It seems some in the cable industry aren’t only out of touch, they are out of this world.  Todd Spangler, from Multichannel News, a cable industry trade publication, lets an unnamed cable industry exec go all X Files on us when he gives column space to this whopper [thanks to Dave for pointing the way]:

A cable industry insider pinged me last night with an interesting conspiracy theory:

Rep. Eric Massa (D.-N.Y.), who this week blasted Time Warner Cable’s bandwidth-metering plan as “monopolistic” and inflicting harm on middle-class Americans, is based in Corning, N.Y. — the hometown of the world’s biggest fiber-optic supplier, Corning Inc.

The implication: That Massa is railing against Time Warner Cable because a big Corning customer is Verizon Communications, which has bought thousands of miles of fiber-optic cabling for its FiOS buildout.

And here is where I exert the tiniest effort to collapse this ludicrous nonsense.  Hey, clueless cable guy: your theory only works if Verizon was the phone company that sought to wire Rochester with those fiber optics.  They aren’t, and as disappointed residents have come to learn, they have no plans to bring their FiOS service into this area.  Oops.

Spangler’s own remarks suggest he isn’t on board this flight of fancy, but manages a few shots at the congressman anyway.

None of this is surprising of course.  We’ve been listening to the propaganda parade all weekend from Time Warner, trying to convince consumers who have never seen a rate change from the cable company that didn’t end up eventually costing them more… much more.

The cable television industry just cannot fathom why cable subscribers might be outraged about paying up to three times more tomorrow for a service they enjoy today at rational, profitable prices.

Why is it shocking to discover a member of Congress that is actually thinking about his constituents, instead of just cashing telecom lobby checks and shrugging shoulders saying there is nothing that can be done. Do I believe the congressman has all the answers?  No, which is why consumers will fight back against this on many different fronts.

Spangler offers his own bad analogy:

One wonders if Rep. Massa would summon the same level of outrage if, say, Corning Inc. had been selling strands of glass for a fixed, all-you-can-eat flat rate (surely something it has never done) and shifted to charging by the mile.

If Corning had, through decades of lobbying influence, successfully established itself as a de facto monopoly supplier of the kind of fiber necessary to deliver the fastest possible service in a community, and decided to “experiment” tripling the price in just that captive community, I’d suggest we would hear from the congressman, local, state, and federal officials, and angry customers.  I suspect we may not hear too much protest from a trade publication that exists because of the advertising, subscriptions, and goodwill of the industry it covers.