shelling out.
Or you could just do without. I mean, it's only TV.
Cable - 75 channels $52 a month. Satellite, 250 channels, $45 a month. Cable is dead, Satellite, FiOS and DSL are in.
What are low-income families doing with cable anyway? I don't mean to sound like Scrooge, but it pisses me off when an elementary school kid shows up at school without a coat in the dead of winter because his parents "can't afford one," but they sure can afford to pay the cable bill every month. /rant
My grandmother used anecdotal evidence all the time, and she lived to be 120 years old.
I sure got jerked around by the ISP that had an exclusive deal at my apartment in college. The first year the deal was with a company that couldn't keep the connection up reliably and had very little bandwidth. Then that company went out of business and they went with the local cable company that most people in town were reasonably happy with (Insight Broadband in Champaign). But since they had an exclusive deal on the building they put the screws to us: charged us $20/month per person (I had two roommates, so combined we paid twice as much as we would have normally) and, even worse, put us behind NAT. Yes, that's right, the whole fucking building behind one IP address. I wrote a letter to them (the gist of it being, "If you don't give me an IP address it's not Internet service, it's web'n'email service, which is not what I signed up for"). They didn't even respond.
I blame myself for the first year... I really should have read more closely and figured out whether the company was any good. The second year I really got blindsided, though... the landlord thought the price was $20/mo. for the three of us and didn't find out otherwise until after we'd signed the lease and made our first payment towards Internet service... the NAT thing I didn't know until I booted my computer and saw the dhclient spew scroll by. Ten-dot... hey!
My apartment complex has been selling me cable that is really repackaged satellite. We often get Satellite commercials saying "change to channel FOO to get pay per view BAR". Sometimes late at night, the channels start ghostly surfing through the satellite menu system, reorganizing channels, and it's definitely not a computer program doing it; too human. I'm hoping that it accidentally leaves on some of the better channels (I don't get SCI-FI). I've been getting Internet service from the same folks, and if they didn't block VPN ports et al, it would be nice internet.
Here in San Diego we have 2 major cable providers: Cox and Time Warner (better than only Comcast in CT). And the competition helps lower the costs. My friends with houses get cheap cable.
In my building we have to $52/month to get basic cable from some generic provider "University Cable", (my apartment is not associated with any university mind you). After paying the basic we are allowed to pay Time Warner for digital cable, but you also have to get basic cable from Time Warner. So, to get the cheapest package from Time Warner, I am paying $70/month and if you want cable internet that'll cost ya more. Ugh.
Seriously. Even though it's the year 2007, and you might live in a high cost area, 65 channels of nothing on should only run you $30. They saw YOU coming.
What are low-income families doing with cable anyway?
Some apartments come with cable in much the same way that some include certain utilities.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
This has probably been one of the worst things about living in an Apartment (the exclusivity agreements with craptacular Comcast).
I've been trying to get away from their twice as expensive internet that's shared with the entire Apartment Complex for a long time now, but no other providers seem to be available mysteriously, even though houses right across the street in any direction can acquire services from at least three other providers.
It was then that I did some investigating, and found out my complex had one of these agreements.
Right. I call it extortion.
They have the balls to give us an all-or-nothing claim when you get an apartment here: pay for Comcast internet at twice the normal price, or get nothing. On top of that, the node only goes into the complex in general. So while you're promised 3mbps at 60$ a month (which other providers like AT&T will give for 20$/month), you actually get 3mbps divided by however many people in the complex happen to be using it at the time.
The net result, at least here, ends up in a 60$/month dial-up connection quality internet.
I've been pissed at this. I hope the end of these agreements will signal the beginning of the end for Comcast, who can't keep up with the FTTP times and who's been making the lion's share of their money off of these extortion deals for quite some time.
May they rot in hell. As soon as this passes, I'm waddling my happy fat ass over to SureWest for a 10mbps fiber connection at the same price I'm paying for Comcast's (chuckle) 3mbps "service" right now.
-Vendal Thornheart
The apartment complex I live in has an exclusive contract with the worst ISP I have ever used. They charge $100/month for Internet access that barely works. When there's no competition, they can charge whatever they feel like. Luckily I'm leaving this place next year after I graduate next year. It's good to know that I won't have to look forward to this anymore.
