As a general rule, cable companies operating areas do not overlap. There may of course be a few stray exceptions in big market areas or in odd little pockets. If they keep annoying you, just order service to be installed ASAP each time and let them go through the trouble of figuring out that they can't serve your area each time.
To prevent chaos and bring in revenue, most cities franchise the cable companies. In very large cities there can often be multiple franchises because of technical or political matters.
Joe
There are very few locations where two cable companies serve the same neighborhood. Rochester Communications was one of the few overbuilders and look where they are.
Ignoring the black helicopter crowd, it's not any illegal collusion that prevents multiple cable companies, it's basic economics. If you know a considerable portion of your potential customer base could go with your competition, would you choose to invest scarce/expensive capital there or somewhere else?
There are slightly more locations where the phone company offers a wired TV service along with internet and voice (ie Verizon's FIOS or AT&T U-Verse). But duopolies do not drive prices lower.
"Pete C." wrote in news:4d9a4220$0$8097$ snipped-for-privacy@unlimited.usenetmonster.com:
Her it is either Verizon FiOS or Cablevision. I really do like FiOS. I never liked the old Cablevision (I only had the TV part). Long live he triple play (FiOS).
Robert Neville wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
I will use one against the other When my FiOS contract is up for renewal.
Brighthouse vs UVerse turned out to be 95 cents a month different when I last checked it out and all of the come-ons expired. I was underwhelmed to say the least.
I switched from Charter to ATT because of the bandwidth cap Charter started enforcing. I called Comcast and found out that they service my city, but not my area.
Is that usually how it works? One cable company, one area.
Although Comcast has told me directly that I can't get service in my area they keep sending me email and I got a call from an 800 number inquiring if I would like to subscribe to Comcast. (Really annoying)
-- O'Neil to General Hammond: For the record Sir, I wanted to blow it the hell up.
When we lived in Taiwan there were six different companies' cables running down our street -- and cable TV wasn't even legal yet.
Perce
Sounds like a lot of Asian cities I know. :)
Metspitzer wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
Generally speaking, local governments grant legal monopolies to specific cable companies for specific geographical areas. No "black helicopters" are needed to understand this simple self-interest issue.
The link you provided says nothing about legal monopolies being granted. The reference to legalities in the article is talking about retransmission of distant networks, not whether or not a cable company has a right to exclusive service.
You'd be hard pressed to find a franchise agreement that states the provider has exclusive access to a community. Google "cable exclusive franchise" and you will find just the opposite. Most franchise agreements are non-exclusive. It's the economics that prevents a second cable company from coming in.
You may like Verizon FiOS right now, but wait until you require a level of service beyond a simple computer-initiated reboot of your cable box. The customer service hell hole you will fall into won't take long to cause you to start pulling out someone's short hairs. I tell you this as a former call center employee of Verizon FiOS. The Customer Service Representatives have a Call Average Handling Time of 11 minutes now (12.5 when I was there) and their supervisors ride their asses if they don't beat those numbers. That means you will be lied to, dropped, punted around, and generally got rid of anyway feasible if the call approaches anything near 10 minutes. This goes for phone and internet service too.
My job was a Network Technician which only meant I was one level beyond the CSR and if they determined the problem was beyond the house level it would get sent to me. I was not bound to the same CAHT as they were when working tickets so I could actually troubleshoot the problem. 85% of the tickets I got were things the CSR should have fixed. The remainder were network and billing problems.
As bad as Verizon FiOS customer service I have heard worse stories from former Comcast customers. I was eligible for an employee discount for FiOS service but refused the service and stayed with Cox Communications. The superior product of FiOS didn't make up for the vastly inferior customer service. After almost 3 years at the company I was fortunate to find another job and get out of the culture of that company. My personal ethics were being violated constantly and I couldn't continue working there in all good conscience.
I've had both Cox and Comcast and didn't have any major issues with either. I politely declined to get FiOS when it came through because of my previous experiences with Verizon's copper land line service. My last house was serviced by both Cox (cable) and Verizon (FiOS, if I'd paid to have it installed,) not sure if we could have got Comcast or not.
nate
N8N wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@u8g2000yqh.googlegroups.com:
With all due respect to badgolfer and nate, the best service is where you don't need tech support or in-house visits. We had a few issues when starting FiOS, but none really since. One issue was with the phone on FiOS - they had to do something in the CO to make the light for "there is voicemail" go on. Took a couple of calls. Another issue was that the radio on the ActionTec dropped dead exactly 1 week after we got it. Took
2 techs almost the wole morning to diagnose and fix the problem, in LARGE part because they didn't know that the CO had to reset something to effect a reset of the WAN IP lease to the new router with a different MAC address. So yes, the service isn't as good as it should be, but it is FAR better than the infernal billing department where it can easily take MONTHS before an issue is fixed.I'm happy with my FiOS, and don't regret ditching Cablevision/Optimum. At least through September this year I'm all set.
Robert Neville wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
I think you'd better re-read that article a bit more carefully.
That's sometimes the case NOW. Now that competition comes from sources other than cable. Cable fought that competition mightily, convincing lawmakers to hobble the hated satellite providers with "must carry" regulations. When cable was all you could get, local governments did (and still do) grant monopolies.
If there's any "economics" issue now, it's one that did not exist prior to satellite. If "economics" were the reason second providers did not build- out networks, then why was it necessary to bar them from doing so using regulations?
I would imagine that the only way that can happen is if the local municipal gov't owns the telephone poles that the cableco's would have to use.
I can't imagine how else a local gov't could restrict trade / commerce like that. Local gov'ts certainly don't own or provide any of their own infrastructure that facilitates the provision of said service.
I'm not aware of any city in Canada that "sells" access rights to telcos or cablecos or that otherwise derives some sort of revenue stream from the companies that provide those services.
I guess the closest thing we have (and which many / most / all US cities also have) is selling taxi-cab licenses.
Home Guy wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@Guy.com:
They own the rights-of-way, and they issue the permits. Access to rights- of-way and to permits is how they control who can do what.
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