Subject:
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Re: Longest railroad (was Re: Longest train?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 27 Dec 1999 04:35:28 GMT
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Viewed:
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257 times
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Larry Pieniazek <lar@voyager.net> wrote:
> 1 - In the US, for instance, cable where there is no monopoly (only a
> few places, granted) is cheaper and better than where there is, LD
> telephone rates have come way down since the ATT government granted
> monopoly was unwound, local rates are still high except where there is
> competition, wheeling has resulted in lower wholesale electricity rates,
> digital bandwidth is in a capacity explosion and price free fall, and
> cell phones, which never were really regulated to start with, have
> gotten orders of magnitude cheaper.
I can attest to this. Here in Knoxville we have one cable company -
now owned by Comcast. Our basic cable lineup doesn't include
History, Sci-Fi, or Comedy Central. If you want those you have to
pay $10 extra AND pay for a box - can't get them with a tv/vcr
alone. In every other cable market I've seen, including my
parents', those are basic cable channels, no box required.
We have no cable modem service here mainly because Comcast doesn't
have to worry about the buffoons at BellSouth getting too far ahead
of them with their ADSL service because a) only about 3 people in
the city can actually get it and b) it doesn't work 2/3rds of the
time.
BellSouth gets to charge $41.50 for an analog line "installation"
that takes about 5 seconds to activate (remotely, to boot). My
friend Jack's ISDN line didn't get setup on time (minimum time is 3
weeks) and he contacted BS to let them know he had to have phone
service of some kind so they gave him a complimentary analog line
until the ISDN was installed. He asked how long it would take to
get it activated and the lady said, "hold on <clickty-click> - there
you go." They also charge $22.50 to "activate" services like
caller-id and the like - again things that take a half dozen
keystrokes.
If there is one thing that would make me lean more towards
relocating than travelling for a job it would be the thought of
moving to a city that had competition for cable and telephone
services.
--
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Longest railroad (was Re: Longest train?
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| (...) Highways are the hardest. I'd be happy to see them privatized last, but they're no big deal, really. But you miss my point. Merely asserting that the market has failed to produce something doesn't meet my criterion, above, of demonstrating (...) (25 years ago, 26-Dec-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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