We've been almost certain that this was coming since mid-October. What we were told at that point was that MPC's finances were shut down - hard - and as a result they had no working capital to purchase any product. In other words, they haven't been able to build or ship product since the middle of October. (This was before they went Chapter 11... and before they were delisted from NASDAQ.)

Fortunately, we stopped buying desktops from them a while back... but unfortunately we were still buying laptops from them. In fact, we just bought about 10 laptops just in September. So much for the 3 year warranty we paid extra for on them. :(

Thank you, I was beginning to wonder if I had wandered into bizarro-land or something! I cannot for the life of me fathom the negative reaction to this. Wisconsin is currently passing a similar bill, and I am 100% in favor of it. Previously, when a new provider wanted to enter a community, they wouldn't be able to, because some other cable company was granted an exclusive contract for that community.

Now, if Time Warner wants to compete with Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, or whomever else, they can. They get the statewide contract, and no more messing around with local politicos with delusions of grandeur. It levels the playing field so that anyone can compete.

There's a reason that the cable companies have been running a campaign against such bills... they don't want to have to compete. They like the cushy exclusive local contracts because it means they only have to worry about actually doing enough of their job to make it look good every few years when the contract comes up for renewal... then pay off enough politicians to get them to either be in favor of the new contract without even reading it, or better yet, be 'sick' on the day it's up for renewal.