USA Today has a long piece on the cat-fight between cable and phone operators, which apparently is getting ugly. How ugly?
USA Today: Dorothy Attwood, senior vice president of planning and policy for SBC on how cable companies are using their franchisee relationships to lock out the Bells. “The cable guys are acting and behaving like those that don’t want to lose market share… It’s obvious that they are attempting to use regulation to keep their competitors at bay.”
Cable companies are accusing them of redlining and focusing solely on affluent neighborhoods.
Washington Post: Harry Mitchell, a Verizon spokesman on why they are not rolling out broadband in rural areas, which he points out sometimes it is sometimes too expensive to provide service to rural customers. “You’ve got to have a business model where you have a chance of making some money.”
I am reminded every day that cable companies are no paragons of consumer service and according to some estimates the prices for cable services have been on an upswing.
“It’s obvious that they are attempting to use regulation to keep their competitors at bay.” -Senior VP of Lies, Deceit, Flim-Flam & Chicanery – SBC
*cough*BULLSHIT*cough*
Pot, meet kettle. Discussion on the color black in two hours.
Am I the only person who finds it extremely offending to hear phone company representatives claim that the cable operators are trying to use legislation to regulate competition when the Baby Bells are just pissed someone else learned how to play in their legal sandbox? Really, do these Baby Bell execs think the consumers are so bloody stupid as to have forgotten who was the original monoploy? God these execs must really want a hot poker shoved somewhere unpleasant to even think they can talk from a morally superior position when it comes to weilding legislation as a means of regulating their competition.
Doc
Nicely summarized. ANd no you are not the only one to see th double standard here
Bottomline is that, the Baby Bells can only survive by transforming into media companies and not stick to the conventional “phone company” model which is directly at competition with voIP offerings from Cable Cos. The Bells are struggling at this new game which the Cable Cos have already mastered in terms of negotiating contracts with content providers etc, and the same with Cable Cos. in terms of learning about the telephony market. We will hear a lot more on this friction at both ends, in the near future.
Nitin
it is a hard one to learn. given that most cable companies have huge holdings in the media companies, i wonder when that becomes a bit of a problem for phone operators