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The Neighborhood Comcast Forgot
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By Ed Foster, Section The Gripelog
Posted on Mon Nov 21, 2005 at 12:07:51 AM PDT
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What can you do if your local broadband monopolist doesn't want to provide service to your neighborhood? Well, one prospective Comcast customer he was at least given a choice: he could have no cable service at all or he could pay a $10,000 surcharge.
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"I'm caught in one of those bureaucratic catch-22 situations that I think is happening all over the U.S.," the reader wrote. "About nine households on my street are without cable/broadband service. Comcast's predecessor had started to deploy cable service in my very neighborhood and went right up to our street, but then 'jumped' past our street and continued beyond into the next community."
After Comcast took over the previous cable company, it decided it was not bound by any commitments to extend service to neighborhoods it doesn't consider profitable enough. "For over two years now, I've been trying to get Comcast to return to the area and finish the job started originally," the reader wrote. "Comcast officials have told me that under their current 'guidelines' our whole community -- let alone my street -- should not have had cable service in the first place because the housing is not dense enough. In no way will they extend to my specific house unless I pay an extortion fee -- $9,885 was what they said in a recent letter sent to me. Of course they don't call it extortion, they call it 'costs.'"
DSL and other broadband alternatives aren't viable options in his neighborhood, so there is nothing much the reader and his neighbors can do but try to persuade Comcast to provide service to his area at a reasonable rate. "All we are asking for is the same treatment that the streets before and after ours have had," the reader said, who has been in contact with his city council, state legislators and even Congressmen on the issue without much success. "To be fair, we are not the only neighborhood in our city without service; there are pockets all over that are furious with Comcast at their lack of expansion with repeated requests."
Of course, the thing that really bothers the reader is that the Comcast has a monopoly on the cable franchise for his city, one that almost surely would not have been granted the predecessor company if it had been following Comcast's current expansion guidelines. "All Comcast is doing right now is servicing the legacy hardware they purchased," the reader wrote. "I was told by a regional supervisor for Comcast that there will be no further expansion in our city unless we build some high-density housing to make it worth their while. Since other cable companies aren't allowed to enter the area, there are no other choices. Once Comcast decides that my house isn't going to get service and the house next door is, I simply can't get service." |
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