I don't live in an apartment. So now, my cable bill will go down (okay, the next rate hike will be delayed), cause I am no longer subsidizing someone else's home cost.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Living in apartments and dealing with cable... My heart goes out to all those that suffer in these sub-par conditions.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Just heard an interview of Kevin Martin, FCC's chairman, on NPR. Why, the NPR interviewer asked repeatedly. Martin stayed the course of the answer "cable price had been rising, and competition will reduce it."
Of course, the true reason is that AT&T and Verizon kicked the crap out of Comcast and friends in behind-the-scene (?) bribery (lobbying, campaign contribution, whatever), and Martin being a good industry shill is doing the winner's bidding. Because it's impossible to determine anything unless backed by large chunk of lobbying money.
Less than two hours ago I called Comcast and canceled my cable packet. The cheapest HD package I was able to get has been costing me $65 a month for a year. I am in suburban PA. I am aware that Verizon FIOS Internet will be available shortly in my apartment complex, and now I have a slight hope that they will be allowed to provide cable TV as well.
I'd rather purchase a business linkup than have Comcast. The twelve minutes they had me on hold wasn't too bad. The fifteen minutes after that they tried to convince me not to cancel sucked balls, though.
...for contributing to the wrong campaign funds! Ha! Serves them right!
As has already been mentioned, a basic cable connection is often included in apartment prices. When these contracts are done away with, perhaps renters will be able to insist on not getting the connection and can go find a cheaper option themselves. Or, barring that, the apartment complex will be able to offer cheaper packages. Not that they will, but...
Beside all that, there is the simple fact that cable connections are often the only forms of high-speed Internet access available to many families. And it's plain that Internet access is a necessity, or at least a massive benefit, to the children of these families. Sometimes the library just isn't a viable option. So I, for one, wholeheartedly approve of the FCC's action and hope it leads to lower prices for families who need the cable companies' services.
So you can laugh all you want to...
The article also discusses the impact this may have on low- to middle-income families, who disproportionately live in apartment complexes."
Now I hate cable monopolies as much as the next guy (have Comcast because I practically live in a forest that prevents view of satellites). But come on - you don't *need* cable. If people are paying the cable bill over, say, rent, groceries, or health insurance, there's a clear imbalance of priorities here.
What about all the nursing homes, trailer parks, and low income buildings that are wired with BULK (Cable is in the rent) accounts? Do these people really think their rent is going to drop 50 or 60bux a month? .gov!
Guess what. Thats not how buying things in bulk works. Maybe your rent goes down $20 because of this great new law but now you get to pay $55 to have the same thing you had before. Ya! Go
Who do you think is going to pay to rewire (wallfish/snake, rip up walls) these bulk places so that each unit can be turned on/off by its self?
Thats right. You!
More laws always fix everything....
I have to return some videotapes...
The landlord can say something like "You can install the dish anyware you want as long as its on your balcony and not bolted to the building"
Fine if your balcony is on the south west side of the building (here on the east coast) but if your on the north east side your SOL.
He can still ban you from putting holes in his building or holes in his roof.
I have to return some videotapes...
Yeah, heaven forbid the poor have decent Internet access. REmember, Jesus hates the poor, hates them having Internet access and hopes they'll all catch some horrible disease which a proper, God-fearing society won't want to cure them from. Internet should only be for the people that Jesus loves, those with money.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I think you missed the point completely.
Internet != basic need. Kids who are hungry, or cold in the winter without appropriate clothing, but who's parents pay for high speed internets rather than a coat are the issue. Not poor people having internet.
I live in an apartment complex, and let's say I wanted to cancel Charter and order service from the small local cable company. How, exactly, would they be able to get their signal to me? I seriously doubt the complex's manger is going to let them dig the trench needed to run their cable to my building's utility closet.
Come test your mettle in the world of Alter Aeon!
...a vast 500 channel waste-land. The best choice with Cable TV is to cancel it altogether.
