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The Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs (DCCA) will be holding public hearings regarding Oceanic's renewal request.
The hearings are scheduled for Tuesday, September 6th, 5pm at Hilo County Council Chambers and Wednesday, September 7th, 5pm, King Kamehameha Kona Beach Hotel-Ballroom one.
Written comments should be submitted to DCCA by Tuesday, September 13th, 4:30pm.
cabletv@dcca.hawaii.gov
I can't go to this but am submitting comments that the agreement should demand they provide cable TV/Internet to many more rural areas and do so equitably. For example, despite there being several hundred homes from Kalapana to Seaview, they refuse to extend service because it does not meet their minimum density requirements per the current monopoly agreement. They also have very different definitions of homes than what our Seaview board determined. They counted 100 fewer homes in Seaview than our board did.
They also are not equal in where they provide access. A very rural area like Haena with only a handful of homes on the the North Shore of Kauai which is a few miles from Hanalei has high-speed cable internet, while Seaview which is only a few miles (in where the cable would go) from Leilani where it currently ends has no service.
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robguz, It's all a matter of "money talks". I'm on Maku'u in HPP. The cable came down to about 17 or 18 (right in that area anyway) and stopped. Then the put cable in at the bottom of HPP, where all the "nicer" homes are. I called about 3 weeks ago and was told they have no plans for extending any further down Maku'u in the next 3 years. Do to that, I upgraded my Dish system and signed the 2 year agreement. Some things just suck big time.
Royall
Hale O Na Mea Pa`ani
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Royall please at least share this via the email. I gave my input and cc'd all my local representatives, Kahele, Hanohano, Blas, and the mayor. In all my dealings with trying to get them to extend to Seaview, only Kahele and Blas ever bothered to respond. Sen Kahele actually had his assistant forward this information to me, which I was impressed by.
My input was as follows:
"I wish to register that I STRONGLY OPPOSE Oceanic's application as it currently exists unless the following changes are made:
1. The agreement should mandate that Oceanic extend cable TV/Internet to any area that meets a total density of 10 homes per mile of cable. This should be based on TOTAL distance from the closest interconnect and only count to the first home in a subdivision. Currently, it is 25 homes per mile AND THERE MUST BE 25 HOMES IN EACH AND EVERY SINGLE MILE! This means if there are 24 homes in the first mile and 25,000 homes in the 2nd mile, they could simply decide not to provide service. That is just crazy. There should also be a consistent definition of a home. In my neighborhood of Kalapana Seaview Estates in Pahoa, Puna, Hawaii Island, our Board does an annual walking census. This year they counted 253 homes on our 933 lots in the subdivision. This is conducted by people who live here, know the streets, know that some homes in jungle are not visible from the street, and are able to walk on every street. Oceanic did a drive by census and counted only 147 homes. They refused to include off-grid solar powered homes which would have no trouble paying for cable. They also stated they would need to lay 11 miles of cable to reach those homes. The reality however is that they would only have to lay cable about 4 miles from the closest interconnect in Leilani Estates, to reach the first home at the top of Kalapana Seaview Estates. This is a rapidly growing neighborhood with two other growing subdivisions within 1.5 miles. Those are Puna Beach Palisades and Kehena Beach Estates. Despite there being hundreds of homes in these 3 subdivisions, Oceanic refuses to extend cable to our neighborhood and they do not have to based on the monopoly agreement they have with the State.
2. Extension of cable must be equitable with regard to property values. On a recently trip to Kauai, I was shocked to discover that the remote, small village of Haena on the North Shore has Oceanic high-speed internet. The situation there is similar to my neighborhood, in that it is several miles from the closest neighborhood of some size, the town of Hanalei. However, they are all million dollar homes. Unlike my neighborhood, many of the homes are unoccupied because they are vacation rentals. I find it disturbing that they have cable internet to serve the rich and wealthy tourists while several hundred residents in the Kehena area of the Puna District have no high-speed internet whatsoever.
Our neighborhood is only served by HawaiianTel which provides DSL that when I had it was usually slower than 56k modems and they have refused to add more customers here for at least a couple years. We have the expensive option of wireless Aloha Broadband which provides "high-speed" internet in the sense of late 1990s standards. In these rural neighborhoods there are many people that work from home. Having high speed internet in these areas will increase property values, increase locally generated income levels and thus tax payments, and will greatly improve the lives of people in these areas."
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Royall and Rob,
Remember that there are also many areas that have NO utility services at all. Oceanic is only interested in doing what's easy -- corporate bottom line, skim what's easy and recite policies that defend the lines they've drawn in the sands! Ran into that in the 80's in Washington State. Running poles up to the Ka'ohe Homesteads will only happen when the Catholic Church develops all that property between us and Pahoa! Still don't know if I'd ever sign up for any of that. Dish works for us, and Verizon's newest MIFi provides reasonable service. Cells work well, PV takes care of our electrical needs. Off-grid living is still the life for many of us!
Jane
