Sequel to “Land of Goofy”: Thanks Coeymans Town Board!

We Recently Posted an Article about the Stupidity of the Coeymans Town Board Approving a 15-year Exclusive Franchise Award to MidHudson Cable.

The real problem with village idiots is that they get elected to public office!

We were astonished that the town of Coeymans town board could do something so stupid and so damaging to the residents of Coeymans and we posted our insights on Ravena-Coeymans: The Land Of Goofy! Screwed Again by Coeymans Town Board! If you haven’t read it yet, click the link.

Of course, the town of Coeymans board members didn’t utter a peep in response. In fact, they should all have been tarred and feathered and run out of town.

Supervisor: Stephen Flach
Boardmembers:Peter E. Mast,Thomas E. Dolan, Dawn Rogers,Thomas A. Boehm

Maybe you should e-mail your town board and let them know what you think about their brilliant deals:

Stephen D. Flack
Supervisor, Town of Coeymans
supervisor@coeymans.org

Peter E. Masti
pmasti@coeymans.org
Current Term Expires December 31, 2015

Thomas E. Dolan
tdolan@coeymans.org
Current Term Expires December 31, 2015
(Dolan was hot for the deal. Why?)

Dawn Rogers
drogers@coeymans.org
Current Term expires December 31, 2013

Thomas A. Boehm
tboehm@coeymans.org
Current Term expires December 31, 2013

But it doesn’t stop there. We, at least did some of the research and obtained some really scary numbers for you neighbors in the town of Coeymans to choke on.

With the cooperation of some interested readers, we found out that MidHudson Cablevision does offer an Internet connection service only for customers who don’t want to use MidHudson’s television offerings. But look at the cost:

• MidHudson Cable television package includs cable TV and Internet: about $78.00/month
• MidHudson’s stand-alone cable Internet (Internet only, no TV) connection ( repeat: no TV service): about $73.00/month

So, it looks like there’s no savings at all if you just want an Internet connection only, like most other providers like Time Warner provide at reduced cost. MidHudson Cablevision is going to gouge you no matter what you want, they do it because they can. The town boards of Coeymans (and New Baltimore) have seen to that.

But wait! Maybe the brilliant elected Coeymans town board negotiated special substantial discounts for Coeymans residents owing to the extraordinary 15-year contract. Or did the Coeymans town board negotiate to obtain frozen rates for 5 or 10 years so that residents would not have to face constant increases and added service charges. After all, that would be fair. MidHudson gets a 15-years exclusive concession for providing cable and Internet service, and residents get special rates or frozen rates. Do you think that’s what happened?  Let’s ask. You ask and I’ll ask.

But any report would be incomplete if we didn’t look at speed of service. But that’s kinda difficult if you don’t know how to do the number crunching, because the suppliers, especially Midhudson Cablevision, play the misinformation game here, too! Here are some examples (we’ve converted the megas and the kilos for you):

Time Warner offers the same service, 3 Mb for about $29.99. Midhudson Cablevision offers the same thing to us for $72.95!

Here’s an interesting comparison, too: the average cost for equivalent services costs:

• in the USA: $47.00/month
• in South Korea: $38.00/month

Ever wonder why that is? Ever wonder why we’re years behind Europe and Asia with our cell phones and Internet services? Ask your elected officials. Ask them why US Corporations are holding back and why the US government is suppressing cleaner faster services! Think it might have something to do with money and greed?

But the insanity of giving one supplier exclusive rights to the community for 15 years is beyond belief! Looks like no other supplier will ever consider coming to Coeymans or New Baltimore and that means we keep our primitive, second-rate services for a real long time. Now that the Coeymans board has handed the gift of a 15-year exclusive franchise to backwoods MidHudson  no real provider is going to make the investment to come into the area and compete with MidHudson, so we’re dead in the water, folks!

Here are some interesting sites you might want to visit to do your own reading:

• Time Warner Residential & Home Internet Plans (not available in our area)
• MidHudson Cable Internet Plan (read it and weep!)
• An article in the NY Times. South Korea already claims the world’s fastest Internet connections. “South Koreans pay an average of $38/month for connections up to 100 Mb/sec…Americans pay an average of $46/month for ser”cice that is molasses by comparison.
•  OECD Broadband Portal. The OECD broadband portal provides access to a range of broadband-related statistics gathered by the OECD. Policy makers (but not Coeymans board members) must examine a range of indicators which reflect the status of individual broadband markets in the OECD. The OECD has identified five main categories which are important for assessing broadband markets.

We deserve better and we’re not getting it! Ask them WHY?
The Editor