Hey, there! Log in / Register
Mike Ross to RCN: Give up your monopolistic ways
By adamg on Tue, 10/06/2009 - 2:19pm
City Council President Michael Ross (Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Fenway, and Mission Hill) plans a hearing on exclusive contracts Boston's second-ranked cable company has with many apartment-building owners to provide cable service. In a statement, he says:
By law, residents can choose which cable provider offers them the best service for the best price. However, for many Bostonians this choice has been taken away from them as RCN has entered into long-term contracts that limit renters’ rights to choose a provider in the marketplace. Many of these subscribers are disabled, elderly, or low-income residents who rely on cable TV for entertainment and information. We must ensure that telecommunications companies are not gouging these subscribers to line their own pockets.
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Good question but ....
Glad to see Mike Ross is looking into this. Let's see what comes of the hearing.
It seems fair to me that the owner of the apartment building gets to decide what cable company to use - he/she owns the building, is the business owner, so it makes sense.
Having RCN as an alternative to Comcast is a benefit. RCN's business model (I believe) has always been built on the 'big building' model. I don't even know if it's possible for them to individually install boxes.
We lived in Somerville and immediately upon moving in went with RCN, basically because it 'wasn't Comcast'.
RCN
RCN installs individual boxes just fine. In fact, the RCN guy ran the line to our house with a lot better line and connectors than Comcast did (or ever used to repair problems with our drop). My Comcast connection would drop in and out with breaks in the signal if the wind blew or it rained particularly heavy. Haven't had any such problem since RCN ran their own drop and looped it through the anchors to support the line weight.
I agree that an apartment building owner has every right to decide whose company he wants to provide to his clients (and his clients have every right to decide where to live based on the building's choices). The smart owner will offer either drop competitively to draw residents who would prefer to have a choice.
if the landlord isn't paying for it...
... i see no reason why the owner of a multi-unit apartment building has any right to dictate what cable company is used. at that point the building is a business, not a residence. and you give up some of those decision rights with ownership. So long as the landlord doesn't have to pay for it, its the tenants right to choose a vendor.
and, as mentioned in the original post, there are actually laws about this. you can check out that MGL, Chapter 166a, Section 22 that reads:
"No person owning, leasing, controlling or managing a multiple dwelling unit or units, or a manufactured housing community, as defined in section thirty-two F of chapter one hundred and forty, shall prohibit or otherwise prevent an operator from entering such buildings or manufactured homes for the purpose of constructing, installing or servicing CATV system facilities if one or more tenants or occupants of a multiple dwelling unit or units, or one or more owners or occupants of a manufactured home or homes, have requested such CATV services. A cable television operator shall not make an installation in an individual dwelling unit or manufactured home unless permission has been given by the tenant occupying such unit or the owner or occupant of such manufactured home."
Hmmph.
I didn't realize we had such a stupid rule on the books. To me, it would be like saying that as long as any customer wants Doritos, then Shaws is obligated to let a Frito-Lay representative put Doritos on the shelf.
If my landlord includes a water cooler in every apartment and tells me that I can only have Poland Spring service it, that's not against the law...but Comcast v. Verizon v. RCN is. Brilliant.
Leave Verizon out of it
Since they don't provide cable service in the state's largest city.
State Law
The M in MGL stands for Massachusetts.
Yeah, I know
And I'm OK with our current combo of Comcast for cable, Speakeasy for broadband and Verizon for POTS, but the whole Verzion-vs-Boston thing is annoying, even if it didn't mean watching roughly 67,000 FiOS Guy commercials during every single Red Sox game.
If you don't like the
If you don't like the selection at Shaw's, you can walk down the street to Stop & Shop. If you don't like your landlord's choice of cable providers, what are you going to do?
It's actually a perfect place for government regulation, stepping in to maintain a fair and open market. For a competitive market to operate efficiently, the end consumers need to be empowered to make choices, so that the providers can be forced to respond to those choices. When providers, instead of seeking to satisfy their customers' needs at a competitive price, choose instead to offer an incentive to a middleman (the landlord) to restrict their customers' choices, the market breaks down.
If I don't like shaws
I don't drive to Shaws in the first place. If I don't like the constraints of the landlord, I don't move in. Again, I also think market influences would have more landlords installing switches for both Comcast and RCN in the basement anyways.
What if I don't want CATV but I want a satellite dish instead? Do they have to let me mount a mini-dish on the roof? Out my window? What makes CATV choices an institutionalized legal right, but not other options?
