back to article City council thinks what we're all thinking: 'Comcast is terrible – and NOT welcome here'

New England's second-largest city has hit out against a proposed deal that would take place should Comcast's acquisition of Time Warner Cable go through. The city council of Worcester has voted not to approve the transfer of its cable television and broadband services from Charter Communications to Comcast as part of an agreed …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    I'm a bit confused.

    Boston. Worcester. City Council.

    Is this a UK story or an American one?

    1. Charles 9

      American, given Comcast has no UK presence. The merger is also of American firms.

    2. asdf
      Trollface

      The weird part is how the master was completely dwarfed by its former colony (California alone has more about 3/4 of the GDP of the entire UK). Also if the English names bother you can go further west to the Mississippi and get your fill of French names or go southwest for lots of San and Santa.

      1. asdf

        Ugh

        Wow why you shouldn't post first thing in the morning on El Reg. My post would have been fine if I hadn't gone jingoistic asshole nuclear. As I am sure can rightfully be pointed out the UK does kick the US's butt in most things if you go per capita. Having shit tons of people for a developed country is our main claim to fame.

        1. sisk

          Re: Ugh

          I live in a town that shares its name with at least 40 other towns in the US, all in different states. Google it and you'll likely get the one in New York first (unless Google happens to detect you're here that is), us second, and then the other 38 further down. It's not at all unusual a phenomenon in the US.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Ugh

            It can get weird.

            "Kansas City" isn't in the state of Kansas, a state by the way, that is named after a city in another state. This would be like the state of New York named after "New York City, New Jersey". Just goes to show when you drink from the Ol' Miss.

            1. asdf

              Re: Ugh

              If you are from that area you have probably heard people in Kansas pronounce the Arkansas river (in Kansas) as the OurKansas river. Still when I think Kansas I think of native son cousin Eddy.

            2. sisk

              Re: Ugh

              "Kansas City" isn't in the state of Kansas,

              Part of it is. Kansas City sits on the Kansas-Missouri border.

              a state by the way, that is named after a city in another state.

              Actually it's named after the Kansa Native American tribe.

              1. asdf

                Re: Ugh

                >Actually it's named after the Kansa Native American tribe.

                That was nice of us to name the land we stole from them after them even if we did butcher their name like we did their children.

            3. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

              Re: Ugh

              This would be like the state of New York named after "New York City, New Jersey".

              Even if that were the case, it'd be considered child's play in the Midwest. For a while I attended (and taught at) Miami University, which of course is in Ohio (and for which Miami, Florida was probably named1). Miami University is located in Oxford (Ohio). I had a joint seminar with students from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, in Indiana, Pennsylvania (Jimmy Stewart's home town), and not to be confused with the far-flung (but not that far) campuses of Indiana University of, um, Indiana.2

              1There is some dispute. Miami University, of course, is in turn named for the Myaamia, well-known for defeating the US in war, for which they received a treaty that was promptly abrogated, removal, and a university namesake.

              2Pennsylvania also has a California University of Pennsylvania, but that never causes confusion.

          2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

            Re: Ugh

            I live in a town that shares its name with at least 40 other towns in the US, all in different states.

            I live in a town that shares its name with another town in the same state. Different counties, fortunately.

            Of course, I live in a state that's nearly two states, connected by a rather long bridge.

    3. Radelix

      Checking in from the west

      In the city of El Segundo just outside of Los Angeles. Also screw Comcast...you know, for relevance.

    4. Joe Gurman

      There's a "New" in that England

      Outside of Vermont, which has a couple of French names (such as Montpelier), New England place names are a nice mix of UK and native American. In Maine, there's Portsmouth and Bangor, and Wiscasset and the Kennebunk River, for example. In the Dorchester Lower Mills neighborhood of Boston (Massachusetts) where I grew up, the river a couple of blocks away is the Neponset.

      And here's to the Worcester (MA) City Council, for representing the concerns of its constituents, rather than the money of a corporate monster.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: There's a "New" in that England

        I currently live in the lower mainland of BC, Canada and we have a Surrey, Richmond, Victoria and a New Westminster. Talk about a lack of imagination :D

      2. Gannettt

        Re: There's a "New" in that England

        I'm originally from Gloucester, UK, moved out to California. But you put 'Gloucester' into a image search, all you get is Gloucester, Mass. I never saw the lighthouse overlooking the Eastgate Shopping Centre!

      3. Herbert Meyer

        Re: There's a "New" in that England

        We have a similar complaint about the merger in Lexington - the Lexington in Kentucky, not the one in Massachusetts.

    5. Oninoshiko

      I'm not sure what it's doing on theregister.co.UK either.

      Incidentally, the correct course of action is to build out a fiber infrastructure in response.

    6. JeffyPoooh
      Pint

      Confused...

      "...*New* England..."

  2. Matt Piechota

    Just goes to show that the Brits that came over were wholly unimaginative when it comes to naming stuff. :) At least the French tended to name stuff after what is there.

