Quote:
Originally Posted by Lakegeezer
If the town refuses terms, the provider can threaten to stop serving the town.
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We've had TWC here in Columbus since the early '70s. About 15 years ago the phone company (Ameritech) decided to compete and installed cable through most of the city alongside TWC's lines. I got better rates as soon as the new cable went past my house. Just before the system was complete, Ameritech was bought-out by SBC. The SBC folks made a big point of stating that "
they were in the telephone business" and were not interested in cable TV. They announced that, absent a buyer, they would let their system "go dark".
The city --and this is the key point-- told them that if they went dark, they would need to remove all of their equipment from the public right-of-ways and restore them to their original state. Since this would have cost many tens of millions of dollars to unstring and dig up wire, etc., they kept it going until they were able to find a buyer (Wide Open West (WOW), at less than 5 cents on the dollar). BTW, the first thing WOW did was start offering digital phone service
The point of all this is that it may not be all that easy or cheap for a cable company to pull-up stakes and leave an area.