Andrew Warner

Andrew,

I tried to join your army but the link was broken. I figured you would be a good commander and wouldnt send me into combat without a good reason.

The aspect of this argument that I find interesting is that I get the impression that the people that are asking for more competition to bring down cable rates, dont actually have the skill that is required to actually be the competition for Time Warner.

I notice this in a couple capitialistic situations. People say they want something but they dont know how to provide that something for themselves. They are angry but they cant do anything about it.

I dont know what I think about a situation where I cannot provide the service myself but have to pay for the service that I want. How much is cable television worth to you, its worth it enough to want it but it isnt worth it enough to pay the going price for it because of a monopoly.

Who are the people that you would have spend their time and money competing with TW? It takes actual work and resources to provide a service like that and I honestly dont know who would provide the competition, do you?

-Nicholas the guy that thinks your magical powers are real because they are.

ps-if david copperfield can make the statue of liberty disappear, it would be awesome to see someone make a tree disappear.

Uhhh...We Want Choice Ohio seems to be what I thought it was. A shill for AT&T who wants Statewide Franchise Agreements.

"TV4US's coalition consists mainly of industry powerhouses like AT&T and corporate front groups..."

http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=2007815

I don't have a problem with that except for the fact that they hide who they are. I have more respect for a company that puts it out there and says, here is why we want a statewide franchise bill passed and why. Don't like it when Unions do it with their causes and don't like it when corporations do either.

While a statewide franchise bill is in the works there are still issues:

-How to deal with Franchise Fees?
-Potentially losing public access channels?
-Ensuring poor neighborhoods are serviced as well.

And how many people want this box in their yard

http://media.arstechnica.com/articles/culture/u-verse.media/wheaton.jpg

Furthermore, they don't cite their data. Sure cable rates have gone up considerably since 1995. But there are more channels, more technology (on demand and dvr's) and digital cable and HDTV wasn't a factor.

This is not to say I don't want competition here. Yet, a lingering question is what ever happened to Cincinati Bell. They are losing customers left and right to Time Warner and yet they still haven't announced a date to enter the video market.

Get Dish network, they have non-commercial channels like Freespeech TV and Link TV. The don't have commercials and have real news programs instead of corporate propaganda.

I believe the question is, who owns the infrastructure - the cables themselves. If Time Warner makes some sort of claim to them, then competition will be very hard to come by.

If it can be argued that they were built with the assistance of the local/state government, then other providers can use those pipes and enter the market. That's how it happened in Chicago (where I used to live), and I'm sure that's what this coalition is pushing for.

Me, I'm pretty content with Cincinnati Bell - although Cinergy/Duke was supposed to be entering the market; don't know what happened to them. Cincy Bell's idea of entering the TV market is to partner with Direct TV, which, if you live in an apartment like me, is not an option. Frankly, I don't need cable TV; most of what I want to see is available one way or another over the internets.

(By the way, Andrew, I used to run the THEOcracy blog, if you remember that - I've since canned it and started up something new; the link is here if you're curious.)

I liked THEOcracy. It's cool though, I'm linked to your new blog now.

Quid pro quo - alphabetically, that puts you first, ahead of Barack Obama. ;)