My company is an equipment supplier to the cable companies and you have to be a little careful lumping them all together.
Companies like Comcast and Time Warner are gorillas and can easily absorb any isolated customers. Their gross profits on cable operations are staggering. Of course they have plenty of other expenses to offset those profits. Like buying equipment from my company.
But companies like Metrocast are really hand to mouth. They have only areas were the density is low. They work a lot harder for their profits. This also means that they don't have a lot of capital to buy equipment for sexy new services.
That said, it is a business and they signed a contract. If the contract says they need to service islands of customers (figuratively and literally), then it's fair to force them into it. (I have not read the contract). As a fellow fiscal conservative, we must enforce the rule of law.
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