https://www.legis.nd.gov/cenco...

9-08-06. In restraint of business void - Exceptions.
A contract by which anyone is restrained from exercising a lawful profession, trade, or
business of any kind is to that extent void, except:
1. A person that sells the goodwill of a business and the person's partners, members, or
shareholders may agree with the buyer to refrain from carrying on a similar business
within a reasonable geographic area and for a reasonable length of time, if the buyer
or any person deriving title to the goodwill from the buyer carries on a like business in
that area.
2. Partners, members, or shareholders, upon or in anticipation of a dissolution of a
partnership, limited liability company, or corporation; upon or in anticipation of a
dissociation of a partner or member; or as part of an agreement addressing the
dissociation or sale of a partner, member, or shareholder's ownership interest, may
agree that all or any number of them will not carry on a similar business within a
reasonable geographic area where the partnership, limited liability company, or
corporation business has been transacted, or within a specified part of the area.

Above is the reference to North Dakota Century Code on this topic, and also the relevant text. This new federal legislation is VERY similar to the protections that North Dakota Workers have enjoyed for quite some time. In fact the language is so similar I wonder if our laws were not used as the model for the proposed federal statute.

Good point about the 1000Mhz plant vs. 750Mhz, once you're out of the analog realm you can play with those last 250Mhz, I forgot that.

2HD / 5SD is about where I can start seeing picture degradation, if the big Cable Co's are doubling that, wow, I'm glad I'm not with a big Cable Co :)

I have to agree with the 40mbit too, increasing the modulation density from 64QAM to 256QAM would get you those numbers.

You can't do this with cable, there isn't an individual line that goes from your house all the way back to the cable company, the wire in your house is only "yours" to the pole where it combines with everyone else in your neighborhood. The wire coming to your house is capable of carrying approximately 125 channel slots. Those channel slots can be used in 1 of 4 ways...

1. A single analog channel
2. 2 HD Digital Channels
3. 3 or 4 SD Digital Channels
4. Approximately 30mbit of download capacity for data

You might live in an area where the the cable company has started pretty much requiring set top boxes, whats happened there is they have run out of spectrum, and are beginning to put what were analog channels into digital in order to free up 2 or 3 channel slots for other purposes, High definition or Internet are the big drivers.

Oh sure, you could do a frequency split with a 2nd carrier, but that service would, by necessity, be digital only, and both carriers would have a far sub-standard offering because they've only got 62 channel slots to work with.

Bandwidth on the CATV lines is a limited commodity, and even in small systems it is running out.

One other thought is that you could divide the city up into quadrants, and have a separate provider for each of the 4 quadrants, but the nature of the technology is that any given subscriber can only have 1 choice so if you live in quadrant A, you get provider A.

Of course, allowing a 2nd (or even 3rd) provider to overbuild the system would allow for real competition, 3 wires on the pole means there are 3 providers available, but what company is going to go through that expense when they don't have the city issued monopoly to ensure they can pay for the massive investment they just made?

That makes sense to me, Microsoft bought out "Great Plains Accounting" a number of years back, and maintains a fairly decent (I'd estimate 30 to 40 thousand square feet) office complex in Fargo; right on Interstate 29. I drive by it 3 times a year when visiting the in-laws.