The $100,000 pyramid of competition

We all have our own personal love-hate affair with Comcast. For one, it’s a large company and it decided to stay in Philly when it could have left (yay jobs!) and the new DVR service is pretty damn good and they’ve actually improved customer service in the last few years. But, of course, cable service is soon going to be about $750 a month and, hey, they’re Comcast.

For most of us, there’s not really a choice. You could go with a dish, but without cable you can’t get local sports (okay, not a problem for some) and cable is what we grew up with, and goddammit, we’re not going to change! And so we all have whatever provider is in our area, which is Comcast for most of us. (I pity you Urban Cableworks customers. Even Comcast’s on-screen menu is easier to navigate.)

One community in Bucks County, though, is offering a competitor to Comcast cable. The board of the borough of Hulmeville — population 893 (no, really) — voted Monday night to allow Verizon to set up fiber-optic cable services for its customers.

Verizon promises 330 digital cable channels. No word if they’ll have Comcast SportsNet, but take a guess. The board signed a 15-year agreement with the phone company and will get five percent of gross revenues. Comcast gave Hulmeville $37,500 last year.

Competition is good, right? But, uhm, Verizon? If its cable service is anything like its wireless telephone operation, be ready to spend a lot of time with channels randomly dropping out. And how many, exactly, of the 339 households in Hulmeville (also true) are going to get Verizon cable service? Will there be a customer base of three in the town? Four, maybe?

Verizon brings cable competition to borough [BCCT]
Hulmeville, Pennsylvania [Wikipedia]