Comcast, Verizon, who the hell cares?
It’s been almost since my last post. Why so damn long? I’m busy as hell — but that’s a post for a different day. What dragged me out of hibernation was a post by a friend of mine about cable competition, or lack thereof, in MoCo — a subject I’m painfully familiar with.
So Montgomery County, Maryland’s made the news again with its county council decision to fine Comcast for its woeful customer service. That’s right — that’s $12,281.84 less it will have to pay technicians who fall asleep while waiting for, that’s right, Comcast customer service. Good thinking, MoCo — that’s really gonna put a dent in the ol’ pocketbook (especially when they pass it along to consumers).
But there’s more going on than just token fines, we’ve got token competition too. A TLF article drew the ire of my buddy Sam, so much so that he inked out a little letter to our dear Council President, Marilyn Praisner. It seems after just three months of Verizon playing in Comcast’s sandbox, Praisner’s called the Time of Death on competition. Par for the course for Montgomery County bureaucrats, I guess. You have to at least give it a chance, but that said, no matter how this tiny sliver of mock competition shakes out, these are two established encumbant players in local politics and they have their hands in every cookie jar around. They both know how to play the game, and they will gladly fein competition, maybe even drum up a temporary price war, to keep the regulators at bay…
Que sera sera. Again, nobody’s looking out for my best interests…
And I couldn’t be happier. While they piss and moan about total ‘HD’ content, $/subscriber and channel lineups, I’ll increasingly be able to shift my eyeballs and pursue my entertainment pleasures online. As long as nobody tells the idiot Praisners of the world where the real competition is coming from, we’ll all be better off. I wonder how long it will be before Praisner’s railing about how YouTube…or Joost…or SplashCast haven’t been “approved” to compete in the County?