Monday, April 28, 2014

Cable Customers Only Pawns In Companies' Games

Remember when the customer was King?

Well, you can change that channel:

Most Time Warner Cable subscribers in Wisconsin, including all in the metro Milwaukee area, will become customers of Charter Communications as part of a divestiture deal announced Monday by Comcast.
And remember that when Milwaukee handed over cabling rights it was under a monopolistic agreement that was also a license to print money, raise rates, put people on hold while they aged - - and, apparently - - to sell out and dump customers on to another system where they can get overcharged, underserved and generally disrespected anew.

Talk about corporate welfare and special considerations from government, at the expense of the governed.

No wonder cable is a dying, consolidating industry.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's absolute corporate welfare. If cable lines were shared, other companies could offer services, reducing costs for consumers and reducing excessive profits for cable co. Phone lines were controlled by monopolist AT&T until the mid 80s. Cable has lobbied too long to allow that to occur. Let's see Obama doj and fcc do something about it.

Boxer said...

Tell me about it! I spent 1.5 hours on the phone with TWC Friday just trying to straighten out a single bill. I receive one service from TWC--ONE!--that has exploded from $37/mo to $64/mo since 2006 when I first obtained high-speed internet service. Don't get me wrong--I was grateful to get it over the dial-up I had. However much rates were raised, service began low and went lower. After every thunderstorm I'll have to go through an arduous process just to get back up online--even without a power outtage. Each time I hear a TWC Answer-Bot say. "Thank you for choosing Time Warner Cable" I just want to scream back: "If I HAD a choice, I wouldn't be CHOOSING Time Warner Cable"! Whoever made that one up must be laughing his/her a** off.

Max B. said...

Wasn't Charter supposed to be "the alternative" way back when?