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Time Warner Cable Cannot Possibly Compete With The Small City Of Wilson, NC
TheConsumerist.com ^ | April 23 2009 | Meg Marco

Posted on 04/24/2009 10:52:12 PM PDT by My hearts in London - Everett

The city of Wilson, NC was tired of high internet, cable, and telephone prices, so they decided to do something about it. They started their own, city-owned, ISP. Now Time Warner Cable and Embarq have teamed up to convince North Carolina's legislature to propose bills outlawing community owned ISPs because the big guys cannot possibly compete.

(Excerpt) Read more at consumerist.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: cable; northcarolina; timewarner; wilson
I think this is a cool small town solution!
1 posted on 04/24/2009 10:52:13 PM PDT by My hearts in London - Everett
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To: My hearts in London - Everett

They are beginning to do the same in the small town where I live.


2 posted on 04/24/2009 10:54:40 PM PDT by KoRn (Department of Homeland Security, Certified - "Right Wing Extremist")
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To: My hearts in London - Everett

But Time Warner wants access to community owned easements to run their cables.


3 posted on 04/24/2009 10:54:43 PM PDT by Mojave (Don't blame me. I voted for McClintock.)
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To: My hearts in London - Everett

So they’re using tax dollars (money confiscated from citizens by force) to undercut private enterprise? And this is a good thing? Actually, this is the oldest statist trick in the book. Color me unimpressed.


4 posted on 04/24/2009 10:58:15 PM PDT by TheWasteLand
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To: My hearts in London - Everett

I wonder if there are any job openings over there.


5 posted on 04/24/2009 11:04:33 PM PDT by wastedyears (Iron Maiden's gonna get ya, no matter how far!)
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To: TheWasteLand
"So they’re using tax dollars (money confiscated from citizens by force) to undercut private enterprise? And this is a good thing?"

This was my first thoughts. However, private enterprise wasn't making the investment. Having said that, if business isn't making the investment, there isn't a REAL market for it. Such a thing is like a government funded utility project. At least they are using the tax payer's money for something worthwhile in greater bandwidth.

6 posted on 04/24/2009 11:06:17 PM PDT by KoRn (Department of Homeland Security, Certified - "Right Wing Extremist")
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To: KoRn
Having said that, if business isn't making the investment, there isn't a REAL market for it.

QFT.

There's a word for government stepping in and using tax dollars to provide a service for which there is no real market. That word is boondoggle.

7 posted on 04/24/2009 11:13:37 PM PDT by TheWasteLand
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To: KoRn

I am forever reminded of the Air Force episode in Omaha about fifteen years ago.

The base had barely any communications structure connecting to the AT&T lines off-base. It was just enough to get by and very early stages of internet. They must have spent two years planning and conceiving their master-plan. Then they spent another year getting the leadership to sign off on this. Days, weeks and months went by.

So they finally have full support and the comm folks go to the local off-base telephone folks...ready to hook up to a massive data flow pipeline. Then the AT&T folks kindly say that they’ve already dug the ditch....pushed in the pipe into the base and signed a contract.

This was rather curious....no on base comm knew anything about this. They then discover that some smart “Snuffy” (junior NCO), had rigged up a private business on the base and was proving internet service with this massive line that they’d installed on Air Force property. He lived in base housing and had this running for a year. So here was a massive data pipe...on their own property...and they couldn’t use it.

Naturally...it took about a week for these guys to say that this wasn’t authorized and they seized the pipeline and rigged the contract back to the base structure. I don’t think the NCO was out of any money...and probably cleared a fair amount of profit. The humorous thing was that they wasted alot of time just planning and planning and planning. This guy wasted very little time and probably had his entire operation up in less than a month.


8 posted on 04/24/2009 11:22:19 PM PDT by pepsionice
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To: My hearts in London - Everett

/sarc

I say the government should build a whole empire to manage and run the network. Have a 24 hour NOC, 24 hour staff, support lines staffed by experts to help folks with their HD channels, and their high speed internet. Because after all, they’ve said it’s not for profit... so they can have the best support in the world!

/sarc

I’ve been involved first-hand with these projects in the past. Grant county, WA the Public Utility District (PUD) started a project to provide high speed services to the people. So they wanted to do it all, Internet, Phone, cable. Well, it’s a funny thing after more than 130Million... yes I said MILLION they had around 4,000 people signed up. They said they would break even in 20 years... They deluded themselves, and the citizens. When hell freezes over... THEN they will break even. The problem is the ongoing costs to run networks. Equipment must get churned out, Re-capped, NOC costs, truck rolls, the costs are huge. But they don’t care... why? It’s public funds and they can get more!!! It’s the same BS, we see on the large stage, the producers pay, while the few citizens pay their $20 a month to download their illegal content faster. (Oh yes this network was also proved to be a major contributor to piracy as it had no control or policing, just a Gigabit Ethernet connection to the home... yea that makes sense. I tried to convince them to limit the scope of the project. Phone, and Video was never an issue. The services existed everywhere. The only service they should have tried to provide is a basic internet that would have a turn-over time to private industry in a set number of years. More of a partnership so the investment could be re-used. I have no idea why people try to solve Video and voice today, because Dish is great, and don’t know about you but I’ve had no problem with voice services for at least 3 decades.

