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Mediacom & CATV info:
Mediacom Cable has the cable franchise in lower Sussex County (an interesting segment that includes pretty much everything south of the Indian River Inlet, and extends east to the MD line I believe, but does NOT include Fenwick Island, or some of the communities near there such as Fenwick Towers. These are on the Ocean City Comcast system). Mediacom also serves some of the less-densely populated areas west of Ocean City, such as Ocean Pines. They serve the incorporated towns of Bethany Beach, Dagsboro, Frankford, Millsboro, Millville, Ocean View, Selbyville, and South Bethany. The also serve what Delaware calls "Sussex (E)" and "Sussex (SE)". Basically, they serve areas that nobody else wants to... (Click here for a list of all such areas in Delaware, and the cable company (or companies) that have franchises in those areas. I wish I could remember where I found this list...) The franchise for the unincorporated areas of Sussex Co expires in September 2011. Mediacom people in the Dagsboro office told me in March 2010 to expect all channels currently receivable without a converter box (generally, channels up to #73) to remain receivable in this fashion until 2011. When I called Mediacom in February to ask about a notice I remembered receiving in the mail about MASN-HD being added before this summer, they put me on hold for 5 minutes, and came back reporting that I must be mistaken. They determined I must have been referring to a new Sports Channel package that was currently available at a reduced rate, and did I want to hand them even more money each month? I declined their generous offer. Each of the towns listed above has a separate agreement with Mediacom, and receives a franchise fee. The Towns of Bethany Beach, South Bethany, Ocean View and Millville have separate agreements with the Mediacom which expire within a year of each other in 2011 and 2012. They are planning on working together to negotiate a new agreement. Whether another cable company is interested in serving this far-flung and not very densely populated area remains to be seen. Bethany Beach is holding a public hearing on Mediacom's service to the town on Friday 6/18/10 at 6:30PM. Sea Colony is served by Mediacom, but they also have an "in-house" channel that distributes Sea Colony-specific information to their residents. Middlesex Beach, being located in an unincorporated area of Delaware, gets what everyone else in the unincorporated parts surrounding us get. Verizon does NOT offer their FIOS service in our area. Whether they are interested in obtaining rights to distribute CATV in our area when Mediacom's agreement runs out is unknown to this writer... |