Also sprach RJ Atkinson
At 17:50 07/05/01, Jeff Mcadams wrote:
The legal arguement comes down to. The cablecos are a monopoly, period.
In parts of the Boston suburbs, RCN has built a parallel cable TV system (with DOCSIS cable modem service also) serving houses that were already (and still are) servicable from Media-One (now part of AT&T Broadband).
While I applaud those areas then, and I think that's a wonderful thing in general, and eventually I suspect good will come out of it, though it might take a while. Situations like that are very few and far between. In Louisville, we have had one or two competing cablecos wanting to come in and build out competing networks. It looks like its not going to happen though as TKR^WIntermedia^WInsight has tied up the city and the newcomers in court over the terms of the franchises and how they relate to Insight's franchise. The cable companies, in most places, are a monopoly, and they act like them. Again though, the RBOCs are trying to use this to say that two wrongs make a right. The current issue before the House is H.R. 1542, and it needs to be defeated. Then (although there need not be the distinction of time that "then" implies...it could happen concurrently, but they aren't the same discussion), the issue of open access on cable networks can be dealt with, and I'll be first in line in whatever forum I can find to say that cable networks need to be effectively opened up. -- Jeff McAdams Email: jeffm@iglou.com Head Network Administrator Voice: (502) 966-3848 IgLou Internet Services (800) 436-4456