\u2026is what we used to call Comcast when I lived in DC. \u00a0Bunch of bastards – they ate Cable TV Arlington, so I was stuck with them. \u00a0Substandard DVR option (if any), horrible cable guide functionality, stuff breaking at random, and clueless customer service that would show up to your house\u2026maybe. \u00a0If Comcast said the technician would arrive between 12 and 5 on Tuesday, there would be no technician and there might not be a Tuesday.<\/p>\n
But it was my only option for TV, because I lived in an apartment. \u00a0Sure, I could put up rabbit ears, but things like DirecTV or Dish or an entirely theoretical fiber offering were non-starters.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the thing: Comcast is out there trying to sell its Time-Warner Cable merger as being entirely pro-consumer in a thriving competitive market because DirecTV! And Dish! \u00a0And Netflix! And Hulu! And Google Fiber!<\/p>\n
Hold. UP.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the fact of the matter: the so-called \u201ctriple play\u201d is a ruse. \u00a0Ultimately, what you\u2019re getting is phone, TV and Internet access – but the phone service is delivered as data, and the TV is just a collection of streams. What Comcast really is – what any cable company is, to be honest – is a data pipe into the house with some services slapped over top of it. \u00a0Hulu and Netflix aren\u2019t competitors at all, because they aren\u2019t running a pipe. \u00a0DirecTV and Dish are competing television services, but they\u2019re not a pipe. \u00a0Google Fiber is<\/em> a pipe\u2026if you live in Kansas City or Provo or maybe Austin.<\/p>\n But the thing is, right now, there are two pipes into the house: your cable company and your phone company. \u00a0And that\u2019s it. \u00a0Anything more would require running new cables to your house, whether it\u2019s Google Fiber or a municipally-owned fiber option (such as in Chattanooga), and that represents a non-trivial infrastructure cost plus the limitations on what local municipalities and HOAs and the like are willing to have done. \u00a0So at the end of the day, you face a duopoly: your local cable company, irrespective of the name, or your local Baby Bell, also irrespective of the name.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s the problem. \u00a0Comcast can point to companies like Cox or Charter or the like, but cable TV is a local monopoly everywhere and always. \u00a0How many cable companies can you choose between? \u00a0For my part, I get to pick between Comcast and U-Verse. \u00a0That\u2019s AT&T U-verse, the local Baby Bell. \u00a0I can\u2019t choose a fiber option, because nobody\u2019s running fiber to my house. \u00a0I could go back to DirecTV for my television, but I\u2019d still have to pick a broadband provider. \u00a0And I could choose DSL from a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier\u2026and be limited to whatever the copper can carry from the CO, assuming they can actually undercut the Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier (i.e. the Baby Bell). I went down that route, but Speakeasy could never get faster than 1.5Mbps, no matter how much they wanted to.<\/p>\n There are any number of possible alternatives which Comcast or Verizon or AT&T will flog to show you what a real competitive bidness they are in – and most of them, like WiMAX or municipal fiber or the like, barely exist and often as not are crap where they do. \u00a0Ultimately, if you want a legitimately competitive business environment, the only thing you can do is to have the local community take possession of the last mile – the line from the central office to the house – and then allow anyone to use it. \u00a0If the two lines into your house are suddenly open to half a dozen providers each, then all of a sudden you have real competition and real choice.<\/p>\n As it is, Comcast is happy for you to have a choice, and the choice is go with them or go without.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u2026is what we used to call Comcast when I lived in DC. \u00a0Bunch of bastards – they ate Cable TV Arlington, so I was stuck with them. \u00a0Substandard DVR option (if any), horrible cable guide functionality, stuff breaking at random, and clueless customer service that would show up to your house\u2026maybe. \u00a0If Comcast said the … <\/p>\n