12/4/12
Readers are asking about the LMCC. So here goes.
The LMCC is a Joint Powers organization of 17 cities roughly surrounding Lake Minnetonka. The agreement delegated the cable TV franchising authority of the member cities to the LMCC and gave it a charter to provide public and educational programming services for the member cities. It's been around for about 25 years.
While the LMCC has the franchising authority over cable TV, it does not control Mediacom's behavior except in limited circumstances. Mediacom's operations are goverened mostly by federal law and Federal Communications Commissions rules.
The LMCC has no authority over cable TV channel selections or pricing. It has absolutely no authority as regards Internet or telephone service offered by Mediacom. These are covered only by federal and/or state law and rules.
The FCC requires the LMCC to offer cable TV franchises to any qualified provider. Mediacom does not have an exclusive right to offer cable TV. On the other hand, no other providers have been interested in overbuilding Mediacom's network and competing with them. The LMCC has asked others. So, the LMCC is stuck with Mediacom.
Residents may get their TV from DirecTV or Dish (satellite). In many areas, Internet is available from Century Link and Frontier Communications. So if you don't like Mediacom switch!
The Limited authority the LMCC does have over Mediacom is controlled by the LMCC Directors and its Executive Committee. So when Scott Zerby or other Directors don't attend meetings, the cities they represent don't even have any say.
BTW, Zerby was instrumental in killing an effort the LMCC had underway two years ago to bring a competing, government owned service to the LMCC area. So, if you don't like what you have now, you can vent on Zerby.
Happy Reading!
The Insider
We have had Direct TV out and we are too low and too wooded to catch a signal without building a "tower" of our own. (Yeah, good luck with that.)
ReplyDeleteSo if LMCC is in charge somehow of determining who is our cable provider how can it be so deaf to the complaints? Could it not threaten to dissolve the partnership at the end of the lease if service did not improve and then followed through by finding another provider?
Or is there a lease in perpetuity out of which we cannot escape? Is this, as another commenter stated, just another level of bureaucracy keeping us from having a choice?
And btw, what ever happened to the fiber optic initiative? That is a rhetorical question. We all know the answer to that.
Maybe you should clarify that the "competing, government owned service" was an 81 million dollar boondoggle that Woodruff was attempting to push through (and then make himself the head of it!) and paid for by the cities (meaning taxpayers!). If it was such a great idea, why didn't any private investors step up to do it? Shorewood insider, you're a loser!
ReplyDeleteWe don't the answer to the "fiber optic initiative" aka leaving the Shorewood Stone Age behind. Do tell!
ReplyDeleteWhy doesn't MediaCom provide a schedule? And what's with this 55.3, 54.23, 52.15 garbage? How about some NORMAL numbers?
ReplyDeleteGood news - there AT&T is lighting up LTE 4G in oour area. So with a little LTE wifi hotspot, or tethered cellphone, you can get at least 8-12M mps of download speed, which is great.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9233749/_AT_T_s_LTE_service_expands_to_103_cities_ahead_of_schedule