Craig Birkmaier wrote: > Consumer choice is going to happen anyway, whether it is > supported via legal services or consumers just work around > all of their content management attempts. The real > competition will happen when I can choose to spend my $75 > per month to download content that is not filled with > commercials, and the niche channels fully exploit their > Internet portals with relevant video clips and programming. Can't you buy cable only for the Internet broadband, and get no TV service at all? I think you can. If so, you can already do some of what you want. > The only thing that is holding all of this together today - > i.e. all telecommunications including wireless telephony, > cable, DBS, IPTV and Broadcast - is the protection of > government regulations, that are propping up their > oligopolies. I really think this isn't it. Cable sells packages, because it's cheaper for it to operate this way (greater profits). The only way for you to get your way would be for the govt to FORCE cable to operate in a way that costs it more money. When you get the Sunday paper, do you have a choice to delete 90 percent of the waste paper that comes with it? I think all of this comes down to what you think constitutes acceptable intrusion by govt. Evidently, you don't mind if govt butts in to decide how a business can package its product, but you do mind very much when govt butts in to tell that business that it must continue to serve its analog customers after analog OTA shutoff. Bert ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.