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Why the fuss over Flow?
WIGNALL'S WORLD
Mark Wignall
Sunday, February 24, 2008
In every single radio discussion that I have heard over whether Flow (cable service, Internet, telephone) is heading towards monopoly status, I have heard no one, not a single commentator, mention the word 'quality'. Why is this?
Before I answer that question, let me say that in a poor country such as Jamaica, cable wired into one's home cannot be placed into a pot and fried, stewed or boiled. In other words, it is not a necessity. That said, whenever I hear persons, especially some of those in the Diaspora, criticise us because we seem to have our priorities wrong, I say to them, how do you tell a poor mother struggling in a materially deprived household with four children and the perennially missing 'father' that she should not have a cellphone and cable?
What must she do when the children begin to pile on top of each other and make her nights into a living hell? I can remember way back when I was a child, when JBC TV introduced television in 1962. We were then living on Philip Road off Waltham Park Road and our closest neighbours bought a TV immediately. Our household (with eight children) had other pressing priorities, as a result of which we did not own a TV until the following year.
My father worked on a ship as its electrician and he was a disciplinarian like no one I have ever known. We could not arrive at the dining table without shoes on, no gathering at the gate if someone visited. It was either 'come inside or leave'. No whistling in the house, no singing of 'rag songs' (pop music) and definitely no use of 'patios' around the house.
The pleasurable part of it all, for us kids, was that daddy's tugboat was very often at sea for long periods, and although mama tried her best at disciplining us, it was the type we could live with or circumvent, that is until daddy returned and she presented him with a list of our transgressions. During his times at sea, we would pile up at the neighbour's window and watch this new-fangled phenomenon. And, of course, we were totally fascinated. When our father was home, we simply did without, repaired to our rooms and read and read until the order came, 'Say your prayers and go to bed.'
Jamaica's communities are so geographically positioned that every fancy residential area with $50 million homes is no more than three minutes away from zinc fence, crime-filled, densely populated ghettoes. People living in Aylsham, Jacks Hill and Cherry Gardens who are doctors, architects, lawyers, etc may have their fancy homes filled with all the latest creature comforts, but in Grants Pen where a domestic helper lives in a one-room board building, there is no BMW parked outside. However, her material ambitions are no less than the true Uptowners.
Jamaica has close to 100 per cent radio and TV penetration. Many of our over 600,000 households have cable TV. If we should perform an experiment and ask ALL households to view only local fare for as long as they can bear it, I bet that before the first day is out they would be back to cable TV. It is not only that the local fare is boring, but once an opportunity, an option, is presented, that is, cable is available, cable will be chosen.
Now, back to Flow.
Flow is digital and better than other cable providers
Prior to the arrival of Flow on the local landscape, I used one of the providers which operated in the Havendale area. For months I asked them why was it that the cable box provided had discrete 'left' and 'right' channels yet I was unable to detect even the faintest stereo reproduction.
"I do not know, Sir," was the usual answer, with one even stupidly suggesting that if I looped it through a VCR (dead tech) I would be able to access stereo. Granted, I knew that it would be a relatively small percentage of the cable viewing public who had a home theatre system like I had and who would be asking questions like that.
I went further. I decided to call up ALL cable providers listed in the telephone directory and posed the same question. Unbelievably, not a single cable provider was able to provide me a reasonable answer, and most times it was, 'I don't know, Sir.'
One day I saw a Logic One technician on a pole and I asked him the question. "Oh, we are not digital, but we are going there soon," he said. So, so simple.
Much of business in Jamaica is predicated on the understanding and acceptance that those who constitute the buying public are fools. So a cheap portable radio with two earphones is sold and a blissfully ignorant person listening to it is certain that he is listening to stereo. It is nothing more than something knocked together in a low-tech factory in China for low-end, ignorant markets like Jamaica.
I have had Flow since late last year, and the major fault I find with the cable part of the service is its tendency to pixillate (picture freezing, breaking up into dots like my previous provider) on some channels at certain times. Sunspot activity?
Its music channels, especially the reggae one, is a beauty. No idiotic dancehall rubbish. When I watch a scary movie, I hear ghosts in front of me and behind me, just like I would watching it at Carib. And with the thuds supplied by a sub woofer, I am in home theatre heaven.
The Internet speed is blazing and the phone transmission is crystal clear.
Most of those going with Flow will be opting for the cable service, only because the total package at about $9,000 per month will be unaffordable to most households. And, it seems that as a result of even journalists being technically challenged, all of the discussions taking place in regards to Flow becoming a monopoly have left out the quality question, almost as if it is not important.
