Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

I have the next-to-barest-bones package from Mediacom: Expanded basic cable and Internet access. I’ve never changed that. I’ve never even replaced my TV. All that I’ve gained with the “digital conversion” of cable TV are the digital network subchannels and a Fox Sports regional that occasionally shows different games but came at the expense of ESPN Classic.

Since my May 2011 bill, here’s what Mediacom has done:

• June 2011: Implemented a $5 “monthly modem rental charge” while dropping the Internet rate by $2
• December 2011: Raised Broadcast Basic (barest-bones cable) $2 and Family Cable (expanded basic) $1 while removing $1 paperless-bill credit
• September 2012: Raised Family Cable $2 again and Internet $4, plus a separate 30-cent state sales tax line that still exists. The bill said “we have corrected our sales tax calculations following a recent system audit.”
• January 2013: Implemented $1 monthly cost for digital converter
• May 2013: Added a “Local Broadcast Station Surcharge” of $2.61 and raised Family Cable $2 yet again. Yep, I’m now being charged to get network TV.

Based on my May 2011 bill, that is a total increase of $18.91. Add increases in the sales tax and franchise fee, and I’m paying $20 more, or 16.67%.

Have I looked into discontinuing part of what I have? Yes. However, the net savings for not having expanded-basic for five months is under $200, not enough to justify it. I have to have my Internet access. 🙂

There are multiple parties responsible for this situation (including myself, since I pay for it). But when Friday prime-time across four networks includes five hours of reality television, and the History Channel is 90% Pawn Pickin’ Alien Swamp Stars, I wonder if I’m really getting my money’s worth.

On the brighter side, it’s 100 days to football season.

This picture was taken nine years ago tomorrow in Lime Springs, near the Minnesota border. It was the first time I had ever seen super unleaded at $2 a gallon in Iowa. Then this week, this happened:

Associated Press, Jan. 11:

Forecasters say ample oil supplies and weak U.S. demand will keep a lid on prices. The lows will be lower and the highs won’t be so high compared with a year ago. … AAA forecasts the national average will peak between $3.60 and $3.80 in the spring, then drop to between $3.20 and $3.40 by mid-summer.

CNN, January 30:

Largely thanks to an oil and gas production boom in this country, gasoline prices are expected to top out somewhere between $3.50 a gallon and $3.90 a gallon this year, according to Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service. Last year’s top price was $3.94 a gallon, set in early April.

Average prices for the year are expected to be lower too. Kloza is predicting an average of $3.25 to $3.50 a gallon. That’s considerably lower than last year’s average of $3.60 a gallon — which caused U.S. motorists to spend a record $479 billion at the pump.

And because those are national estimates, here’s Radio Iowa, January 11 (“Report: Gasoline prices in Iowa should be lower in 2013 than 2012”):

“We don’t expect the peak this year to be near $4 as we did last year, actually twice in the Midwest,” Weinholzer says. “We expect the peak to be more in the $3.60 to $3.80 area, but as a whole, the national average will be below last year by about 20-cents on average throughout the year.”

In May 2012, gas hovered in the $3.35-$3.50 range. The price pictured above is the third-highest I have ever seen in Iowa, behind only $3.949 on July 16, 2008 and $3.919 on July 4, 2008.

Sioux City hit $4 a gallon and it’s worse in Minnesota.

This week made it a particularly bad time to try anything related to an increase in Iowa’s gas tax.