Internet service providers and cable companies market “digital” services when the lines are analog, then an extra charge is applied for devices that convert it to digital. This is a cheap and low quality solution at high dollar pricing. We have GTE to thank in PW for contributing to that.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 rewarded big dog lobbyist that in turn cherry picked distribution areas. Municipal Internet is needed to level the playing field, force quality of service improvements and more competitive pricing.

The Strategic Plan should promote redundant optical networking infrastructure using a combination of with fiber and /or 802.16. Word of availability for this type of infrastructure will attract businesses and tourist alike.

Our ancestors lived in towns with access to the railway network for supplies and jobs. Internet connectivity is today’s modern version of this concept but we’ve reached the end of that cycle. Broadband Internet connectivity shoud be everywhere, just like electricity.

If you build it (optical / 802.15 networks) they will come!

That doesn’t have to happen. It can happen, but then it could happen with other access technologies besides cable modems. (I remember a DSL provider in the late 90s that had a single T1 as their upstream connection!)

I agree that competition is a key, assuming you don’t like the idea of a lawsuit, which I generally don’t but if I was paying for a service I wasn’t getting I’d be suing the company who was supposed to provide it, at least until I got the right to break the contract and hire another company.

We have taken too many technological wrong turns by assuming past is prologue and making decisions based on scarcity.

Like we knew nobody could ever afford to run two or three sets of cables to houses, so instead we did franchise deals for single-provider cable. But now we can do internet and even TV on phone lines, there’s two dish networks plus the original satellite TV, and in many places there are even two cable companies.

I was also going to note the rules about dishes, but others got that. I think that some of your argument there was not that it’s illegal, but that if you are already paying a company, it’s not fair you have to pay another company for the same service.

BTW, there’s nothing like being on some shared cable internet system and then having the neighbors become the XBOX internet-game site for slowing down your access.

Interestingly enough nobody seems to remember anything about this system. But there’s not a single rooftop TV antenna anywhere in the development, and in Fredericksburg, it’s either cable TV or an outdoor antenna…rabbit ears won’t get you anything there.

Just about ALL of the outages I’ve had with Comcast were due to lightning blowing out an amplifier.

Really makes me glad I installed a whole-house surgeprotector on my circuit breaker panel.

In fact one time I was watching TV and there was a flash of lightning outside and that was it–snow on all the channels and the cablemodem was of course out.

To the best of my knowledge, Cox and Comcast do not serve the same areas of Fairfax. Comcast serves the Reston area and Cox serves the rest.

As far as Prince William goes, if you go far enough back in history, we had Columbia Cablevision who served the east side of the county and Cablevision of Manassas who served the west side. They were two separately owned cable systems until the 90s when Jones Intercable bought both of them, and then Comcast bought Jones Intercable.

Incidentally, cable TV did not come to Manassas until about 1985. The townhouse my mom lived in built in 1983 was prewired with twin-lead. I remember using that relic as a pull-string for RG6 coax. It would have already been prewired with coax if cable TV had been in Manassas at the time it was built.

I remember, by the way, doing an inventory of Cablevision of Manassas’s computers in preparation for their buyout.

Reilly - I used to have DirecTV and much preferred it. When I had to get high speed (work related), I was sort of forced back to Comcast - they charge such a premium for the internet if you don’t get their cable. Then the spouse figured out how much we were paying for phone and cable/Internet and insisted that we roll them together. Apparently, outages only bother me… I find what these monopolies can do (or don’t do for you) in relation to what we pay pretty appalling.

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

FACT SHEET

August 1996

Placement of Direct Broadcast Satellite, Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Service, and Television Broadcast Antennas

Q: Are all restrictions prohibited?

A: No, many restrictions are still valid. Safety restrictions are permitted even if they impair reception, because local governments bear primary responsibility for protecting public safety. Examples of valid safety restrictions include fire codes preventing people from installing antennas on fire escapes, restrictions requiring that a person not place an antenna within a certain distance from a power line, electrical code requirements to properly ground the antenna, and installation requirements that describe the proper method to secure an antenna. The safety reason for the restriction must be written in the text, preamble or legislative history of the restriction, or in a document that is readily available to antenna users, so that a person wanting to install an antenna knows what restrictions apply. The restriction cannot impose a more burdensome requirement than is needed to ensure safety.

Restrictions in historic areas may also be valid. Because certain areas are considered uniquely historical and strive to maintain the historical nature of their community, these areas are excepted from the rule. To qualify as an exempt area the area must be listed or eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. In addition, the area cannot restrict antennas if such a restriction would not be applied to the extent practicable in a non-discriminatory manner to other modern structures that are comparable in size, weight and appearance and to which local regulation would normally apply. Valid historical areas cannot impose a more burdensome requirement than is needed to ensure the historic preservation goal.

Q: Whose restrictions are prohibited?

A: Restrictions are prohibited in state or local laws or regulations, including zoning, land-use or building regulations, private covenants, homeowners’ association rules or similar restrictions relating to what people can do on land within their exclusive use or control where they have a direct or indirect ownership interest in the property.

The idea behind muni broadband is that the city or county would lay all the cable, install all the switching equipment, and then allow everyone to use that infrastructure to connect with whoever is going to provide the gateway from the muni network to the larger internet. It’s possible to have multiple providers simultaneously providing connections, and consumers can pick whichever one they want.

The downside is that the municipality has to maintain the cabling and switching equipment, which is where the failures tend to occur. It’s a substantial upfront cost to install or purchase the infrastructure, it costs money to maintain it, and while you can charge user fees to offset these costs, the failures aren’t predictable and the locality would be on the hook for unexpected costs.

What we have now is one company offering cable who owns all the infrastructure, and negotiated a long-term contract with the locality. If comcast gets booted at the end of the contract term, the next company can essentially pull the same thing, with poor customer service, high cost, and unreliable service during the next contract term.

HOA covenants can no longer prohibit the installation of dishes and TV antennas:

http://www.fcc.gov/mb/facts/otard.html

One point, Greg. The FCC has ruled that homeowner association convenants cannot restrict a homeowner’s ability to install an antenna or dish to receive a signal broadcast over the public airwaves (including direct-to-home satellite with dishes small than 1 meter). (http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/Orders/1996_TXT/fcc96328.txt)

Competition? Is that why we have only one cable provider that provides uniformly horrible customer service and has a product that goes out for hours on end? It was one thing when I had Comcast just for cable, but now I have make the horrible mistake of giving them my phone as well. Is there any way to get them ousted as the local provider?