EDITORIAL: CABLE


Company owes students for delay

In the real world, a contract is legally binding. If a company promises to complete a project by a certain date and fails to fulfill its end of the bargain, then the company should give some type of discount -- or invite a lawsuit.

Rice, however, is often said to exist outside the real world, which would explain why Phonoscope Cable Inc. has yet to propose some form of compensation for its failure to install cable in all of the colleges by the beginning of the school year.

Although cable will be installed in the remaining colleges -- Baker, Sid Richardson and Will Rice -- by the end of the month, Phonoscope still has an obligation to reimburse those students who paid for one year's worth of cable but have yet to get it. True, students are paying only $5 a month for the service, but it's still unfair for only some students to be inconvenienced by delayed cable service and the presence of cable installers in their rooms.

Food and Housing may ask Phonoscope to make some type of compensation after the installation is complete. If F&H does, and it definitely should, it should demand that students receive some of their money back, possibly in the form of discounts on premium cable channels. If F&H does not, then F&H should be willing to use its own money to reimburse those students who deserve it.


This item appeared in the Opinion section of the September 22, 1995 issue.


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