Time Warner Needs to Loosen Up

We've probably all had a love/hate relationship with Time Warner at some time since moving here. The cable company's had the franchise for Fountain Valley for decades, and in general has consistently improved its service level since taking over from its predecessors.  It's also regularly raised its rates, but not unreasonably and in line with inflation and its expanded offerings. It still has more outages than Edison, but its system has been upgraded, and is much more sophisticated than when the company acquired it.

It's even more important that this once monopoly finally developed some competition from the satellite companies and, recently, AT&T's UVerse (which has been ripping up my neighborhood and causing some damage). AT&T's people developed their customer service skills in prison, and if I didn't need their ordinary landline service, I wouldn't invite them into my home.

Long ago we had little or no choice as to what the utilities put inside our homes. When AT&T was really AT&T and Pacific Bell was not a rebranded baby Bell, they controlled the wires, including the instrument on the end of the line. You had about three choices of phones, some even not black. They owned them and you just leased them. If you happened across a phone on your own and tried to install it yourself, Bell could detect it, harangue you for messing with its infrastructure and stiffing them out of a fee, and then made you remove it. Could you go to Staples and buy one? No way. Hands-free, extra features and cordless were years away.

After the Feds correctly deregulated the telephone business, things changed dramatically.  Bell didn't control all the equipment, and third-party competition could sell phones, PBXes and entire systems. Bell lost its grip, started to split up and entrepreneurism reigned. Our options increased, a lot of people made a lot of money and the technology advanced after the business was no longer one company's monopoly. One of the reasons we benefited so much from this was we were allowed control of what was in our homes; Bell could no longer dictate (with the State's approval) the equipment, the infrastructure, the costs and the service level.

There are parallels today with Time Warner. The company monopolistically controls what's in your home or apartment, and allow nothing on the end of the cable in your premises it does not charge for and provide. Can you buy and add your own cable box? No, because Time Warner will say it's unapproved for its system, and might even damage it (that's usually bull), and of course it won't be able to lease it to you forever. This limits your options, your freedom to choose, your right to do what you wish in your own home. It's not fair. Neither AT&T nor Edison can tell you want you can use their service for—and neither should Time Warner.  These providers are permitted to bring a basic commodity into your residence—we should be free to do what we wish with it as long as we pay for it.

The city needs to give this some thought when TW's next franchise renewal is considered.  It can operate just like the other utilities, and needs not tell us how to use what's coming out of that cable.