(The following is the text of a letter the writer sent to state legislators recently.)
As you well know, a number of years ago, a Massachusetts law was passed to regulate the cable TV business in our state. The net effect of the law was to gerrymander the state into cable television monopolies on a town-by-town or city-by-city basis. A number of years ago, Charter, Comcast, RCN, and others added high-speed Internet service using the same physical plants as for cable TV. High-speed Internet services, cable or otherwise, seem not to be regulated by any laws, so the service providers can do what they please. In a large number of towns and cities, Verizon’s high speed FIOS is not available and Verizon DSL provides incomplete and far slower coverage than cable Internet, thus reinforcing the high-speed cable Internet monopolies. Internet access via satellite is an unsatisfactory alternative.
The longtime users (circa 2001) of Charter’s cable Internet here in Harvard and other towns have suffered from ever-increasing rates, regular disruptions in various Internet services, and a Third-World level of customer support, including poorly trained customer support personnel, ineffective online chat support sessions, long phone wait times and disconnects, and, very simply, unresolved festering problems. My friends and colleagues who have Comcast cable Internet have similar complaints. Massachusetts citizens who are dependent on the Internet find themselves at a serious competitive disadvantage in this environment. Both here in Massachusetts and in the United States at large, people pay far more and get far less for their Internet usage dollars than in most other countries, even those supposedly in the Third World.
Recently completed hearings at the State House on this subject are very nice, but, you know what? Citizens of Massachusetts need some real, positive, and affirmative actions by you so we can be competitive in our various small businesses instead of spending a lot of time dealing with and working around operational problems with cable Internet. How about it?
Ben Myers
Westcott Road
