Home cinema - "Can't get any TV" related question

On Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:48:32 GMT Pete C. wrote:

| Huh? The "incumbent system" you're referring to is called a city or
| town. The telcos wouldn't have built there unless there was a city or
| town, nor would the electric utility, gas utility, water, sewer, roads,
| etc. To claim that a city or town is somehow an "incumbent system" is
| absurd.

Take an city or town with NO existing cable service, and see if you can
get 5 cable companies to build there. I bet you can't.

"incumbent system" refers NOT to the actual city, but to the installed
base of people already connected.

For a very similar reason, most cities only have one electric company.
BTW, I used to live where there were TWO electric companies. One ran
power lines on the main street. The other ran power lines in the alley.
But since I lived in an apartment complex, I didn't have a choice. But
if I had owned a house there, I would have had a choice. However, the
double-build is a bad idea. It's a waste to have all that resource and
only half the customers. It's why overbuilding telephone and cable makes
no sense, either. In some areas they now have electric choice where one
company that owns and maintains the wires is NOT the business provider of
power. You have a choice of other companies. If one company has a screwed
up accounting/billing process and double bills you every now and then like
many cable companies do, and phone companies used to do, then you can just
tell them to shove it and switch to another. You are not forced to change
your technology to make that switch.

| What if, before you upgraded the hardware, 4 other cable systems came in
| and overbuilt in your area, and started to grab your customers because
| their system was better. Your option to retain a likely 20% of what you
| had before is to upgrade (a cost about the same as each of the others
| doing an overbuild). Would you do that then? I think not because 20%
| is not as likely to cover the investment. But then, the others would not
| have come in and competed had they not been assured a much larger than 20%
| share of the market.
|
| Satellite TV (little dish) came in and is in full competition for every
| home passed by the cable system. Telcos in some areas are in full
| competition for every home passed by the cable system. Internet
| delivered content is in full competition for every home passed by the
| cable system. This has not stopped cable systems from upgrading their
| physical plant as well as the services they offer, it's called
| competition. If any of the competitors ignores their infrastructure and
| services they will eventually fail.

No, it is not full competition. Neither DishNet nor DirecTV are choices
to make AND get internet along with it (at least not of any reasonable
level ... you can get some bundled services with them with dialup access).

Still, satellite is at least _some_ competition. Many cable companies
would NOT have upgraded at all if satellite had not been around to eat
off the same pie. But satellite is a poor technology. Real competition
comes from overbuild like Verizon FiOS. If more of that were to come
along and compete, then it can be a truly free market. It is NOT a free
market of people have to change technology or otherwise compromise on
the service they can get to switch. One of my neighbors cannot get any
satellite at all because he is blocked solid by a thick grove of trees.

| | Perhaps you are thinking of alternate long distance companies which use
| | the LEC's infrastructure for the last mile connections, or competitive
| | Internet access providers who use the LEC's infrastructure to deliver
| | DSL connections.
|
| What I ultimately want is a free market choice of a number of different ways
| to access whatever content.
|
| This free market is there now and has been for a number of years, you
| just need to take your blinders off and look at it.

Take YOUR blinders off and see that it is NOT at all free.

| Ultimately it will all be digital, anyway. But
| if we don't have this competition, then these "captive market" monopolies will
| get to AVOID innovations in technology (other than what lets them gouge their
| customers even more),
|
| Nearly all innovations in technology that cable companies have embraced
| have been to increase system reliability and offer more service.

Some of that is because the satellite service competed. Now with internet
a necessary part, satellite is not a viable competition. FiOS can be, but
that's just 2 choices. We need at least 5 to make it reasonably free.

| Cable was the one of the first innovators in programming. Cable expanded
| the handful of OTA stations in a given market and added dozens of
| specialty channels. Cable was the first to offer digital music channels.
| Cable was the first to offer high speed Internet access to the general
| public. Cable was one of the first sources of HD programming.

And cable was the second to gouge customers with lousy customer service,
totally screwed up billing, and channel tiers that are arranged NOT for any
sort of customer convenience, but to hold out channels from those who are
not willing to pay excessive prices. What cable companies SHOULD do is to
offer "packages" that are programming genre organized. For example a package
with all the sports channels, and another with all the education/information
channels. That would be good for the consumer, but it doesn't let the cable
company gouge the consumer for as much profit.

| Most innovations in most markets comes from the smaller businesses coming in
| to compete.
|
| Not true in any of the examples cited above.

Every innovation cable has done would have been done sooner, bigger, and
in more cities, had the competition been there all along. They waited as
long as they have because they knew they had a captive market base. When
satellite came along, then later offered HD channels, cable companies were
forced to upgrade more than they would have. But satellite is not a very
effective form of competition. Verizon FiOS is forcing cable companies to
upgrade even _more_ then they would have, in areas FiOS is building in.

And service plans like "triple play" are NOT innovation at all.

| Certain kinds of business have plenty of competition and that
| holds back the motivation to gouge customers. These include things like
| banks, restaurants, stores, etc.
|
| Hardly. Banks move very much in lock step with each other, what
| competition you might see is superficial. A large percentage of
| restaurants are owned by a small number of mega corporations. There
| might be eight different restaurants in a shopping center, but chances
| are there are only one or two owners of all of them.

Banks are still regulated, so they have to do certain things alike. Maybe
its a good thing they stay regulated.

Even with the same owners in many restaurants, there is diversity that way.
But I've found that's not really the case. And it isn't limited to just a
shopping center. Even in the small town I live in, I have a choice of 5
different Chinese restaurants, all locally owned.

| It's an even bigger issue with internet providers. Cable and telcos are both
| into it, but so far, both are still doing a terrible job at things like the
| network privisioning, network management, etc. With enough competition we can
| have a truly free market, and all the providers will have to provide a good
| service or die.
|
| I have both cable Internet and DSL Internet service and have had them
| for a number of years. In that time I have had virtually no service
| issues aside from the sub hour outages a few times a year when some line
| gear fails. Every time I have done any speed testing I have found my
| speeds consistent with what is provisioned. I don't currently use
| satellite Internet but I have associates who do and they report no
| issues either. Someone else I know has Internet via a MDS system and
| report it works fine as well.

And do you have internet speeds anywhere near what today's techology can
bring you and does exist in many contries now: 100 megabits ??

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