    (More examples: Severn River in MD, several places named Reading, Lancaster, and London, New Castle Delaware, etc.)

    1. Mike 16

      At least the French tended to name stuff after what is there.

      Such as "Grand Tetons"?

      1. Heathroi

        Re: At least the French tended to name stuff after what is there.

        Maybe they were feeling deprived of such after all that time in the wilderness.

    2. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: Matt Piechota

      "Just goes to show that the Brits that came over were wholly unimaginative when it comes to naming stuff...." Yeah, not at all like those wildly inventive American souls who renamed Vickery Creek in Gerogia as Big Creek.... They were in good company - there appear to be at least seven other Big Creeks in the States.

  3. Ugotta B. Kiddingme

    I, too,

    applaud the Worcester Council for their action. As symbolic or meaningless as this may be, they know Comcast are shit and as much as told them so.

    1. AlbertH

      Re: I, too,

      I just wish we had some councils here in the UK who'd tell Virgin where to go.....

  4. Tikimon
    Pint

    Hey, original city names are tough...

    I admit, I never saw a city named after an existing one that had any similarity to the "original". The ones labeled "New Something" seem ludicrous after they've been around a century or so.

    But what alternatives? Naming after a person, but most names are pretty common. Naming after natural features also produces repeats as well.

    If there were people already living there before the current population took over, you can borrow their names for things. I live in an area full of musical sounding Native American names, like Kennesaw, Allatoona, Nantahala, Oconee, and so on.

    Which would probably sound to the natives like "New York", lol...

    1. fearnothing

      Re: Hey, original city names are tough...

      Practically everything in the UK is named for its location or what it is, it's just that the language changed so it's not as obvious anymore.

      Cambridge - bridge over the Cam.

      Brentford - see above.

      Anything ending "chester" - Roman town. Worcester - concatenation of Weogara, the local tribe, and chester.

      Durham - modern form of Dunholm; Dun = hill, Holm = island or prominence in sea or river. Durham is built on a hill surrounded on 3 sides by a loop in the river.

      The ending "ton" means town. Boston, Brighton, Luton, Southampton.

      TL:DR - we've been using naming linked to local features for two thousand years and more. Let it be.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hey, original city names are tough...

      "But what alternatives? Naming after a person, but most names are pretty common. Naming after natural features also produces repeats as well."

      You can still find some strange names if you look. For example, there's a part of southeastern Virginia (now part of the city of Virginia Beach) called Witchduck. Sounds funny at first, but Virginia was one of the first British colonies...and the witch hunt attitude was not limited to Salem, Massachusetts.

      But the one that always gets me (and one of the most famous when it comes to weird names) is Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.

  5. FBee

    From the banks of the Thames River in (New) London

    Pronounced in Connecticut as the voiceless dental fricative /θ/ (Thing) rather than /t/ (Thailand)

    1. Charles 9

      Re: From the banks of the Thames River in (New) London

      I suspect there will always be debate on both sides of the Atlantic when it comes to pronunciation. The best way to note it is that British English is more traditional but rather inconsistent whereas American English is generally more structured but as result things change.

      I came to realize this when I had to pause for a moment to realize what was being described in a "gaol" and why I didn't recognize the pronunciations of words like Cheswick and Worcestershire, among other things (I describe it best as a lot of contraction, so much that it can confuse Americans).

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Alternative Headline

    "Group of rent-seekers who can't fix the roads want to run everything else too"

    Of course local bureaucrats want to reject Comcast, they want to own and control the infrastructure in their fiefdom as municipal broadband. It's called rent-seeking. Pity the author has never heard of it.

    Utah's Utopia muni-broadband project now sucks $13m a year out of 11 boroughs in Utah and had to be bailed out by private equity - who know a thing or two about rent-seeking themselves.

    http://online.wsj.com/articles/municipal-broadband-is-no-utopia-1403220660

    Yes, damn Comcast to hell - it is a truly horrible company. I hope it goes the way of dodo, and soon. But the imaginary paradise of taxpayers funding broadband is a fantasy.

  7. Mark 85

    Charter is bad enough

    But to swap to Comcast? I would scream, kick, and hold my breath until I turned blue. Either that or move. But, this is the States and choice is not what we really have inspite of what Congress and others seem to think.

  8. sisk

    Comcast is atrocious. I admin a bank of servers that are or a Comcast connection. I thought my ISP was bad until I started trying to do SSH over Comcast's network. I've never before in my life seen a SSH connection randomly freeze and/or drop so often. How it manages video traffic is beyond me.

  9. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    City manager may not sign

    This is somewhat symbolic, if the city manager just signs. But, cities don't have to. It's unusual, but cities have before refused to "rubber stamp" the renewal with a cable company. That cable company's then gone -- someone else gets to move in and use that cable infrastructure, or (occasionally) the city takes it over and runs a system themselves.

  10. ideapete
    Pint

    Its from the Colonies

    Come on chaps , its obviously from one of her majesties colonies ( they have just forgotten )

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