Rush Blakely, Author at RealtyCom Partners

Is Cable TV Dying? Thoughts from a Cord Cutter in the Telecom Biz.

Is Cable TV dying? This is a question we get a lot at RealtyCom Partners, but I wouldn’t call 911 just yet. Its true, linear TV subscription rates have fallen and continue to fall, but we still see significant numbers of apartment residents that subscribe to cable TV.

First some perspective – personally, I am a cord cutter. I disconnected my cable TV package (they didn’t make it easy by the way) earlier this year. I made this decision not because of cost, but because of value. I have limited time for TV, and I found that more and more of my content was streaming, from external sources of content I was subscribing to over and above my cable bill – so this made taking the leap a bit easier. Before that, I was a cable TV subscriber since way back, being a former cable guy from the late 90’s until 2010.

RealtyCom manages revenue share for over 300,000 units, so we have a rather unique view into the telecom buying habits of apartment residents across the US. Over the past four years, we have seen average video subscription rates drop 10 percentage points. When you look deeper, there are many contributing […]

FCC Update: Competitive Access to Multiple Tenant Environments, Partial Preemption of San Francisco Mandatory Access Ordinance and OTARD

A Conversation with Rush Blakely

The FCC has been busy formulating and opening comments to new broadband regulations. We sat down with Rush Blakely, President of RealtyCom Partners to discuss some of the recent happenings.

Q: Let’s talk about the recent FCC Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”). What is the NPRM?

A: The NPRM seeks comment from industry and other stakeholders on what rules the FCC should consider to promote competition in Multiple Tenant Environments (“MTE’s”) – including multifamily and commercial buildings. The FCC is looking into certain types of agreements between providers and owners, specifically whether agreements that contain revenue sharing or provide for exclusive use of a provider’s home-run, are barriers to broadband competition in MTE’s. Further, the FCC seeks comment on certain types of rooftop and distributed antenna system agreements. Several of these items and more were brought up by the FCC in their Notice of Inquiry in 2017 on which, RealtyCom, NMHC and many multifamily owners filed comments.

Q: What is RealtyCom’s view on the NPRM?

A: Like the NMHC and other multifamily owners and associations, we feel the marketplace is working and providing residents with the choice of […]

About Rush Blakely

Is Cable TV Dying? Thoughts from a Cord Cutter in the Telecom Biz.

FCC Update: Competitive Access to Multiple Tenant Environments, Partial Preemption of San Francisco Mandatory Access Ordinance and OTARD