If indeed Flow becomes a monopoly, my first consideration will be that it replaced a lot of half-baked cable providers locked in a technology of the past. Of course, there will be the potential for danger after that.
The solution?
If Flow opts for the 'bait and switch' route and begins an unconscionable price hike, unity will be called for. We are not there yet, but if the majority of those using the service refuse to pay their bills for a month, Flow will have to ease up and slow down.
Beware of TV Advertorials
Years ago in Jamaica there were persons who could be described as 'country boy' or 'country girl'. Today, that is no more. In former days, before rural electrification kicked in, there were no radios in the deep rural areas, and 'country bumpkins', especially the younger attractive women, were 'easy pickings' for the slick-mouthed 'Kingston' men.
Many of these 'town men' would visit rural areas, con the girls of their hearts (Yeh man, I will sen fi yu next week). All they did was leave large numbers of poor, beautiful, gullible women pregnant and hopeless.
Now that has all disappeared. Electricity is everywhere and so is cable TV. Add to that, that every product advertised is easily available through companies that specialise in arranging the purchases and the easy shipping of these products right into your homes.
You have seen them all. Fancy cookers which try to convince us that an oven as we know it now is no good. A glue that if positioned as a link in a chain will pull an 18 ton truck! And then, of course, there is the famous Tobi, a steam device that advertises itself as, 'You will never need another iron.'
It is said that if a man can build a better mousetrap the world will beat a path to his door. With sufficient marketing of course. So, the Tobi comes along and in its pitch, it promises to replace the clothes iron. Big Lie!
Against my advice, my fiancée fell for the Tobi. I must admit that I was fascinated with the advertisement. The steam device passes over a very crushed up garment and, voila! It is as smooth as something newly pressed.
So she sent for it, especially because of the two-for-one offer. We have had it now for close to a year and it is 'parked' in a corner of a closet gathering dust. Thank heavens she gave away the other one to her mother.
All of what we saw on TV was apparently contrived. So, stick with your old, trusted clothes iron. Nothing will ever beat it out. But the Tobi does have some use. Once it is filled with water and begins to steam, it can be used on one's living room 'softies' and bedding to inhibit the build-up of dust mites. If there is another good to be learned from it, it is, do not fall for these things which appear to be too good to be true.
WIGNALL'S WORLD
Mark Wignall
Sunday, February 24, 2008
In every single radio discussion that I have heard over whether Flow (cable service, Internet, telephone) is heading towards monopoly status, I have heard no one, not a single commentator, mention the word 'quality'. Why is this?
Before I answer that question, let me say that in a poor country such as Jamaica, cable wired into one's home cannot be placed into a pot and fried, stewed or boiled. In other words, it is not a necessity. That said, whenever I hear persons, especially some of those in the Diaspora, criticise us because we seem to have our priorities wrong, I say to them, how do you tell a poor mother struggling in a materially deprived household with four children and the perennially missing 'father' that she should not have a cellphone and cable?
What must she do when the children begin to pile on top of each other and make her nights into a living hell? I can remember way back when I was a child, when JBC TV introduced television in 1962. We were then living on Philip Road off Waltham Park Road and our closest neighbours bought a TV immediately. Our household (with eight children) had other pressing priorities, as a result of which we did not own a TV until the following year.
My father worked on a ship as its electrician and he was a disciplinarian like no one I have ever known. We could not arrive at the dining table without shoes on, no gathering at the gate if someone visited. It was either 'come inside or leave'. No whistling in the house, no singing of 'rag songs' (pop music) and definitely no use of 'patios' around the house.
The pleasurable part of it all, for us kids, was that daddy's tugboat was very often at sea for long periods, and although mama tried her best at disciplining us, it was the type we could live with or circumvent, that is until daddy returned and she presented him with a list of our transgressions. During his times at sea, we would pile up at the neighbour's window and watch this new-fangled phenomenon. And, of course, we were totally fascinated. When our father was home, we simply did without, repaired to our rooms and read and read until the order came, 'Say your prayers and go to bed.'
Jamaica's communities are so geographically positioned that every fancy residential area with $50 million homes is no more than three minutes away from zinc fence, crime-filled, densely populated ghettoes. People living in Aylsham, Jacks Hill and Cherry Gardens who are doctors, architects, lawyers, etc may have their fancy homes filled with all the latest creature comforts, but in Grants Pen where a domestic helper lives in a one-room board building, there is no BMW parked outside. However, her material ambitions are no less than the true Uptowners.
