No more premium channels for analog customers?

Snow isn't a factor here, but we do get severe thunderstorms, and they DO sometimes interrupt cable service. Last outage was about a week ago when everything was out for about 15 minutes, internet a bit longer. Not bad for our location (Fort Worth, Tx).

Bullshit.

Snow doesn't affect cable. My cable service hasn't been out for, let's see, over two years now that I can remember--and probably farther back than that.

Snow and rain are guaranteed to interrupt satellite service. You're saying that it's also guaranteed to take cable out? Bullshit.

Funny a cable company can get away with that argument. Now imagine if this were the water, or power utility?

Nope, I don't feel like an a$$, do you feel like an ignorant fool ? I feel like someone who told the facts straight up, no ice, no water -- Like a good shot of JD. Either you can take it or you can't. Still doesn't change the fact that the post was Off Topic. I've stated it and that's all there is. If you can't take the heat....you know.

BTW: There is a charter for this News Group

Dave -- From snipped-for-privacy@isc.org Tue Oct 21 07:45:07 1997

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From: snipped-for-privacy@isc.org (David C Lawrence)

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comp.dcom.modems.cable is an unmoderated newsgroup which passed its vote for

creation by 181:14 as reported in news.announce.newgroups on 15 Oct 1997.

For your newsgroups file:

comp.dcom.modems.cable Cable modems and internet access via cable tv.

The charter, culled from the vote result announcement:

Comp.dcom.modems.cable is a central location for discussion of

all aspects of the use of cable modems, free from the constraints of

official newsgroups and mailing lists created by cable companies.

Topics that are appropriate for discussion include:

- How to connect multiple computers to a single cable modem.

- How to use non-supported operating systems. Currently most cable

operators support only Windows 95, MacOS and Windows 3.1. The

newsgroup would encourage discussions of how to use OS2, and all of

the various flavors of Unix with cable modems.

- Pros and cons of using proxy servers.

- How to use non-supported software with the system.

- Locations of current commercial systems.

- Announcements of new roll outs of cable modems systems.

- Discussion of problems with cable modem operators.

- Discussion of the merits of cable modems vs. other high bandwidth

services such as xDSL and ISDN.

Participation by industry insiders will be actively sought and

encouraged.

Announcements of new services and features are acceptable by cable

services.

Binary files will not be allowed in comp.dcom.modems.cable.

It's summer, I bet it doesn't even snow up there in the great frozen north where you are now. Some of us have wind storms that do take down cable poles .... as did the ice storms the northern folks have every year. The power company replaces the pole and fixes the power. It may take the cable guy a week to get by and hang up his cable.

"Data" on Southwest Florida Comcast is a "down at least once a week" problem. TV is a bit better but it is still far from reliable. As for the data, Comcast says if it works a few minutes every day they have fulfilled their legal obligation.

If the franchising authority, and the customers, allow this response, they have only themselves to blame.

You're equating cable TV service, a pure luxury, with water, which is a necessity of life?

The water company wouldn't be allowed to have such a policy or contract. No legislator would allow that. However, for pure luxuries (like cable TV or diamonds), no legislator would dare bother to try to equate it with life-giving water.

you are assuming that what was said is true....

Well for now Internet access is a luxury. But then that was once true of the telephone. But even as a luxury the "few minutes a day" argument is bad business.

Try telling that, to some woman who's missing her daily fix of soaps, game & talk shows. After 9/11, there were people complaining to the networks that their shows were pre-empted by all the news coverage. Some people really need a life.

This is right from the Comcast.net web site "YOUR SOLE REMEDY FOR SERVICE INTERRUPTION SHALL BE LIMITED TO A PRORATED CREDIT UPON REQUEST ONLY IN THE EVENT OF COMPLETE FAILURE OF THE SERVICE DUE TO A TECHNICAL MALFUNCTION FOR TWENTY-FOUR (24) CONSECUTIVE HOURS OR MORE." (their caps, not mine)

When I asked them what that meant they said you do not get a credit if your modem EVER communicated in that 24 hour period. It sounds pretty unambiguous to me.

I certainly wouldn't elevate internet access to the status of a 'utility', but I suspect that many would. My wife considers cable TV to be necessary to life. How fortunate she is to have lived a life of relative luxury. So many middle class Americans have never lived without TV, without a phone, without air conditioning/central heat, without a car, without electricity, without enough food, or without someone to protect and provide for them. I guess it isn't too surprising that they consider those comforts necessities, rather than luxuries.

Definitely - if you run a web business, broadband (or at an absolute minimum - 56K dialup) is a necessity.

And since we're talking about the here and now, one can't equate cable TV and broadband access with water supply.

I'm under no obligation to grant "necessity" status to that any more than I am to grant "necessity" status to alcohol, to satisfy an alcoholic.

If your livelyhood depended on it? Would that "elevate" it?

They CAN'T get away with it here in NJ !

Dave

I am sure that TiVo is different, but I recently found that with the Charter DVR, I couldn't watch anything I had recorded when the cable connection was down. Rather annoying, and surprising. Perhaps even a privacy issue....