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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."
Since 1996, apartment dwellers have had the right to have a dish installed in an unobtrusive manner. The law trumps all lease agreements and landlord's rules. In my old apartment, it seemed like every other apartment had one installed, either on a pole in the back of a 1st floor unit or on the balcony of a 2nd floor unit.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
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.
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.
Municipality-granted local cable monopolies in the U.S. have been illegal for over a decade.
Now, you still have lots of ways corrupt officials in municipalities can effectively keep a monopoly in place, through the local franchising authority. But unless your county officials belong in a federal prison for corruption, the reason you don't have cable competition is that no competitors are interested in laying cable.
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.
What's the status of Over-the-Air Broadcast TV? Is that still available?
Yes. Analog up to 2012 and digital thereafter.
Do the rabbit ears still do the trick?
Depends how close you live to the stations, but I'm sure it still works as well as it ever did. If it's a long-term situation a permanent antenna is always an option too.
Will I need to upgrade to a "digital broadcast" receiver when the government cuts off the broadcast of TV (which I think is scheduled for 2008)?
I think that was originally scheduled for 2009 but the broadcasters don't have their acts together, so that was recently pushed back to 2012 if I recall. By then high-def TVs with internal tuners will probably be nearly ubiquitous. Eventually they are supposed to switch, but they keep pushing it back, so I wouldn't bet on them switching by 2012.
1: Areas where these limitations are in effect typically have low competition anyway, due to the stranglehold the dominant company has in the area.
I lived in an apartment in Virginia once that used some ass backwards cable company based in Georgia, who didn't provide any internet access, when I was literally 400 yards from Adelphia's main regional office. There's competition almost everywhere.
Where I live now, my cable is serviced by NTC. NTC treats every customer as if they were a college student, offering student packages, absolutely craptastic cable (40 channels, but channels below 7 and above 33 are unwatchable because of snow), and they also do the (pisspoor analog) phone service and the (passable) internet service. I am not a college kid, I just live here, and I'm sick of your bullshit and your exclusivity. Suck it, NTC.
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.
What's to work out? The end user will be the one signing up.
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).
My satellite dish is on a pole in a 5 gallon bucket of concrete in the backyard of my townhouse. My apartment complex can SUCK IT. So can yours. Your apartment complex CAN NOT BY FEDERAL LAW restrict you from using a satellite dish, and the law is VERY SPECIFICALLY written in favor of the consumer (for once). See the FCC guide. Specifically:
~Wx
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