The Cox Attitude

Not surprisingly, our friends at Cox Communications reacted to last week's editorial about the unique opportunities presented to the City of Falls Church by the arrival of Verizon's new high-speed "fiber to the premises" Internet access service. A Cox spokesman requested an opportunity to respond with a guest commentary, which we were happy to accept and publish. It appears adjacent this editorial.

While the Cox commentary does not speak at all to the issue of the vastly superior band width and speed of the new Verizon service in making its case, it is most notable to us for its disrespectful tone, suggesting among other things that the News-Press editorial was a mere rewrite of Verizon press releases.

We've become accustomed to such an arrogant tone coming from a large cable service completely out of touch with the community it serves. Indeed, many millions of Americans suffer under this type of thing on a daily basis as they must live under the burden of cable monopolies in their communities, and citizens of the City of Falls Church have hardly been the exception in this regard.

Therefore, it is a bit amusing to find this tone embedded in a commentary about such a cable company's new competition. Indeed, as hard as it is to teach and old dog new tricks, one would think that an appreciation of the demands of new competition would lead more toward a disposition of seeking all the friends one can get.

As we said in the editorial last week, our assessment of the technology being offered by Verizon was not intended to favor one service over another, but to suggest a new policy direction at City Hall toward recruitment and retention of high-tech businesses.

It was based not on anyone's press releases, but on consultations with the head of one of the region's most active and qualified citizen advisory committees on cable television and related technologies.

It is perhaps the unintended consequence of the Cox commentary to help citizens in Falls Church better appreciate the unique situation they now enjoy, compared to almost every other jurisdiction in the U.S. That is, true competition now exists here not from one, or even two, but actually three services: Cox, Verizon and Starpower. The Cox commentary lays out the impressive array of services and capabilities that Cox offers, to its credit.

But at the same time, it helps citizens to better compare and contrast options, a process that we are confident will begin to force prices down and, we hope, an attitude adjustment toward customer service and community involvement on the part of the competing services.

It should also help underscore to City Hall the special opportunities the new state of the art technologies available in the City of Falls Church now represent to its prospects for economic development.