Government should never try and compete for this, the numbers are lost in the shuffle, and it keeps investment $$’s out of the community as compaines will wait and see what the government does, and they may believe they won’t have numbers to support upgrades but that doesn’t mean that just because the business case doesn’t exist that government should provide these life saving internet services... because then... where does it end?

So how did they end up trying to pay back some of the costs... why they raised Electricity prices! What will this town do... why... they’ll raise taxes! And someone will get a promotion for building a vast empire.


9 posted on 04/25/2009 12:42:30 AM PDT by light-bulb (Plures efficimur quotiens metimur a vobis; semen est sanguis Christianorum)
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To: TheWasteLand

I don’t see a problem with a town or city doing this, particularly if they offer free wi-fi access within city limits. The only problem with locally run services like this is sooner or later when there are enough of these, the state wants to step in and take over, and then when enough states are running similar services, the federal government wants to take it over.


10 posted on 04/25/2009 1:47:41 AM PDT by counterpunch (0bama can either protect terrorists or America. He made his choice.)
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To: KoRn

the did this in Mooresville, NC. I’m sticking with roadrunner. I don’t care if I have to pay 3 times the cost. Gov’t shouldn’t be in the business. The message to time warner is; do’t give state gov’t any ideas.


11 posted on 04/25/2009 3:20:59 AM PDT by personalaccts (Is George W going to protect the border?)
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To: My hearts in London - Everett

I have a problem with governments competing with private sector companies for private sector type services/products. Governments have a built-in competitive advantage because they do not have to pay taxes and they arguably can borrow at lower tax free rates.


12 posted on 04/25/2009 7:37:05 AM PDT by Loyal Buckeye
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To: light-bulb

......Government should never try and compete for this.....

Charter Communications declared Bankruptcy Friday. They have never been profitable in their whole existence. The judge through out their case for inadequate work up. Charter is so bad they can’t even go bankrupt.


13 posted on 04/25/2009 7:43:47 AM PDT by bert (K.E. N.P. +12 . Crucify ! Crucify ! Crucify him!!)
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To: light-bulb

Dang, when I read this article I thought it was a cool idea for a small town to fight back against a large company holding a monopoly and overcharging them. Now, reading these comments about the negative aspects, not so much!


14 posted on 04/25/2009 7:56:24 AM PDT by My hearts in London - Everett (There is a demand today for men who can make wrong appear right. Terrence, c. 160 B.C.)
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To: My hearts in London - Everett

Well I hope you know that I wasn’t trying to be forceful or disrespectful of your view, but I simply don’t believe government belongs in this, or the other 95% that it currently is in.

I understand that in the 30’s 40’s it made some sense for the government to strategically use infrastructure investments to promote growth, but without a plan to turn this over to industry they only create empires. And in my view government workers are the worst type of scourge for the free people, as it loads us all up with pensions, and pay that must eventually bankrupt the people.

I’m sure no one is talking on that point either... I always like to say; when a high ranking person in the government retires it’s essentially a >150% cost for us until he/she dies. Because you know that 90% of the time the job will be filled and the retired person is drawing pension for the life of himself/herself or their spouse. Play that out in your minds a few million times and you’ll see what we have coming in 2012, when we have a massive number of boomers ready to retire, or eligible to retire. Ouch!

Anyway, I apologize if I came on too strong. Again, I’m in the UK for the time being and my hair always stands on end while I’m here watching the socialism so rampant ravage on.


15 posted on 04/25/2009 2:43:09 PM PDT by light-bulb (Plures efficimur quotiens metimur a vobis; semen est sanguis Christianorum)
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To: light-bulb
"I hope you know that I wasn’t trying to be forceful or disrespectful of your view"

Oh, no, not at all. I guess I just hadn't thought through the whole idea. Sometimes what seems like a good idea on the surface turns out not to be the case. I'm so used to thinking on the "big" interfering government scale that I totally missed this one. :~/

16 posted on 04/25/2009 3:26:02 PM PDT by My hearts in London - Everett (There is a demand today for men who can make wrong appear right. Terrence, c. 160 B.C.)
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