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said, as soon as the county issues a “request for proposals,” Adelphia will be interested in submitting a bid for a franchise, and at that time it will also approach the Town of Washington about service there.
Rappahannock County Administrator John McCarthy seconded the results of the Rappahannock News’ informal survey. He said his own conversations with other local officials had left him with favorable reviews of Adelphia’s operations.
“The company is apparently more than financially sound,” Mr. McCarthy said. “They have gotten into the business of providing certain cable services to certain size communities, and the company does it very well, apparently.”
He said that most of the systems owned by the company have been bought from their original owners, who found the operation of a small, independent company with a limited subscriber base unprofitable. By consolidating its maintenance and office facilities into regional centers, Mr. McCarthy said, Adelphia is apparently able to provide good service at a competitive price.
“The big companies can’t afford to do that, due to the overhead,” Mr. McCarthy said, “but Adelphia can do it.” Likewise, the consolidation of costs allows the company to provide service to areas with a lower population density than is generally profitable for cable companies.
For example, Adelphia says it is willing to extend service to any areas as soon as the housing density along the road reaches an average of 15 per linear mile. “That’s something most are not willing to do,” he said.
The only other operator who approached Rappahannock County was George Pancner, who owns the cable system in the Town of Madison. His density threshold, Mr. McCarthy said, was 20 homes per mile.
Even with the lower density requirement, the county administrator noted, “there are not many places outside the villages where you can do that.” And even if there are pockets of dense population, he added, “the question is, ‘How far do you have to go to reach it?’... to justify stringing all that cable.”
A plus for Adelphia, Mr. McCarthy said, is that since the signals will be carried by fiber optic cable from the receiving station in Warren County, there are no structures, dishes or satellite down-link sites proposed in Rappahannock. The wires will be strung on existing utility poles, and the only structures
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