Posted on 04/08/2005 10:55:54 PM PDT by Dan from Michigan
No its a very viable product. Charter's problems are a different story. They are to small customer wise for the size of their company. Its necessary if they want to be poised to grow, but if they have nowhere to grow(which is their problem) then they need to cut staff and sell off unprofitable areas of service. There is going to be another round of buy outs in the cable industry. Charter will most likely be one of those to be bought out as Comcast and Time Warner further consolidate.
The trend right now in the cable/telco market is the big guys are consolidating down into the big markets and selling off the smaller assets to Co-Ops. With the coming of IPTV there really is no more difference between the cable companies and telcos.
Fiber optic cable, when visible, sometimes has an orange 'jacket' to differentiate it from regular phone lines. Once fiber optic is in, the phone company will let you know! They want to add subscribers for services they can offer at higher bandwidths. It's nice to see competition between cable and the telecoms.
Thank goodness, it was not 'The Cableguy'. The Verizon tech was pretty cool; answered a lot of my questions about DSL service in the neighborhood. As a 'guy on the ground' he had more info than the company's website.
Cable isn't available here, so it's Dish or Direct.
I keep begging my wife to just drop it.
We get our news on the internet.
TCM should drop the C.
Most of what they show anymore are B movies I watched on free TV in the fifties.
FOX is increasingly annoying to me.
The History channel is getting old.
That was about all I ever watched anyway.
3 month deal .... then onto DSL which I planned to anyway.
Local teleco and local cable are in competition for hi speed internet hookups where I live. Check out your introductory deals.
Get a permanent gmail or yahoo address. I've had same yahoo addy for years. I get lots of email from internet discussion groups at my Comcast email address but none personal.
Comcast has upgraded like crazy here for digital cable and 4mb/second internet and I'm being forced to finance it. That's why I'm going to DSL.
TV is an addiction. No way do I need digital cable. I do understand why some people might "need" it for children's shows and educational channels but not me
I quit writing too soon and did not convey yhe entire thought. Charter has a problem solociting digital cable cutomers. The offer all kinds of deals but people don't switch.
When they get desperate someone will buy them for a song and the financers of the infrastructure will lose their investments.
"When they get desperate someone will buy them for a song and the financers of the infrastructure will lose their investments."
I don't know. Comcast will most likely buy them for a premian to gain the customer base. Comcast and Charter usually operate near by each other. So it would make a lot of sense for Comcast to buy Charter out. Really they would be buying Paul Allen out. As far as investors, if they are stockholders they will become Comcast stockholders. Those that hold debt will either get paid as usual or renogiate terms with the buyer. Most likely the financiers of Charter are the same Financiers of Comcast. If the Adelphia deal goes through then Comcast will most likely have plenty of cash to buy out whoever is next. Charter/Cox?
We can't get cable, as we're out in the boonies. The Dish costs us $2.50 a day, and we have two receivers. It also has TIVO and we can record movies and programs. It's our only form of entertainment, as we don't go out to movies and such, so it's worth it. What is a "luxury" to me, is obviously a "necessity" to others; possibly an addiction?
But showing up drunk anywhere is never a good practice, LOL!
Probably from a cable broadband company (like Comcast) or a DSL provider (like Verizon). I thought I heard Verizon was trying to do something like this. Either might have info.
'A la carte' would be great. If they charged $2 per month per channel, my cable bill would drop to ten bucks.
Same here, and they know that.
90% of the garbage on cable and satellite, they couldn't pay people to watch,
and they know that too.
So it's a BIG LIE. I just wish someone had the capital to start a third satellite company that
gave subscribers that choice. They'd become the largest satellite company
in the country within a month. I can't believe it couldn't be made profitable.
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