Hi,
I do a lot with DOCSIS on the SMATV side of things. I provide service for MDUs. The FCC passed a beautiful law for us PCOs on 10/31/2007 which allows us to compete with the monopoly cable providers in MDUs even though they have exclusive agreements. The FCC voided the exclusive part of the agreements, but they allow us PCOs to still have exclusive agreements.
The above legal tidbit and many more are available to us through expensive attorneys. One thing that we have learned in this country is that if you have enough money to pay attorneys you can get away with murder (thank you OJ for making my point). We've also learned that there are strength in numbers. You may have heard of the NCTC (National Cable Television Cooperative). That's a neat idea, but they are still for what I would call big companies. I have 350 subscribers. Anyway, I found an attorney firm that wants us to form a little group to get legal help to keep Comcast, Charter and other giants form making all the money in this industry. It would look sort of like this: We pay a $300.00/year membership fee and we have access to all of the services in the organization. Would anyone be interested in this service?
Thanks,
emkowale
I would certainly like to talk more about this. I am in the midst of acquiring two small cable companies, and the NCTC is a nightmare. No assignment, etc, we just want to buy operating companies and add internet, they want to give them to us but how do we keep the cable on? The NCTC is saying $15k just to get an account, and we are talking under 200 SUBS in rural america!