Jamaica has close to 100 per cent radio and TV penetration. Many of our over 600,000 households have cable TV. If we should perform an experiment and ask ALL households to view only local fare for as long as they can bear it, I bet that before the first day is out they would be back to cable TV. It is not only that the local fare is boring, but once an opportunity, an option, is presented, that is, cable is available, cable will be chosen.
Now, back to Flow.
Flow is digital and better than other cable providers
Prior to the arrival of Flow on the local landscape, I used one of the providers which operated in the Havendale area. For months I asked them why was it that the cable box provided had discrete 'left' and 'right' channels yet I was unable to detect even the faintest stereo reproduction.
"I do not know, Sir," was the usual answer, with one even stupidly suggesting that if I looped it through a VCR (dead tech) I would be able to access stereo. Granted, I knew that it would be a relatively small percentage of the cable viewing public who had a home theatre system like I had and who would be asking questions like that.
I went further. I decided to call up ALL cable providers listed in the telephone directory and posed the same question. Unbelievably, not a single cable provider was able to provide me a reasonable answer, and most times it was, 'I don't know, Sir.'
One day I saw a Logic One technician on a pole and I asked him the question. "Oh, we are not digital, but we are going there soon," he said. So, so simple.
Much of business in Jamaica is predicated on the understanding and acceptance that those who constitute the buying public are fools. So a cheap portable radio with two earphones is sold and a blissfully ignorant person listening to it is certain that he is listening to stereo. It is nothing more than something knocked together in a low-tech factory in China for low-end, ignorant markets like Jamaica.
I have had Flow since late last year, and the major fault I find with the cable part of the service is its tendency to pixillate (picture freezing, breaking up into dots like my previous provider) on some channels at certain times. Sunspot activity?
Its music channels, especially the reggae one, is a beauty. No idiotic dancehall rubbish. When I watch a scary movie, I hear ghosts in front of me and behind me, just like I would watching it at Carib. And with the thuds supplied by a sub woofer, I am in home theatre heaven.
The Internet speed is blazing and the phone transmission is crystal clear.
Most of those going with Flow will be opting for the cable service, only because the total package at about $9,000 per month will be unaffordable to most households. And, it seems that as a result of even journalists being technically challenged, all of the discussions taking place in regards to Flow becoming a monopoly have left out the quality question, almost as if it is not important.
If indeed Flow becomes a monopoly, my first consideration will be that it replaced a lot of half-baked cable providers locked in a technology of the past. Of course, there will be the potential for danger after that.
The solution?
If Flow opts for the 'bait and switch' route and begins an unconscionable price hike, unity will be called for. We are not there yet, but if the majority of those using the service refuse to pay their bills for a month, Flow will have to ease up and slow down.
Beware of TV Advertorials
Years ago in Jamaica there were persons who could be described as 'country boy' or 'country girl'. Today, that is no more. In former days, before rural electrification kicked in, there were no radios in the deep rural areas, and 'country bumpkins', especially the younger attractive women, were 'easy pickings' for the slick-mouthed 'Kingston' men.
Many of these 'town men' would visit rural areas, con the girls of their hearts (Yeh man, I will sen fi yu next week). All they did was leave large numbers of poor, beautiful, gullible women pregnant and hopeless.
Now that has all disappeared. Electricity is everywhere and so is cable TV. Add to that, that every product advertised is easily available through companies that specialise in arranging the purchases and the easy shipping of these products right into your homes.
You have seen them all. Fancy cookers which try to convince us that an oven as we know it now is no good. A glue that if positioned as a link in a chain will pull an 18 ton truck! And then, of course, there is the famous Tobi, a steam device that advertises itself as, 'You will never need another iron.'
It is said that if a man can build a better mousetrap the world will beat a path to his door. With sufficient marketing of course. So, the Tobi comes along and in its pitch, it promises to replace the clothes iron. Big Lie!
Against my advice, my fiancée fell for the Tobi. I must admit that I was fascinated with the advertisement. The steam device passes over a very crushed up garment and, voila! It is as smooth as something newly pressed.
So she sent for it, especially because of the two-for-one offer. We have had it now for close to a year and it is 'parked' in a corner of a closet gathering dust. Thank heavens she gave away the other one to her mother.
All of what we saw on TV was apparently contrived. So, stick with your old, trusted clothes iron. Nothing will ever beat it out. But the Tobi does have some use. Once it is filled with water and begins to steam, it can be used on one's living room 'softies' and bedding to inhibit the build-up of dust mites. If there is another good to be learned from it, it is, do not fall for these things which appear to be too good to be true.