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Providers Hope to Unify Pennsylvanians' Tangle of Cable, Phone, Internet Plans

Posted on: Friday, 17 December 2004, 21:00 CST

Dec. 17--Wouldn't it be nice to get telephone service, high-speed Internet access and TV channels from one company with one bill, instead of the three or four you use now?

Hang in there.

New technology from several companies may bring it to Berks County within a few years.

It's called the triple play, and it's the Nirvana sought by the telephone and cable companies -- Comcast cable, Verizon, D&E Communications and their rivals -- as they reach outside their own specialties and try to steal customers from each other.

Some companies, such as Commonwealth Telephone, have deals with satellite TV providers to bundle the bills, but the television signals still are received through a satellite dish.

But the others are planning to offer all three services themselves through the same wire:

--Comcast is testing telephone service for its cable customers in Coatesville, Chester County, and will bring it to Berks by 2006.

--D&E is offering TV programming over standard telephone wire to telephone customers in Lewisburg and Mifflinburg, Union County. The Ephrata-based company says it will decide next year where to take it next.

--Verizon is rewiring several areas of Bucks and Chester counties to bring fiber-optic cable to homes and businesses and promises to offer TV programming there next year.

"We'll be playing in each others' sandboxes," said G. William Ruhl, chairman, president and chief executive officer of D&E.

The moves will be beneficial for consumers in terms of simplicity and lower costs, said William M. Alberte, director of telecommunications service for Utilitech Inc., Wyomissing.

The costs will drop because of new competition among providers and improving technology. And, it's cheaper for one company to provide all services, he said.

The simplicity comes not only from getting just one bill, but from having one company to deal with when things need fixing, he said.

"That's why the decision on who you choose is more important than the product itself," he said.

All the companies will supply essentially the same products, but customer service is most important, Alberte said.

What consumers have to watch, he said, is whether companies are trimming consumer service staffs to cut costs.

Triple play requires the companies to make expensive system upgrades, but they have no choice, especially the telephone companies, said Jeffry Bartash, a technology reporter for CBS/MarketWatch.

If they do nothing, the telecommunications companies could lose nearly 40 percent of their most profitable residential phone lines as cable firms begin offering telephone service, Bartash said, quoting a report from the brokerage firm UBS.

Each of the companies is using a different kind of wire -- copper telephone wire for D&E; coaxial cable for Comcast; fiber for Verizon -- and each has vastly different capacities, so the final product will be offered in different ways.

Alberte said there may be some pitfalls along the way as consumers and providers get up to speed.

"But the bottom line is there's some good things coming, and the public needs to keep their eye on it," he said.

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Source: Reading Eagle

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