Subject: RE: Kudos to Brian for Parkway Project
From: Jim Thomas (jthomas@math.niu.edu)
Date: Mon Sep 29 2008 - 12:32:08 CDT
> One thing he mentioned was setting up new contracts with Comcast or
> Dishnetwork. If we do get out of the Dishnetwork contract why would we
> set up another contact with anyone? Why shouldn't we just be able to
> pick who we want as our provider?
Our original contract was with Roddy Glenn the subcontractor who
provided dish services. We've never had a contract with Dish/Echostar.
The contract with Roddy gave him, and from him, exclusive rights to
the building. As we've said before, once the contract with Roddy was
legally terminated, we had several choices:
1) Continue with Dish/Echostar under a new contract that gave us a bit
more protection
2) Dump Dish/Echostar and bring in a new provider, such as Comcast or
U-Verse, or even an alternative satellite company.
We chose the first option for reasons that, hopefully, we made clear
in many previous posts:
1) Many people like Dish programming. Also, switching to another
provider would mean that subscribers would also be required to pay
for new receivers. Whether for just standard reception for for HDTV,
this would be an expense that most people neither want nor need.
2) U-Verse is not yet available in our neighborhood and won't be at
least until late winter at the earliest, according to AT&T staff.
3) Comcast could come in, but they would likely not be willing to
provide service to the building immediately because of the number of
Dish subscribers. There also technical issues, such installing the
cable conduit into the building and wiring the building with their
equipment, because they could not share Dish's wiring. We would also
have the same contract negotiation issues, and it could take up to
three or four months to install Comcast wiring *after* the contract
was signed, which could delay service to our building until spring.
With no contract with Dish/Echostar, if a rain/snow storm knocked out
service, we'd all be without tv until the contract was signed. Even if
Comcast did come in, we would not have a choice, because we would
lose Dish/Echostar. This would leave Comcast as the only game in
town, because....
4) An alternative satellite company would require the same exclusivity
contract.
Jim
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : Mon Jul 27 2009 - 12:45:43 CDT