...neither do lazy, fat-ass Slashdot readers. Coincidence?
That said, cable fees have been rising markedly faster than inflation for quite some time. If someone actually competed with them, one would think that prices would go down, not up. But where we don't have a government enforced monopoly, we have a lovely corporate oligopoly instead, colluding to raise their rates 'competitively'. Just like in government, what we can sorely use is a viable 3rd party candidate.
So... The FCC agrees that we need more competition with cable to bring/keep prices in line, but doesn't feel the same about internet access? Sigh.
healthcare costs, a lot of food products, a lot of automotive parts, airplane parts-and top executive salaries, except 93% is very lowball, only for the peon class top executives, the guys who have to share small corporate jets. The rest of them are much, much higher than that.
Oh ya, the cost of running political campaigns, that's running higher than 93% as well from ten years ago.
I work for an ISP (Webpass) that does this exclusively-- we bring a T3-speed (or higher) connection into an apartment or condo building and share it with the residents. We come across all kinds of nonsense with [insert national cable company conglomerate here]. They take up entire backboards in telecom closets. They take our equipment off the wall and leave it dangling. They lock up everyone's termination lines in a box to keep out competition. They pull in-use (and marked) pairs off of phone boards to bring in their crappy phone service. I could rant on and on.
All in all, they suck. We've come across a lot of building managers who actually refuse to let them into a building, due to some dispute. Sometimes they charge up to $30,000 to come into a building, and then demand an exclusive contract. It would be good to see some more healthy competition to keep these bastards from monopolizing.
In 5-10 years one cable company will have bought up all the other ones. It's happening right now with Bell (again). The FCC is more braindead than Terri Schiavo.
then their parents just arent thinking, ive worn sweat-shirts in the dead of winter and i have a nice leather jacket. sweat-shirts cost less than dollars.
> How about you don't live in an apartment, or if you do, suffer the consequences instead of being a whiny bitch?
Because in places like Silicon Valley and New York, you literally have to be a married millionaire (whose spouse has a well-paying job as well) to even FANTASIZE about buying a house or condo.
Besides, if you read the complaints of most Slashdotters, they're less upset about paying $x+$y vs $x than they are about having to endure subpar internet access that's their ONLY option, hokey smalltime providers who wouldn't know what a 'cablecard' was if you shoved one up their CEO's ass, and other crap that just plain isn't acceptable to someone paying $1,800/month (or more) for a decent apartment in those areas.
The Inland Northwest (Spokane Area) has Comcast and more Comcast. There isn't competition. it's a complete monopoly in the area of Cable. They justify that one can get DISH or DirecTV so there is competition. There is competition in Satellite but not in Cable.
more progress (as in: become available to the customer) of a-la-carte channel packages.
This keeps being promised but I haven't seen anything become of it yet.
I'm fed up with having to pay for 90 cable channels I never watch just for the 2 or 3 I want to.
I can live with absurdly poor "Stellar Communications" TV, I can't deal with the bullshit that Embarq makes us put up with. It's annoying that we get horrible reception on most channels and lose it entirely in even slightly breezy weather but the internet is just unusuable.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
If you ever doubted, even for a moment, that laws are written for the benefit of the thieves and cheats, you need look no further than these cable slimeballs. A real estate company that owns a significant percentage of the high-rise apartment buildings in my city signed a deal with the local cable scumbags. Within weeks, signs went up in every building demanding that all satellite dishes be taken down "for safety reasons". A dish weighing about a tenth what an average flower box weighs allegedly represents some kind of safety hazard all of a sudden.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
... from your local library. Go read a book.
A simple Sweater won't keep you warm for much of the far north states. When you have a a foot of snow on the ground a simple sweater won't have a chance to hold off that frost bite.
I don't know everything.
Where I live there is one company that owns a majority of rental properties in town. That company doesn't include cable TV, but only allows it's tenants to purchase cable TV from a particular cable company, which also happens to charge something like $50-60/mo for basic service.
Interestingly enough, unless you live in one of those apartment complexes, you can't get service from that company at all. The provider that offers cable television to everyone else in town charges something like $25 or $30 for the same level of service, which they call "life line". The "Basic" service they offer for $40 has significantly more channels than the other companies $50 service.
