So, I’m perusing Joe Powell’s discussion of AT&T’s entry into the cable market and I note this passage:
Twenty-five percent of households with access to AT&T’s TV service would have to be low-income, defined as households with income of $35,000 or less, within three-and-a-half years.
And it made me wonder–low income as compared to what? So, I go strolling over to census.gov and I find that half the counties in our state have a median income of less than $35,000. The median income in our state is just $39,000. And I hate to be nitpicky, but does that mean that there’s some acknowledgment on the part of someone somewhere that a lot of people in our state are not doing so hot?
Because, I have to tell you, otherwise, I smell a slight amount of bullshit here. I mean, if twenty-five percent of households with access to AT&T’s TV service have to be making less than $35,000 a year, well cry me a river. All that means is that AT&T could decide that they wanted to offer cable service to Williamson County (median income $79,000) and Davidson County (median income $41,000) and so they also offer it to Hickman (median $32,000), Lewis ($32,000), Wayne ($29,000) and ($31,000) and there you go, a quarter (if not more) of the people they offer cable to are “low-income” and they don’t even have to offer cable to the majority of people in the Greater Nashville area, let alone most of Tennessee.
Very sketchy, I think.
Filed under: About Town, Politics and Other Nonsense
That figure is REFUGGINDICULOUS. 35Gs? The only reason I can think of to use a number like that is to avoid having to calculate for household size. I’ll try and dig into the legislation if I get a chance.
With minimum wage requirements moving up to $6.55 per hour, an individual working 40 hours per week – 50 weeks per year grosses $13,100. A two worker household (at that same rate/schedule) would look something like $26,000. Maybe the $8.75/hour (average for a two income family to equal $35m) isn’t all that far fetched to be defined as ‘low income’.
I do agree that it smells bad…because ‘offering’ the service to these individuals means only that the service is actually available (geographically) and not that it is affordable for ‘low income’ families.
Paul, I hear what you’re saying and lord knows, I’ve had some struggles putting food on the table for two people for less than $35,000 a year, but a.) yes, this in no way means that folks will be able to afford their services, just that the services will be offered and b.) I still think it allows them to cherry-pick fairly wealthy places to offer cable to, even with that requirement.
Mark, I’ll look forward to it.
most sketchy, indeed.
i’m also pondering the math on this part of the proposal:
“AT&T could get credit toward its 30 percent build-out requirement by counting one house without access to its broadband service twice, and a house without access to any broadband Internet four times. This creates the possibility of AT&T providing access to its U-verse service to a minimum of about 150,000 houses in Tennessee.”
seems like AT&T gets all they want, while consumers, as usual, will get some of what they can for some of the time …