COX vs LCG FIBER vs BELLSOUTH

[TBEAR]

If you are a city resident which one do you want. PLEASE VOTE!!!

NOTE: TO VOTE YOU MUST BE A REGISTERED MEMBER

[coolbeans]

this weekend Cox sucked. They have split and were doing upgrades since 12am and if you have digital cable or the internet with them you were phoo-phoo out of luck. when you call they will tell you live in this area now call another number that was out of service. well, i just think they should have let the people know. i have e-mail with them and they did not let me know! do like the school board get an automated system! they are trying to sell phone service so use it!

thank you for letting me vent. this is a great site to vent and see what others or thinking

[TBEAR]

I know i have a dvr with digital and hd and the dang hd channels were what i call maybe "digitizing", or like fluttering digitally, for the last few weeks. then last night at 12:00 pm the dvr box blinked on and off about 8 times in a half hour. I think they need to do upgrades like on a monday night not a saturday night.

And if there is any other specific topic header someone wants me to add just send me a message and I will consider it.

[lol]

all are bad get direct tv

[TBEAR]

Unless it rains then direct tv doenst work at all, and its true I know at least 5 people that tell me when it rains it doesnt work

[Bijou]

It doesn't even have to rain. Mine wouldn't work on cloudy days

[theman]

lol direct tv is horrible and cost just as much as cable

[zoe10850]

If you think Cox / Direct/ BellSouth are bad, wait until you see what government and civil service can do with an UNREGULATED MONOPOLY. It will be worse than their traffic control, and despite what we are being told, much more expensive (kind of like Consolidated Govt).

The truth of the matter is the court battle is about fair practice. If the "City"(who is that anyway?) can operate as efficiently as we were told, why do they need a subsidy from the utilities section ? Because otherwise, the service will operate at a loss, and not be "competitive".

And you notice the City NEVER mentioned the bureaucratic cost (staff, trucks etc)necessary to operate a phone cable system. Has anyone noticed how many trucks Cox and BellSouth have on the road ?? Well, the City will need that also, and that IS NOT part of the $125m the mayor wants to spend, but then, Lafayuette voters are sheep.

[TBEAR]

Goog point

[tnacho]

I don't think that's right. Maybe the media hasn't reported on the other costs for the fiber project, but things like staff and trucks are included. I've seen the feasibility study.
I have no complaints from my LUS services - better than the city-owned electricity I got from the last place I lived, where the electricity went out when the wind blew. If they're cheaper, I'll switch

[Zak]

I can't wait for LUS's entry into the information/entertainment arena. I will stand in-line if necessary to become one of the first customers. Let's face it... this isn't brain surgery! Any entity that can provide electrical power and has that kind of pervasive infrastructure can easily provide both cable and internet service. After all, who do you think Cox leases the utility poles from for their cable?... LUS of course.

Switch the argument around.... do you think that Cox or Bellsouth (they lease space on the LUS poles as well) could provide electrical power to your home or business?

The bottom line is this... LUS (ie. we the people of Lafayette) are willing to provide world class internet access for ourselves and Cox and Bellsouth will never entertain an idea like that in a market this size. Not only are they not willing to provide this service for us... but they are more than willing to spend untold $$$ on preventing us from doing it for ourselves!

[tester]

Well I live in the parish and dont have LUS, so I wonder if Entergy would provide me internet service and phone service?

[Guest]

If competition were truly acceptable for the City, we would be able to choose our electricity provider, not just phone, internet and cable. Other municipalities have multiple providers, Lafayette ( City) does not, because it is a municipally owned system ( owned by each and every citizen in the corporate limits of Lafayette,not just registered voters ) Joey Durel states in an e-mail 11/11/2004:
“LUS IS a private entity, and we do in some circumstances compete with Slemco, Atmos and Entergy. We are regulated as to where we can go by the Public Service Commission just as they are. Remember, this is a private utility company owned by the citizens of Lafayette. I did not create this, and neither did anyone living today. It was created by the citizens of Lafayette over a hundred years ago. You may not like it, but that is a fact. And, it does a wonderful job. The Public Service Commission (not me) rates it as the most reliable utility company in the state! There is also competition for sewer. Unfortunately, we have had to take over several of the private sewer operations because of such poor quality. Most people thank their lucky stars everyday that LUS exists for their sewage. As to water, I don’t know of anyone else.”
"I have asked the private companies to do it, and they won’t. This is a very similar scenario to 1897 when they refused to bring electricity to Lafayette, and LUS was formed. If you think this is important to the people of Lafayette, then you will understand why we have to do it, because if LUS doesn’t, Lafayette does not get it. "

