Alternatives to Comcast

[Ben Scott]

On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 10:34 PM, Chip Marshall <chip at 2bithacker.net> wrote:
> NH seems to have this thing against competition among cable providers.

  It's negotiated on a town-by-town basis in NH; contact your local
public utilities office.  Sometimes, the town will give a cableco
exclusive rights in return for something.  That might be money to the
town coffers, or services (like free cable for town offices).  In
small towns, the "something" is often coming into the town in the
first place -- it costs a ton of money to build out a cable network,
so small towns have to sign away their lives to get anyone to come in.

  But even without exclusive agreements, cable companies generally
aren't interested in competition in most markets.  If there's already
an incumbent provider, they won't be able to get enough subscribers to
switch to recoup their investment soon enough for the money-people.
Unless it's a dense urban area, and I don't think we have any of those
in NH.

-- Ben