Your suggestion that everything is fine with cable rates (“For many, cable just got cheaper,” Sept. 1) is misleading.
The fact is cable rates in the Chicago area have skyrocketed. Between cable deregulation in 1986 and last year, basic cable rates at Chicago Cable TV increased from $11.95 to $20.05-a 68 percent increase. Basic rates increased even more during that time period at other Chicago-area cable companies: Multimedia Cablevision of Oak Lawn increased rates 121 percent; TCI of south suburbia in Chicago Heights-198 percent; TCI in Mount Prospect-235 percent; and Cablevision of Chicago in Oak Park hiked rates an astonishing 366 percent-from $4.50 to $20.95.
The cable act has done nothing to reduce these outrageous rates. It has been such a failure that the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance-which pushed the cable act through Congress-is holding hearings to figure out what went wrong. In the few areas where rates have decreased it is by virtually insignificant amounts.
The problem remains that more than 99 percent of cable operators in this country face no effective competition. Consumers will never see the low rates and high quality they deserve until there is competition in cable television. Where meaningful competition does exist, rates are 30 percent lower than elsewhere.
Competition from alternate cable companies, wireless cable providers or local telephone companies is what consumers need to put an end to the abuses cable subscribers continue to endure.
