Today, Minneapolis residents got some very good news when the City Council approved CenturyLink’s application to provide their Prism cable TV service in the city.  According to WCCO-TV’s report, it’s been nearly 40 years since there has been any significant competition for cable television in Minneapolis.  It’s little wonder, since cable TV is such a capital-intensive business that there’s been no incentive for cable providers to compete in most areas.  It’s much easier for them to grow through mergers and acquisitions, which have been rampant over the past 20 years.

Comcast has been a magnet for customer complaints over the past decade, so many people will relish having another option aside from sattelite TV or “cutting the cord” and relying on the Internet and over the air broadcast.  If nothing else, the new CenturyLink service brings with it the likely prospect of lower prices.  The cost of cable TV and broadband Internet service has risen to levels that would have seemed ridiculous in years gone by.  I checked CenturyLink’s website to do some comparison shopping.  Since the service isn’t available here yet, I had to check prices for cities in Wisconsin and Iowa.  Their sign-up page features introductory bundles that require a 2-year commitment, so I didn’t get to check CenturyLink’s standard prices.  But if we were to see the same prices here, it looks like I would save 30% or so to get a similar programming package.  The website didn’t make it clear to me whether or not they charged extra for HD-capable set-top boxes, so we’ll all have to wait and see how they set their prices in Minneapolis.

CenturyLink’s programming packages and channel line-ups are very similar to Comcast’s.  That’s largely due to how the content providers are pricing themselves.  So, for example, if I picked the corresponding package on CenturyLink, the only major channel I care about that I’d lose by switching would be BBC-America.  I was glad to see it when Comcast added it to the low-level service tier I buy, but it’s hardly a deal-breaker.  I’m also a fan of the classic movie and TV channels that Comcast has added recently like MeTV, GetTV, Heroes and Icons, Movies, etc.  But Netflix fills in those gaps well enough if need be.  The upshot is that the two companies’ channel line-ups and programming package tiers are essentially identical.  So you’d be able to replicate your current service without feeling you’d given anything up.

CenturyLink has pledged to provide service to at least 15% of residents.  That limitation was to be expected considering the costs involved, but it should still be enough to get Comcast to adjust their rates for eligible residents to a competitive level.  If we’re lucky, they may feel the need to lower prices city-wide in order to discourage CenturyLink from further investments.

In any case, based on nothing but my intuition, I expect it’s liable to be 18-24 months before CenturyLink actually starts delivering service.  However long it takes, it’s going to be fun to watch!