If you had a customer service model like they do, you would put up metal detectors and wand every person who showed up at the door.

I have never met a company so poorly run, so egregiously committed to the act of ripping off consumers.

you say things like this only because you haven't had the pleasure of dealing with Charter Communications

Ain't it great to deal with unregulated monopolies? Makes me feel like a real conservative.

Wouldn't this be a GOVERNMENT franchised Monopoly? Until the recent deregulation allowing phone and cable companies to compete in the others market they were the only ones allowed to provide wired service by government regulation. See how well controlled economies promoted lower costs and customer service

Before about 1983 the Post Office, the telephone companies and the electric distributors and airlines gave the best service of any industry, at reasonable prices. I'm so old I remember that. It's all been downhill since that time. These are all natural monopoly businesses. They got "deregulated" by politicing, and we've been poorer since then. The cable companies rode the same "deregulated" horse, and now are able to tax most homes in America for basic services, while having rights to the raodways and airways.

It's been this way so long, and the political propoganda is so effective most people don't even realize what's happening. Don't believe the kneejerk response that the American governments cannot do anything effectively.

I think you are so old you're seeing the past through rose-colored glasses.

The telephone company (singular) used to charge absolutely insane rates for scratchy, faint long distance calling. In 1983 we paid something like $.25/minute for long distance ($.53 in today's dollars). Today it's a literally two or three cents, and if we get a crappy company, we can change companies. This is true to a lesser extent for local telephone service, for the folks who still have land lines, though we are limited to the monopoly phone company or the monopoly cable company.

Airline flying was out of reach of most Americans in 1983. It was just too damn expensive. The airlines could afford to shower their few customers with attention and get the planes in the air on time -- the high prices meant high amenities, lower demand, and nearly empty skies.

Competition, to the extent it's been allowed, has been good for the consumer.

Hardly. I had a long post to explain a few things, but the new software always seems to cut out before I can submit. I guess the internet is nicely deregulated; it's working about like the untilities do...

I wouldn't say the government monopolies of the past are any better than the monopolies or oligopolies of today. AT&T is just about as big as it was before it was broken up by the goverment.

Comcast and other providers have a virtual monopoly on TV and broadband Internet in most areas. Comcast has even sent fake actors to city / FCC meetings to keep their licenses intact.

I am ashamed to admit it, but I have to agree with Andrew on this.

Back in 1956 a family of four could fly to Seattle and back from St. Paul/Minneapolis for just under $700 coach. Today that can be done for just over $800, and there is a big difference between 1956 and 2009 dollars.

Back in 1969, when I built a house in the Forest Lake area, Ma Bell sent out stickers for me to put in the house showing all of the places that I would like phone jacks put in. They charged per phone back then, and buying a wireless from Home Depot was not an option. Ma Bell "rented" you your phones, and they made a healthy profit off of that, as did Western Electric in manufacturing those 15 lb. wonders.

The Post Office is a completely different set of circumstances in itself. Letting UPS and FedEx compete with direct local delivery of mail would bring down costs and aid in efficiency.

Comcast, Charter, and all the rest of the cable companies should have more competition, and allow access to the cable network infrastructure. Satellite TV is not direct competiton and never will be until they can modify the weather to make sure that each dish always has a clear view to the satellite.

So long as the competition is apples to apples. USPS has a mandate to deliver first-class mail to any address in the US at a flat rate. This ability was recognized by the Founders as a vital, but unwritten, civil right. This meant that running the Post Office was, in peacetime, the most important duty of the Federal Government, and remained so for well over a century.

In Winona they have two cable companies. The rates are unbelievably low and the service is outstanding. So my brother who lives there says.

Eventually those two will get together. It would take a lot more than two companies to rely on competition long term. Usually if more than 4 companies control more than 40 of a market, it really is not a market.

Watch and see.

In any event most people don't believe their cable company is a competitive company they can negotiate with Adam Smith style.

All of the technological adavances of the last 30 years would have happened anyway. And it would not take months to get a businees utility service installed, and one would be able to contact their phone company without somebody in India insisting after an hours wait that they could only talk to the owner of the business customer.

I ran a business for a long time before and after 1980. The service and the cost were better under regulation, and not just by a little bit. Naturally, the advance of technology brought down costs. That also happened under regulation. In the 50's a "long distance call" was almost an emergency, and it was proper to interupt a meeting for something like that. Deregulation did not change that, it was the natural advance of technology.

The problem and the strength of regulation in the US is that States regulate utilities, so there are 50 regulators, and if a State gets it wrong, it's easy to find a model to fix it. The problem is that most companies operate in many states today, and they need uniformity.

It's interesting to watch a Minnesota regulator making a determination that folks in eastern Montana should pay for power lines that send Noth Dakota power to Chicago.

But states used to do a good job. If the State Banking regulators were not allowed to be pre-empted by the Fed Reserveover the last 30 years, we would not have to bail them out. Now banks are regulated by their own lobbyists, essentially. And "conservative economic philosophy" has become another scam in America..

But... technology usually doesn't advance under regulation, there's no economic motive to advance.

Hasn't happened since they first wired the town ages ago and has no appearance of happening anytime soon. Probably would be an anti-trust violation now.

IMO this view is mostly successful propaganda by the cable companies. I've been a dish customer for over ten years now, and was a Mpls. cable customer before that. I lose reception while viewing 2 or 3 times per year, for on average 10 minutes at a time as a particularly strong front passes through. My recollection of my cable service was that they'd drop service at least that often, and sometimes for several hours at a time.