Hey I thought I was alone in my hatred for my cable TV bill until I started reading about how other people, working folks like myself are all getting gouged on cable, phone and internet. We are all sick of it.
This is my October 2014 Time Warner "Triple Play" bill.
When I signed up, less than two years ago, it was advertised at $89.99 and today, less than two years later, the actual price is 110% more -- now $190.77.
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Here is my rant. Why are cable TV bills going up every year?
While at the same time the level of service keeps going down and they keep charging more for less. Every. single. year. With the cost of digital media going down in terms of producing it and distributing it primarily over the internet shouldn’t the cost of cable TV and internet access be getting cheaper, instead of getting more expensive?
A lot of us are asking, hey why can’t we have a public option with price controls that affords basic telephone service, cable TV service, internet service for a rent control fixed price for these basic services.
Your Ridiculously High Cable Bill Could Go Up Even More
The cost of TV has been rising at a breathless pace. And thanks to a couple of pending mega-mergers, it could get even worse.
The price for basic cable went up by 6.5 percent during 2012 -- a whopping four times the rate of inflation, according to a new report from the Federal Communications Commission.
The price of basic cable, the entry-level tier of service, increased by 6.5 percent through that year. The price of expanded basic cable increased by 5.1 percent. Equipment prices -- what you pay to rent the cable box or an HD converter -- also went up at a higher rate than inflation, 4.4 percent for basic service and 4.2 percent for expanded basic service.
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The FCC report comes amid a huge wave of consolidation among telecommunications giants.
Let’s break it down in simple terms. If I watch a movie online which through data compression doesn’t take as long for me to download, shouldn’t I be paying less instead of more, especially as memory is getting cheaper and fiber optics are getting faster. It’s taking the supplier less time with less money and less effort to provide more of the same thing and instead of the costs going down, it keeps going up. What is wrong with this picture in the so called free market which looks more like a fixed market and not a free market because the market isn’t allowed to work in the way that market economics normally dictates to drive prices down using economics of scale? In fact just the opposite is happening even though all of their costs are going down their profits keep going up because their ability to gouge us in a fixed market is completely unfettered.
If with fiber optics I’m able to be served with the same fixed costs, 30 or 40 times more volume why couldn’t those cost savings be passed on to the end user who is the cable and internet customer? It can’t be the cost of laying fiber optic cable which most industry estimates believe pay for themselves within the first two years. Now they’ve recouped their entire investment and it’s all gravy for them. There is no downside. They’re prices keep increasing. Exactly the same thing is true for satellite TV, using our public airways.
The public doesn’t seem to be benefiting from the economies of scale employed by this digital technology either. The same thing seems to be the case which is that satellite TV, paid for TV prices, also seem to be increasing every year. Of course there is live internet streaming of television programs from lots of providers and their cost points don’t seem to be that much cheaper than cable or satellite TV either.
It seems the public isn’t really being represented in terms of proper customer protection wherein laws on a national basis are put into place to provide basic cable TV and internet services in price controls that are federally regulated that allow for affordable entertainment and information technology.
Having affordable access to information and entertainment services is a real quality of life issue that needs to be addressed. It seems that along with telephone services, these are about the only luxury that working people have access to in an economy where everything seems to be so over priced, most of us can’t afford to leave home. Therefore as a quality of life issue having access to affordable information and entertainment technology is a critical issue that should be politically addressed especially with school age children in the home.