Tax money recovered and Comcast discussions

[davidk]

I attended the monthly meeting in Newton Township and there are at least two things that came up that are newsworthy, especially as they involve more than just Newton.

One is the fact that officials in the township, the wage tax collector, treasurer and others were successful in getting $180,000 in tax revenues owed the township but that had been misdirected. These are wage taxes and others that residents had paid but due to bureaucratic snafus the money never came to the township.

Lee Jamison, the township COG liaison, said that Abington Township was also trying to regain the money they are owed but without success so far. I am sure other Abington munis are in the same position.

In other area based news the Supervisors have been meeting with Comcast about the fact that area subscribers have been paying the same rates as other area residents, on other systems the company operates, but getting far fewer services.

[husky]

In other area based news the Supervisors have been meeting with Comcast about the fact that area subscribers have been paying the same rates as other area residents, on other systems the company operates, but getting far fewer services.

I have also heard that Comcast wants to add telephone service as an option and will bundle this with TV and Internet to take customers from Frontier.

There is another major issue to be considered when reviewing Comcast in Newton.

There are areas of Newton that can't get Comcast services at all  because there is no wiring on the road to connect to. This appears to be allowed because the original Adelphia contract (signed a few years ago, and good for 10 years!) required service ONLY in areas where the home density per mile is not realistic for Newton.  One wonders why this provision was allowed in the contract at all.

This means that many can't get any cable services (TV, Internet, and soon telephone) and there is no competition for their business. This hurts everyone. It also means that  residents and businesses who can't get services are effectively 'subsidizing' those who can get services, by being unable to participate BUT having no other (cable) option available.

With Newton's recent and expected future growth, this is not good for the town. Since the terms of the cable contract are under discussion, the  company should be required to address this situation with at least a plan and commitment that isn't open ended or allows them too many years to address.   Today (I believe) there is nothing requiring them to do anything.  Despite this, we are allowing Comcast to continue and expand their business in town.

Note I am not talking about some remote area that has only a single home. There are probably areas of Newton that are very difficult to service. There are areas within a short walk of Town Hall that have no service where the cable passes within a few hundred feet but not connectible. This is unacceptable if Comcast wants to be the towns provider for the future.

They should be installing more cable now. The increased revenue from the telephone packaging and continued Newton growth should help offset their costs.If the town is changing the agreement (to allow them to add/offer telephone and other services), they should understand and also address this.

[davidk]

If Comcast telephone is as bad as the cable you're not missing anything.

[husky]

If service is so bad why is the town letting them take more money without addressing the issues?

[JoeP]

Back in 2008 I posted under "What's Your Beef" a warning titled BEWARE of Frontier DSL Internet Usage Caps.  The only DSL carrier in Newton is Frontier.

The idea of DSL and Broadband caps has not gone away - in fact Time Warner is implementing them.  For that matter, Frontier was going to try them out in their hometown of Rochester, NY but then decided to suck business away from unhappy "capped" Time Warner customers.  See this link -> http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Fron ... ter-101745.  Frontier has apparently put the ISP cap on the back burner for now but I bet it ain't dead yet Jim!  Note: Frontier has already updated our user agreements to apply caps whenever they want.

We in Newton have only one other ISP choice - Comcast.  They too have talked about download caps but on a more realistic level.

So if Comcast includes phone service, I'll dump Frontier (and their crappy 1.3 Mbs download speed) for sure when my contract is up in November.

One NY congressman is trying to fight these arbitrary ISP caps - see http://www.high-speed-isp.com/news/tag/eric-massa/ but the legions of cable and ISP lobbyists will probably eat him and his bill for lunch.