WAVE buys out Broadstripe

RantWoman has been too busy filling her blog with oatmeal recipes she wants to return to, tirades about online retail, specifications for what she wants the global gift-giving season to deliver, and miscellaneous moments of technical insight which RantWoman has not gotten around to reading fully. RantWoman, until now, has been woefully silent about events from the CTTAB meeting--in October and November, in particular WAVE's buyout of Broadstripe's cable franchise in Seattle south of the ship canal.

For minutes, podcasts, and associated documents see:
http://www.seattle.gov/cttab/minutes.htm

RantWoman knows it would be best journalistic practice to go to the link above BEFORE composing her post. RantWoman knows this and for the moment is not going to. Here's why: RantWoman thinks getting the bankrupt Broadstripe bought out is almost certainly a GOOD thing. RantWoman has been reading an article about and is predisposed to assume that many things would be better for telecom consumers if there were more than one path to broadband access and real competition in the marketplace. This post is not going to wander very far into telecomm regulation or competition between cable and satellite and....

WAVE will simply assume Broadstripe's existing franchise agreement; RantWoman has not looked up when that agreement is due to end but the buyout and transfer of franchise are handled on a much shorter timeline than a regular franchise cycle. If RantWoman were going to look for a bogey man under the bed here, RantWoman could point out that hurried timelines are sometimes a good way to bypass burdensome public interest concerns. RantWoman does not want to need to look for a bogeyman under the bed, but if she did two WAVE excutives were in responsible positions at Broadstripe at a point where the company was substantially out of compliance with their franschise agreement. The buyout comes with promises of substantial upgrades in infrastructure and in customer service standards. RantWoman thinks both are MUCH to be esteemed.

RantWoman has neighbors who pay $99 / month for whatever they get from Broadstripe. RantWoman's neighbors, some of them, complain mightily about customer services/billing hassles and sometimes about poor signal quality. RantWoman was impressed with the WAVE executive's forthrightness about this in his presentation to the CTTAB. Nothing like saying "we KNOW we have a problem and..."

RantWoman also initially felt positive about thoughts of routing calls to a call center in the US. RantWoman was thinking of RantMom. RantWoman is the sort of terrible child who makes her own mother call tech support sometimes in a variety of contexts. RantWoman just is not always au courant about whatever mix of technology is embodied in RantMom's computer and cable modem. RantWoman has a time or two tried talking RantMom through something RantWoman herself cannot see: "Mom, in this corner of the screen that will be an X or a link that says...." RantWoman quaintly thinks, though, that RantMom is PAYING for tech support with her monthly fees and that RantMom can perfectly well take advantage of this.

RantWoman thinks this, but RantWoman does not always reckon with offshore call center English. That is, RantWoman is familiar enough with Graduate Student English that she herself is not fazed by offshore pronunciation. RantMom on the other hand, is sometimes deeply flummoxed by odd phonetics and idioms slightly askew. Sometimes this means RantWoman gets an earful and cna cheerlead RantMom to try again and hope the phone queues connect witha different person. more than once though, RantMom has gotten so frustrated that she waits until RantWoman comes over and asks RantWoman for Call Center English to / from RantMom English interpretation. RantMom would be THRILLED to know calls would be routed to a call center stateside.

Here RantWoman had an "earth to rantWoman" moment though. RantMom would be thrilled about a US-based call center. However, the Rant family all live in some of the most culturally diverse areas of the city. RantMom's options for retirement age world travel include people speaking 100 different languages who might all be riding her same bus. RantWoman is thinking of all those people speaking 100 different languages and would definitely think to check into call center practices about language access!

RantWoman admits, she herself may or may not have occasion to wander very far into this topic. See, RantWoman still does not even plug her television in. RantMom and RantWoman watch, say Alton Brown sauteing onions via Comcast, so we hae an entirely different banquet of potentital issues....