If both companies were allowed to compete for those apartments, either the exclusive company would go belly up, or they would compete for the rest of the customers in town as well, and we might get some really good rates. I suspect they'd go belly up, however, which would still be good for those customers.
He didn't miss anything. He just knows that's what the government is for.
It is just like the push for universal health care. We have quite a majority of people without coverage of some sort, that could easily afford it by making some basic changes in their life style. Cable is just the beginning too. Between Internet, pay channels, pay per view movies and the DVR package, some people spend $170-200 a month or more. Combine that other factors like cars and gas, credit card debt and everything and you could possibly see a savings large enough that they aren't poor families anymore.
rewriting history since 2109
Wow... That straw man almost blows itself over.
m0nstr42.blogspot.com
"No one wants to bother since they can all make more being little local monopolies sucking their customers dry."
Obviously that business model works for the porn industry.
What are low-income families doing with cable anyway?
/rant
Excuse me? So what's the income bracket where people are allowed to start watching cable TV? Ass.
I don't mean to sound like Scrooge, but it pisses me off when an elementary school kid shows up at school without a coat in the dead of winter because his parents "can't afford one," but they sure can afford to pay the cable bill every month.
That would piss me off too if, of course, it ever actually happened. How do you know they had cable TV? Were you a prick and actually asked the kid if he had cable TV? Or are you just making this up?
Stop by and watch a Christmas movie, commercial or cartoon! -->http://www.XmasDVD.com
As has already been mentioned, a basic cable connection is often included in apartment prices. When these contracts are done away with, perhaps renters will be able to insist on not getting the connection and can go find a cheaper option themselves. Or, barring that, the apartment complex will be able to offer cheaper packages. Not that they will, but...
Not really, the landlords will just say "The government made us take away your free cable, so no you'll have to pay for it yourself." and still charge the same rent.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I don't mean to sound like Scrooge, but it pisses me off when an elementary school kid shows up at school without a coat in the dead of winter because his parents "can't afford one," but they sure can afford to pay the cable bill every month. /rant
Show me the kid and show me the cable bill. Then and only then will I mod you up to +4. Ronald Reagan was the past master of the welfare anecdote. What became real to him didn't need any better proof.
I got sick of paying the ever increasing cost of cable back when there was only 32 channels and local FM stations. All I ever watched was some 4 or 5 channels, the rest I could care less about. Besides, I have higher priorities, having food, power, water and the Internet ;). I remember asking the cable company when they were going to offer HBO, Showtime and Cinemax in stereo, they said don't hold your breath. It was going to require a hardware upgrade that they didn't see fit to do. Go figure...
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
Rented a town home in a development when we dumped our house in the burgeoning RE market. Had directv for years and loved it.
...
The development had an agreement with Comcast, which I abhor. I called the management and asked if I could have a satellite installed
and they politely said no (the mgmt here is really great, so no complaints). Got comcast, hated it, cancelled. My neighbor had
directv installed a couple of months later. Never asked for permission. I called the very next day and went with Dish (better
HD programming at the time, and not at all unhappy). Shortly thereafter there was an explosion of satellite dishes all over the
development.
The bottom line, for me, is that people get stuck paying higher prices for what is, in many cases (certainly in mine) an inferior
product.
Just a little nugget to toss into the discussion
In most parts of the US, telecommunications competition for the consumer doesn't exist. It's a big joke.
IF you can get DSL, it's usually 2 tiers below cable speeds (I know it doesn't HAVE to be that way, but it generally is. SpeakEasy DSL isn't available everywhere where DSL is).
In areas where there IS cable-cable competition, outfits like Comcast DO lower their prices. That's only a few cities. Everywhere else, Comcast charges $50-$60/month for Internet, AND blocks P2P AND boots off customers who are bigger consumers ('bandwidth hogs').
Verizon FIOS was an interesting development... until Verizon made a decision (at least in NH) to cancel deployment in zip codes with lower incomes.... and now are trying to pull out of the state altogether. Some installations are being completed, but most Verizon NH crews have been relocated deep into Mass as punishment for the NH Verizon workers speaking out about the sale of NH Verizon assets to some sketchy company no none's heard of.
