Letter to the Ann Arbor City Council's Forum on MediaOne's Cable Access:
September 28, 1999

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To Whom It May Concern:

Unfortunately I won't be able to attend the Forum tonight, but here are some
questions for you to consider asking them, on my behalf:

Everyone knows that the majority of cable companies in the United States
have what is considered a "legal monopoly." By signing city-wide franchise
agreements for specified periods of years, the city is legally granting the
cable firm the right to be the lone cable operator, with high barriers of
entry for potential competitors.

This does several things that are bad for the consumer.

1. It makes it very hard for the consumer to choose between competing cable
firms, as there are none (or few). The legal monopoly enforces this, making
it hard for competing firms to get a foothold in the marketplace.

2. Once a consumer has service from MediaOne, and is dis-satisfied with
their service, it is very hard to switch to another provider. The
deregulation of the cable industry has yet to lower the barriers of entry
for potential competitors. Because the competition is almost non-existant,
MediaOne continually raises their rates and the consumer is forced to pay
for many channels they do not want, or did not ask for. (Example: I don't
speak Spanish, so why would I want the Spanish channel?)

MediaOne, like many of the other cable giants, routinely adds numerous
low-cost channels to their line-up and then fills up the channel-space with
such channels, often giving the consumer very little value for what they are
paying for. Sure, there may be 80+ channels, but how many of them are worth
what the consumer is paying? By clumping lots of low-cost channels together,
MediaOne is giving the false impression of value.

I'm very disappointed that I have to pay such a high price for the few
channels that I do watch. I'd love to see MediaOne break the mold and offer
a service to their consumers that lets them choose and pay for only the
channels they want, whether it be one or one hundred. The technology is
here, and likely in place. So, why aren't they offering this service?
Answer: They don't want to give up the revenue generated by selling the
low-cost clumped-together channels to their unsuspecting consumers.

HDTV and Digital Television:

This is a very new market that MediaOne hopes to capitalize on by leveraging
their legal monopoly and securing the emerging market/subscribers.

I predict that MediaOne will announce HDTV support with much fanfare
(despite them being required by the FCC to support it). They will then
proceed to charge plenty of money for a service they are required to
provide. This will likely include new converter fees, remote unit rentals
fees, and probably plenty of fees associated with HDTV (again, something
they are required to provide).

MediaOne hopes to secure a franchise renewal in Ann Arbor. This is so they
can suck even more money out of their existing subscriber base. Because of
the limits put on how much they can charge for basic service, they will
latch onto HDTV as a vehicle for their ever-increasing charges. I don't want
to see this happen.

Television is supposed to be an advertiser-supported industry. But, the
cable companies have all but ruined that by imposing high monthly fees for a
service that started out as free. If the fees were respectable no one would
be complaining. However, the sheer number of complaints is a clear indicator
that something is wrong and that consumers are being taken advantage of.

Broadband Access:

MediaOne is behind the curve on broadband access in Ann Arbor. After
repeated calls to their service center and experiencing voicemail Hell, I
finally learned from their web site that they don't support Macintosh or
WindowsNT computers in Ann Arbor. The consumer only finds this out by
reading the fine print. This is unacceptable. Here we have a fine example of
one legal monopoly (MediaOne) supporting another legal monopoly (Microsoft).
Are we going to let MediaOne get away with this? Broadband cable modem
support for the MacOS and WindowsNT is not all that different than support
for Windows 95. So, what's the hold-up?

Tier Rates:

MediaOne is purposely selling service plans to their consumers that aren't
the ideal fit for most consumers needs:

MediaOne needs to be up front about their different service plans. The plan
that most consumers have isn't the most inexpensive one. When a consumer
calls the MediaOne service center and subscribes to their cable service,
they are purposely led to believe by the phone operators that they are
getting the bottom-rung service package. This is not true.

Cable companies are required by the FCC to provide low-cost service packages
that consist of nothing but the broadcast networks and a few other channels.
If more consumers knew about these low-cost bottom tier service packages,
they'd surely sign up for them. Nowhere on MediaOne's web site does it
outline their cable tier plans, nor does it give nay indication that there
are packages lower than "basic" which is what most consumers have.

--
Cameron Barrett