[Discuss] Competition of broadband

[bene at klatsch.org (Ben Eisenbraun)]

On Sun, Dec 04, 2011 at 10:36:56AM -0500, Richard Pieri wrote:
> On Dec 4, 2011, at 9:08 AM, Jerry Feldman wrote:
> > The bottom line is there is a hodgepodge of old laws on the books.
> 
> I say that the bottom line is Mayors Tom and Joe are wholly owned
> subsidiaries of Comcast Corporation.  If you don't like how they're
> handling cable TV deployment then fire them and hire someone you that
> like.

I don't live in Boston, and I don't pay much attention to Menino, but I
haven't seen any evidence that Curtatone is in Comcast's pocket. Somerville
is a "competitive" market for cable service, since it's serviced by both
RCN and Comcast.

My understanding of the spat between Curtatone and Verizon is that it stems
from his opposition to Verizon's desire to negotiate video franchises on the
state and not city level. Verizon keeps pushing legislation on this issue,
e.g:

http://www22.verizon.com/about/community/ma/cable_choice.html

And the town mayors, including Curtatone, have traditionally opposed it.
I suspect that Somerville is able to negotiate high franchise fees from the
providers due to its high population density, and Curtatone is just working
to protect Somerville's ability to negotiate high rates.

Can you point to some evidence to the contrary?

-ben

--
in the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's
there are few.                                          <shunryu suzuki>