The irony of all this is, Verizon WAS deploying FIOS in my neighborhood last year. My street was skipped over because Verizon must be invited in to wire condo developments... and it took a year for the association to ask.. now it's too late.
At one point my hometown Nashua NH was going to deploy citywide 802.11 wireless... until Verizon pressured the state capital. Yes , the same Verizon who is stonewalling new FIOS installations.
There's absolutely no reason that Internet should be $50/month and at those prices, not even universally available. It's like cell phone technology in the US being permanently 3 years behind everyone else. Government and old industry are colluding to keep the US behind the rest of the world.
Exactly. I'm getting tired of these welfare stereotypes. What's next, more 'low to middle income families' getting several welfare checks per day?
A while ago, my family was helping out another family in Elizabeth, New Jersey that was having some hard times. When we went to their place, we were surprised to see they had cable tv, since our family decided against it because of the cost. When we asked them about it, they said that it was for the kids, to give them an option besides going outside into the streets. They were concerned about the crime and gangs in their neighborhood, and they couldn't afford to move to a better neighborhood.
So, that's one family's take on it. I can see their point.
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
You've got a good point. But I have to admit that when I babysit for my friends, it's very handy to pull up something meaningful from the cable TV and watch it with the kids, explaining things and playing games with it, than to go digging through their CD's or DVD's or mine for some rainy day entertainment.
The weather channels and news channels are also amazingly useful for farmers and other low income people living closer to nature than most of us Slashdot posters.
FCC was created to oversee the radio waves. Since that time they have continued to overstep their bounds. Another government entity that gobbles up power and tax money. They should have nothing to do with cable companies and who has access to what and what words or pictures are broadcast.
What really needs to happen is that exclusive agrements of any kind for utility providers need to be disallowed. Among others: 1) Electricity 2) Natural Gas 3) Phone Service 4) Cable Television 5) Internet Access Basicly there need to be universal infrastructure installation requirements which would then allow any provider willing to build such an infrastructure to do so without a need for negotiating with every city, town, county and state in the area for permission to do so. Groups of such utilities could also band together to shere the installation costs. Only a full scale measure such as this would allow true and fair competition. The current trend of allwoing unregulated monopolies is completely in the disinterest of the consumer.
Im sorry people who rent don't own the building and the person who does own it is running a business. Its his property, his livelihood. Its wrong for him to *have* to provide for other services but should he wish to thats is ok.
I can see their point.
Their point is, if you're willing to give us money to buy food then we're willing to spend our own on cable tv.
One of the apartments I lived in in the last 5 years had an exclusive contract with a no-name cable company. Our complex was one to which they did not provide Internet access, and despite being in an urban area we had no affordable alternatives such as DSL. As a result, I had to wait nearly a year for Comcast to buy out the smaller company and offer Internet access. While the exclusive contract propped up a small company, it also locked me out of Internet access at home for a year, so I'm all for the change. It's encouraging to see that the FCC is finally realizing just how delusional they were being in thinking that there was real competition among service providers. Cable vs. DSL doesn't cut it in areas where one, the other, or both is not available.
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
This is just awesome, i'm so happy about this. SBC Home Entertainment, now AT&T, are worse than the teamsters about abusing the people trapped by these exclusive deals. I've been stuck for the past few years with my only cable option being a package deal that only provides you with about 40 channels total, and costs over $40 a month. They really exploit people unlucky enough to be trapped by these exclusive contract deals.
I read in a few posts that these monopolies are illegal. What sort of action can a citizen take to combat these?
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
Because low income houses need their boob tube! Heaven forbid that they do something other than wasting time & money sitting on their ass.
My job takes me into a lot of government subsidized affordable and low income housing, and you would be surprised just how many of those homes have enormous TVs. Usually high speed internet is not a priority, but entertainment systems and premium cable/satellite are fairly common. Much bigger and better than mine and those of most people I know. Meanwhile the kids are literally running around without clothes, but at least they have something nice to watch...
