Is Our Situation With TWC Unusual?
Plenty of Lincolnites like to moan about Time Warner Cable—their rates, their channels, their service, and so on. Lately the hot topic is Time Warner’s impasse with KLKN, leading to the television equivalent of a blue screen of death on channel 8. It isn’t uncommon to hear folks clamor for a new cable company, but the fact is there’s nothing preventing a new cable company from coming to town. Neither Time Warner nor the City of Lincoln has anything to do with our single-provider setup in Lincoln.
I wonder how “normal” our situation is, relative to other communities our size. Is it normal for a community of a quarter-million to have a single cable service provider? I tried doing a little research on my own but so far I’ve come up mostly empty. I don’t have the resources to be able to dig in to the issue as much as I would like.
Perhaps one of you has some expertise or experience in this area. Could it be that a population of 250,000 just isn’t large enough to support two major cable service providers? Or is Lincoln just unlucky, perhaps through some fluke of history, geography, or circumstance? If there were hope of making money here I have to think somebody would have stepped up by now. And yet ... nothing. I suppose there’s a small chance nobody knows about our little corner of the world, but I find that unlikely.
I’ve been holding out hope for Verizon ever since they brought their call center to town. My fingers are crossed.
The Comments
Moses says Normal I Think September 9, 2010 at 7:17am
Portland only had one provider last time I checked. Comcast was all by itself in a much larger metro area. Is Cox the only provider in Omaha?
Mr. Wilson says RE: Normal I Think September 9, 2010 at 7:32am
I was thinking Omaha had another, but now I can’t think of one. Perhaps I was thinking of Qwest, which is a different beast altogether.
Fletch says RE: Normal I Think September 9, 2010 at 7:53am
There are two providers in Omaha.
JT says From what I understand a September 9, 2010 at 7:55am
From what I understand a new cable company would have to run entirely new cable lines. Can’t share with TWC.
Fletch says RE: From what I understand a September 9, 2010 at 8:59am
This. That’s why it’s doubtful someone else will enter the market. I, too, hope for Verizon to bring FIOS to life here, although so far I am pleased with DirecTV.
Someday, LES could get into the game if they wanted to. They could actually deliver the signal along the electrical lines and not have to run new cable lines, much in the same way you deliver broadband. I think it’s called BPL - Broadband over Power Lines. Some changes to the lines would need to occur, and I don’t know if it would be more or less costly than running new cable.
Wisco says Madison WI September 9, 2010 at 11:39am
Madison WI has historically had one cable provider (Charter) but a couple of years ago AT&T;U-verse (Fiber Optic) started to move into the area.
The idea AT&T;has is to run fiber Optic lines into each neighborhood and then use cable lines to the individual homes. They think this is the fastest way to get the service into peoples homes across the nation and then they can go back and run Fiber to the individual homes.
My mom has U-verse and she likes it.
Not as fast as using fiber all the way but still faster than a cable company.
I’m just glad I can watch My Badgers on TWC this season.