Towns plan to revisit cable deals
Entire Article
By CHUIN-WEI YAP
Staff Writer
Negotiations over an array of cable services, including Internet packages, infrastructure, rates and channels, are back on the table as a broadband monopoly in central Maine changes hands.
Representatives from towns in the area, including Augusta, Oakland, Fairfield, Waterville, Winslow, are meeting July 6 with a prominent cable telecommunications lawyer engaged by the city of Auburn, to reopen the terms of local Adelphia cable franchises.
With the ailing cable company falling under Time Warner and Comcast Corp. in a $17.6 billion purchase in April, Adelphia's franchisees here want to revisit their cable deals -- and they are backed by some disgruntled citizens.
"None of us are expecting difficulties (with Time Warner), but at the same time, we don't want to be taken for granted," said Patricia Finnigan, Auburn's city manager. "Cable television is very important to our citizens, and we want to try to negotiate the best deal possible."
Some of these citizens speak of shoddy service and runaway prices in the last throes of Adelphia's troubled years.
"What I would personally like is to see cable regulated again," said Linda Nadeau, of Fairfield. "We have no competition. (I've had) a lot of outages -- lengthy ones. You call customer service and they act as if they don't know what you're talking about."
Fed up with 18-hour outages and being made to miss her favorite TV show "American Idol" because of them, Nadeau wrote a letter to the Morning Sentinel in May laying out her cable frustrations. She got six responses, and she intends to keep organizing her small grassroots effort.
Entire Article
By CHUIN-WEI YAP
Staff Writer
Negotiations over an array of cable services, including Internet packages, infrastructure, rates and channels, are back on the table as a broadband monopoly in central Maine changes hands.
Representatives from towns in the area, including Augusta, Oakland, Fairfield, Waterville, Winslow, are meeting July 6 with a prominent cable telecommunications lawyer engaged by the city of Auburn, to reopen the terms of local Adelphia cable franchises.
With the ailing cable company falling under Time Warner and Comcast Corp. in a $17.6 billion purchase in April, Adelphia's franchisees here want to revisit their cable deals -- and they are backed by some disgruntled citizens.
"None of us are expecting difficulties (with Time Warner), but at the same time, we don't want to be taken for granted," said Patricia Finnigan, Auburn's city manager. "Cable television is very important to our citizens, and we want to try to negotiate the best deal possible."
Some of these citizens speak of shoddy service and runaway prices in the last throes of Adelphia's troubled years.
"What I would personally like is to see cable regulated again," said Linda Nadeau, of Fairfield. "We have no competition. (I've had) a lot of outages -- lengthy ones. You call customer service and they act as if they don't know what you're talking about."
Fed up with 18-hour outages and being made to miss her favorite TV show "American Idol" because of them, Nadeau wrote a letter to the Morning Sentinel in May laying out her cable frustrations. She got six responses, and she intends to keep organizing her small grassroots effort.