Growing up as one of those low-income kids with cable, I agree that many families had different priorities than more affluent families. I always thought that this was one contributing factor that continued the cycle of poverty. However, I would not be too harsh on those families and paint everyone with the same brush.
Since many low-income families typically work more to support the family (especially in a single parent household), cable is seen as a necessity to babysit children while the parent(s) are at work. As mentioned previously, cable has entertainment value that is seen as necessary for an already stressed life.
Also, even in elementary school, kids are group-oriented and clothing choices are just one way to exclude others from a group. Perhaps the coatless child had a winter coat that was dirty and full of holes. Despite the cold weather, some kids would rather be cold than be laughed at. Also, the child may have removed the coat after he left his house. In the winter I had to wear an ugly used woolen cap on my head at the insistence of my grandma. But as soon as I was out of sight, I removed it because I didn't want to be laughed at. Social pressure and fear of embarrassment can be very powerful to young children.
Unfortunately, many families are unaware of the numerous organizations that will provide free clothing for children upon request. Another factor is that some low-income parents did not start off poor. Loss of job, high medical expenses, etc. can cause families to become poor. Some people are too proud to admit they need help. They don't realize that this pride impacts the welfare of their children, but people are not always rational and are sometimes blind to issues right in front of their face.
So don't be quick to judge disadvantaged families. A more helpful approach would be to have the schools work with local charity organizations to anonymously provide coats to children for free as needed. I'm sure there are other ways to be helpful without being condescending. Sometimes pride is the only thing a person has.
Sorry for my rant but I've encountered too many people (even friends) of the opinion that the poor (whether on or off welfare) were lazy, stupid and lacked drive. While this may be true for some, most families were decent hard-working individuals caught up in a bad situation and just trying to make ends meet. I always took the opportunity to inform others that the situation was not always so simple. Instead of criticizing those in need and learning to understand the motives behind people's actions, the needs of others can be tended to more effectively.
Being poor doesn't mean that you know how to budget your money...in fact, in some cases, some families may become poor due to their lack of understanding of how to create and follow a budget.
You also have to consider that many poor families don't have access to other forms of entertainment other than the television. Attending movie theatres are way too expensive, as are sporting events or community arts events. In some ways, cable is a smart choice for their entertainment dollar in that for $60 a month the entire family gets the entertainment they desire 24 hours a day.
Just because they're poor doesn't mean they're not willing to spend a lot on a good babysitter.
"Look up the limey equivalent"
You mean like a FCC Margarita?
"But this one goes to 11!"
Yes they should be out in the streets causing mayhem instead. The thing is, people need some sort of entertainment in their lives, and i'd rather be indirectly subsidizing some tv than have even more youths wandering the streets or having loud outdoor parties 24/7.
Yeah, if they didn't buy that TV they could probably afford one or two months of health insurance! Look, I don't condone blowing a wad on something stupid like an entertainment system, but I can kind of understand the mindset: "I have a crappy apartment, crappy car, but at least I can get this huge TV from the rent-to-own shysters for only 40 bucks a month, so what the hell?"
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Diversification is good for everyone in apartment. My mom owns an apartment and we don't limit which company they use as long they don't charge us, the owner, the installation cost since it is not every unit that wants it and we don't use it so is it fair that the tenant pay for it.
Read the discussion board for the local paper where I am. They're already making claims about that bad here. There are a lot of *really* vocal neo-cons here (in an economically depressed area where it makes very little sense to be that way).
Of course, they are the same people who have made claims that no person is worth $20/hour and that companies don't care if a town has nice schools and libraries, etc.
I am often amazed that I don't have a dent in my desk from where my forehead slams into it...
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
No, they don't need anything regulated for them. They need to be cut off completely, and left to starve in the street.
Only when their team wins the world series. Much safer.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Well the people who really ARE poor don't own the ridiculous sized TVs. It's usually just that the declared income of the resident is 10k, but there's always someone living there not on the lease who is paying for the big screen and the chrysler 300, or in one case 2 mercedes...
"paying for the big screen and the chrysler 300, or in one case 2 mercedes..."
Damn!
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.