Aside from some apparent factual errors in Mr. Durel's statement, this is not the late 1800's, private companies ARE bringing telephone, tv and internet to homes today. Maybe Joey does not like the bandwidth or rates, but that will ultimately be determined by the market. The public can draw their own conclusions from Joey’s statement, I have drawn mine.

[TBEAR]

One point that Joey Durel forgets to mention is that once the fiber is controlled by LUS, the city controls your entire life. Your city bill will contain all of the services from fiber to garbage to water to electricity.

So if there is an dispute with your billing, or any other reason for being late in paying your bill, they wont just shut off your garbage pickup, but everything else along with it. Then your out in the cold, dehydrated, dirty, with noone to call or email in your yard thats full of trash.

Kinda sounds like Socialism to me.

[Guest]

I believe, and stand to be corrected, that should the City of Lafayette actaully get into the business of providing telcom services through ftth, they would be precluded from turning off your electricity should you default on your telcom bill. If they could disconnect your electricity because you did not pay your phone bill, that would be most egregious.

[TBEAR]

You very well may be correct, I do know it applies to the other services because it was discussed before about not paying for your garbage pickup the city would disconnect you from all of their services eletricity and water.

[percy]

What is up with the Rep from District 45? I do not want cross subsidization for telcom purposes. Why should my water bill, sewer bill, electricity bill subsidize the City’s foray into the telephone, internet and cable business? If the project can not stand on its own, then the City should not be in the business. Shame on him and I will certainly remember next year come voting time.

[zoe10850]

I saw an article in the Times Picayune (a real newspaper)and BellSouth was filing an action to get into the cable tv business and compete with Cox cable....the interesting thing I noted was Bellsouth saying they would need fiber cable to compete. The argument here was that private industry would not do fiber if they did not have to. Seems to me that business will do whatever it must to compete and cut competition's throat. Wonder where "our LUS" will fit in with the civil service workforce?

[coolboy]

Cox Communications is a good company, and does a lot of good for Lafayette. For example, Cox Communications has a regional office in Tyler, TX where they have a customer call center, but still opened up a call center in Lafayette bringing more jobs to the area. Cox also doesn't charge to send a repairman to your home even if it's a problem their company didn't cause, such as a customer disconnecting their cable box to add surround sound, then not being able to reconnect the equipment properly. With gas prices as high as they are, it is expensive to send a repairman to fix a problem a customer in Carencro created.

A bad point about Cox is their rates. Some people may not realize that Cox has to pay fees to these channels to have access to their programming. The channel that costs the most? ESPN. I'm not sure of the rates right now. Remember when ESPN struck a $2.4 billion deal with the NBA to show basketball games? As soon as the deal went through, ESPN's rates went up 20%! I think every subscriber pays about $2 or $3 for only ESPN. The sad part is that even people that don't watch ESPN have to pay for it.

I think that cable customers should be allowed to pick and choose which channels they want. By Cox forcefeeding customers 113 channels, we, the customers, have to absorb the cost.

[zoe10850]

By "packaging" channels, the cost is lowered for all. It is no different than buying a new car that comes with package options; you buy stuff you do not want nor need.

I wonder how LUS will package those same channels? Will LUS also sell adult channels, and if so, how will Rev Sanders etc feel about fiber then. I do not think that this venture has been well thought out, and I do not believe that lil' ole LUS can play w/the big boys, it simply is not practical to think that our keystone "consolidated Govt" can operate on a "level" playing field because if they could, our utilities would be about 20% less expensive. And everyone knows Durel's Pets was the most expensive pet store in town.

And by the way Percy, that Dist 45 Rep is part of the system. Even gets free advertising on Chan 10 - "Hi, I'm Mike Michot" (so what). Isn't he the same guy who got into a campaign violation problem w/our local Clerk of Court ?