Please
You'd turn down an otherwise perfect apartment at a cheap rent, because you don't like the choice of cable operators? Gimme a break.
The problem that the law attempts to address is the anticompetitive bundling of services. One service - shelter - is the overriding concern, and the landlord uses the leverage that grants him to force another unwanted service on the tenant. That serves the interests of the selected cable provider. It generally serves the interests of the landlord, who's given some sort of incentive by the cable company in exchange for the new, captive clientele. But it's tough to see how it serves the interests of the broader public, including the tenants.
The key to cable is that offering multiple providers requires no significant infringement of the landlord's rights. There are no unsightly dishes. The wiring is the same. At most, there needs to be a second box installed in the basement.
I really don't get your objection to a regulatory scheme that ensures open and competitive markets. Unless you're one of those who's suspicious of free markets, and would rather have choices made and imposed from above?
What happened to the owner's rights?
If I have 30 units and they all want a different cable company, then I have to have 30 hookups in my basement? 30 holes in my foundation made by 30 different company's representatives?
Is this only a reasonable law because there's only 2 cable companies in town?
So, you think an apartment owner....
...should be able to mandate what phone company you use, too?
Wouldn't care
I only use a cell phone.
but we're talking about tenants...
... not your personal preference.
as an owner of a 30-unit apartment building, there are tons of decisions you can't make for the people who rent from you. it's not like owning a house. it's not even like owning an owner-occupied two-family. it's a business and your tenants have many legal rights.
this sounds familiar
I think I remember hearing this exact complaint several years ago, only that time it was about Comcast's monopoly. Or am I making that up?
I've never had a problem with RCN. I had nothing but problems with Comcast, and the only reason I had Comcast at all was because I couldn't get anything else in Roxbury.
"Rely on cable TV"
Hey, I'm down with doing away with monopolies, but seriously? There are a lot of conveniences and vices I really enjoy having, but I wouldn't say I "rely" on them as if it's some sort of basic human right that I have them.
Nothing new
I'm originally from eastern Pennsylvania, where RCN has one of its largest service areas. This tactic of exclusive contracts is nothing new, and isn't limited to apartment buildings. When suburban home developments began popping up more frequently, RCN and its competitors(Service Electric, and to a lesser extent, Blue Ridge Cable) would forge exclusive, multi-year contracts with these developments to lay down fresh cable and provide service, effectively forcing each other out of those developments/areas. Additionally, many of these developments put all of their cable underground instead of on poles, which later caused issues with upgrading service and limiting competition (e.g., FiOS) from making inroads.
I have no experience with RCN in Boston (I have Comcast, patiently waiting for FiOS one day), but I had RCN for many years in PA and the experience got exponentially worse as the company grew in size and coverage. Even though the Lehigh Valley is its largest service area (customer base), RCN focused most of its network investment in other areas of the country. Therefore, much of the Lehigh Valley coverage area for Cable Internet was (and still is) one-way, where co-ax is used for downloading while dial-up is used for uploading. Try working remotely on that set-up... you can't. It actually took a class-action lawsuit from one town to force RCN to make the fiber upgrades that they planned and promised years ago.
Anyway, I digress. Bottom line: cable providers will do whatever they can to get exclusive, "recurring revenue" contracts at the expense of consumer choice. If these companies would provide good service at a competitive price, there would be no need for exclusivity.
How would multiple cable companies be installed?
Hypothetical question: Suppose you have a 25-unit apartment building. How would you physically install equipment to handle two cable companies? And be able to hook up any user to any cable provider?
I assume every unit has a coax cable (or cat 5??) going down to a common place, like a basement?
I can't quite picture how this would be done.
Sorry if this is a dumb question....
No, I agree. When I lived in
No, I agree. When I lived in Florida, out apartment was Adelphia. If we didnt like it, we could get direct tv or sky.
Heres what bothers me about this whole issue: When the sales tax went up, one provision included was that satellites would be taxed, which they werent before. I dont remember any media outlet doing any decent tax coverage (for example providing a full list of items that were exempt before but not now). The point is, its obvious some cable lobbyist got that provision added, to make satalite TV less attractive. I wonder if it was a comcast person thats not knocking on ross's door.
How it works
I live in a 47-unit building. Everyones coax feed runs to a common telcom closet. The closet has a main feed from Comcast and RCN. The cable company hooks your unit up to their feed and you're done.