Mike:
I recently spread sheeted some actual figures on access costs in the New York area. I
use cablevision (www.cablevision.com) , which offers tv, data, and voice in some
areas, and charges:
$30.74 for "family channel" cable with ~100 Mostly Useless Channels (or, as we say in
telephony, MUC)
$ 39.95 for data only, but $29.95 if you have the previously mentioned family channel
$12.00 for 100 calls with a choice of 3 features out of a list of 9 (voice mail, call
waiting, call forwarding, for example) ; additional calls 12¢ each - this is their low end
rate; they have other tiers for you if you like
$6.05 for an additional line including a choice of 3 features and a line surcharge of
$3.50 per month
So for a mythical family of four, who like CNN and PBS and the History Channel and
Food networks even though they would never be caught dead watching sports, MTV,
or a Start Trek rerun, and have a teenage daughter or fax machine, and need a second
line, and want broadband data so the engineer in the family can waste his time on
Silicon Investor, you would pay, roughly $81 per month.
For the roughly equivalent service, using cable TV, and my ILEC (SBC/SNET) for
DSL and phone, we have some apples to oranges problems, but I call it:
~ $12.50 for four features and voice mail on one line, either $13.50 for 30 calls, or
more likely $19 for unlimited calls for first line, $24 for second line (they rip you off on
the second line!), and DSL is $40., Now for TV, you would still need cable for
$30.74. So say roughly, $126 per month
Now if ATT or AOL were to bundle long distance at a discount, the $100 or whatever
I pay each month would also be discounted, I expect by 25%? Thus by my crude
analysis I would spend $226 / month for cable/ILEC/IXC unbundled, vs. $156 / month
for bundled cable.
Not to mention the 2* $0.33 = $.66 I save in STAMPS having to send in one bill, and
the 2*$.20 per check I'd save on having one instead of three checks, and the time
spent on three bills vs. one as well! Thus it now $156 / month for cable, and
$227 / month for Cable+Twisted Pair.
Seriously, the single bill it the strongest argument for cable, I think.
Thus it seems that Cable is a lot less expensive than Cable+Twisted Pair.
Multi line cost is another big advantage of cable, thought I suppose with VOIP over
DSL the ILEC will come down in price. I also have a cell phone as well, but that is
another story. |
