HERNDON, Va. — Our newspaper coverage here encompasses a wide area with many different political and what I like to call “technical jurisdictions.” However, I have found over the years that what happens here in Fairfax County, where I reside, usually ends up being echoed elsewhere sooner or later.
With that being said, let’s talk about the recent notices by area providers that they will be hiking costs of broadband services: Dear readers, if you do any kind of market analysis you will come to the realization that broadband is, and has deliberately been, under priced almost since inception to build the market.
It’s a lot like back when safety razors first appeared in the world. Manufacturers would give away or offer the handles and a few blades at a low-ball price to introduce it. Then, once market is established, prices were raised to a more realistic level.
DSL is one example. My former employer was one of the few Internet providers involved with then Bell Atlantic offering high-speed connectivity for what were then a few bucks to test how well it worked, etc. Later, ADSL: was introduced regionally and nationally based on the lessons learned from those initial customers. But, now that service is a slower and more expensive version of what was tested.
Some of the ISPs involved in that test several years ago, including that company, are no longer offering DSL services, or have gone out of business because the profit margins involved in DSL are so slim it was not economically viable.
One of the reasons these services costs continue to rise is the demand for customer service. Having worked in that side of the business for many years, I can tell you no matter what anyone pays for their connectivity, be it a $15 per month dialup user, or a $1,500 T-1 dedicated line consumer, each demands approximately the same level of customer service.
Tech support personnel don’t grow on trees, especially someone who really knows what they are doing, and broadband providers have learned an expensive lesson: Factor in the costs of clueless people trying to connect to the Internet or go out of business.
My cable provider, Cox Communications, recently announced a 1-2 punch: First, they are dumping their business arrangement with Road Runner in favor of their own network. Second, the company will raise rates to help pay for that transition and the cost of doubling their tech support personnel.
Part of the fallout of this change is that if you used your Cox broadband connection’s e-mail services, your address will change. Loyal readers will remember several columns I have penned related to keeping e-mail addresses—don’t plan on it unless you have a domain name and pay a few bucks a year for e-mail services.
The upside is that Cox will allow their high-speed service users to have more e-mail addresses if they wish.
Cox is also aligning their cost increase to if you also take their television services. If you do have even their basic service, expect to pay an additional $5 or so a month for the new service. That’s a tudge more than a 10 percent increase, but not unreasonable to my way of thinking IF, and that’s a BIG “IF” they follow through on better customer support.
I also realize that as their popularity of broadband grows, the cable company must invest in more network connectivity, more routers, switches, etc. and all that stuff costs money.
Anyone who says that a $5 increase in too much and opts to go back to dialup to “teach” Cox or any other company a “lesson” is only shooting themselves in the foot.
Just look at the gas pump and realize that penny for penny, broadband access to the ‘Net, whether through some flavor of DSL service, or through cable television, is competitively-priced, but like that gallon of petrol, will continue to increase just like other staples of life such as bread, milk, Coca-Cola (grin), Hershey bars (grin) and Spam ™.
However, as costs increase, providers must also realize that consumers will hold them to their word on service and will be quicker to demand credit for down time, etc.
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Show your digital snapshots on the big screen. Veteran readers of my weekly tome know I have a continuing affection for the products made by X-10 Corp. and anxiously await their newest “goodie” as my grandmother would say. I kind of consider X-10 the “Sharper Image” for everyone (grin).
Well, they have done it again with their “Showtime” product. If you or family members have gotten involved in the exploding hobby of digital photography, one of the things becoming quickly apparent is how to view your photos in a family setting. It’s easy to display the images on your computer screen, but that’s a poor venue, especially if you have a cramped computer area.
Wouldn’t it be great to see those photos on the family big screen set without any hassle? X-10’s new “Showtime” product fills that bill very well. Plus, there is no need to be a rocket scientist to hook everything up.
The kit comes with a 2.4 megahertz transmitter and receiver, along with a special cable to hook into your computer and monitor, and a new RF remote to control everything from anywhere in the house. Software for your PC is downloaded from X-10, along with the appropriate code.
Instructions are clear; within 10-15 minutes users can view their digital photos on any television in the home (where the receiver is attached). We have a 60-inch TV in the family viewing area upstairs and my computer is downstairs. But, once I hooked the “Showtime” system up, we were laughing at my son’s antics in the Florida surf on the BIG screen, not tiny 17-inch computer monitor. I took almost 200 pictures during our trip and we watched them all.
The software that comes with Showtime allows users to create captions, rotate images that were not shot horizontally, create scrapbooks from your image files, search those books for specific images and other goodies.
Another, undocumented, use for this system is to hook the receiver to the video tape “video in” jacks on the back and then copy your images to tape to send to friends who do not have a computer.
The remote control also allows users to zoom in on an image with little or no degradation of the image.
Learn more about this product at www.x10.com. They are having an introductory half-price sale of $140. I give this a solid “10” on the Hughes Buymeter, especially if you take a lot of digital pictures. After all, the main reason to print pictures is to look at them once or twice and then put them in an album. Now, you can see your pictures anytime on your television and save all that money on prints (grin).
