Holy shit. What is WRONG with the cable companies? Where the hell do they get off with these prices?
When I moved back in with my parents last February, I asked them to upgrade to digital cable so I could have SoapNet (sue me, I watch soaps). I said I’d pay the difference in the two. In addition, my dad decided he wanted high-speed internet. So, we had a credit for the first three months - high speed for only $19.95. Now all of the credits and special offers are gone.
Here’s what I don’t understand. When I lived in Brooklyn, my roommate and I had digital cable in three rooms with HBO, Showtime, The Movie Channel and Cinemax (my roomie wanted all of those, I just went along with it), and we had high-speed cable internet with an extra IP address. Our bill was a little over $100 for all of this - not a problem since we’re both admitted television and internet junkies.
Now that all of the special rates are gone for my parents’ account, we have digital cable in four rooms, all of the movie channels (my dad’s choice - I can do without), and high-speed cable internet with just 1 hookup - my dad and I each hook up our laptops to the same modem at different times. The bill came today…One hundred and sixty-two FUCKING DOLLARS! WHAT THE FUCK? Dad’s pissed. I just don’t understand why there’s such a huge difference between Time Warner NYC and Comcast in VA. A $50 difference for basically the exact same service!
Dad’s now looking into DirectTV and DSL. I can’t say I blame him. Mr. avabeth and I will have Time Warner Road Runner and regular basic cable in our apartment in Ohio when I move in a month, and from what we can tell, it’ll be around $80 for both - completely understandable.
The cable companies are fucking gouging people. Can someone explain to me why they’re allowed to have a monopoly on an area? Perhaps if they actually had some competition, they’d realize that their prices are ridiculous.
I am equally furious at Comcast right now. I work part time at home and I rely on my ISP. If I don’t connect, I don’t get paid. Last week my service was down for an entire day. Comcast’s response? We’ll give you a two dollar credit and it’s not our fault because you should have had a backup service. :rolleyes:
Yeah I pay over $700 a year and then I should pay for a backup service. :rolleyes:
Not only that but my cable bill has almost doubled in less than two years of service. Comcast’s reply? Well if you bought our cable service we could give you a discount.
Yeah your ISP sucks so why don’t I let you handle my cable service as well. :rolleyes:
We’re also looking into DSL as well. It would be only $30 a month instead of the $60 I pay right now.
I hope Comcast goes out of business because they’re greedy and they provide stinky service.
I don’t quite get it. For digital cable ALONE, our bill read for $80. That’s without all the little bullshit fees they add on, the movie channels, or internet service.
Whatever. Luckily, SoapNet is on basic cable in Ohio, and I’m not watching BBCAmerica anymore, so we have no need for digital. Even so, it seems like Time-Warner is gouging LESS than Comcast.
Avabeth, have you asked them about the bill? They may, in fact, have overcharged you (unless someone in the house has been hitting the PPV movies with a vengeance). Yes, they are stupid and incompetent (and if your modem stops working, God Help you if you call them for tech support). Stupid people often mis-bill customers. Give it a shot; you have nothing to lose but your bill.
I have digital cable with no pay options at all and it costs $70 per month. I would like to get DirectTV, but I live in apt and the land lord won’t allow it (even put it in the lease).
I do have DSL though. I don’t give comcast any more money than I have to.
I’ll have my dad give them a call. That’s a possibility, but it would have happened two months in a row - we thought last month was just a fluke, but since it’s happened again, there’s got to be something screwy.
And hell, if the bill’s right, DirectTV, here we come.
I pay about 70 per month for rent of a cable modem + basic service + high speed internet. The internet is around 48 as part of the package and the base tier cable is around $ 22. I feed aout 4-6 PCs off that conneectionl
I did find out that there some special deals when I paid for my ex and the kids to have cable internet a few months ago and there was some confusion on the deals Circuit City purchased modem deal offered via Comcast. I complained to Comcast and would up getting her cable internet for $ 20 a month for an entire year. She has no clue how good that deal, is but she will after the year is up. Comcast, like many companies, apparently has multiple deals running at any given time.
I tried digital cable for a while and it’s great, but it’s expensive as hell and getting multiple drops gets insanely expensive. Stand alone high speed cable is around $ 50- $55 in my area.
When you say you have 4 digital drops feeding 4 rooms do you mean you have one digital box feeding 4 rooms with it’s signal , or does each room have a digital tuning box? If you have 4 digital tuners $ 168. / month is not out of the question for 4 separate feeds + tuners and digital cable service + cable modem.
BTW no matter what else you do, you should get a router (around 60) so your dad and you can use the internet at the same time off the cable modem feed. A wireless router + wireless card ( 100 package) would be even more flexible and allow you to use your notebooks wherever you wished in the house.
I’m actually moving out in a month to live with my fiance in Ohio, so it’s not really worth it. Plus, we’re never on the 'net at the same time…he’s on maybe once a day, I’m on…well, constantly:D. It’s cheaper to talk to mr. avabeth on IM for four hours a night than it is to call on even a cell phone. I looked into wireless with Road Runner out there, but it’s just not in the budget right now. It’s in the future, though.
Oh, and sorry, I missed your question - we have 4 digital tuners - one in each room. But it’s not even that jacking the price up - it’s the actual digital cable itself and all of these little ‘extra’ fees.
That’s where I’m still thrown - we had three tuners in NYC, yet our service was only a little over $100. It’s like Comcast is just jacking up prices to jack them up. There’s no reasonable explanation for it.
My bill from Comcast is 160 bucks too and they are really starting to piss me off. First off, the digital cable box is so fucking painfully slow relative to the Time Warner boxes in NYC. Half the time, the On Demand feature get’s a communications error. But recently the following two things have happened which put me over the edge:
I accidentally ordered the widescreen version of a movie that I mistakenly believed was just letterboxed. One minute later I ordered the regular version and called Comcast the next day to get credit for the first one. They said they don’t give credit for any On Demand purchases. I don’t know whether On Demand is their gig or not but they act as agent for it and could certainly have made amends.
I got a call from Comcast the other day to ask if I wanted to sign up for a 6-month promotional for Cinemax - 4.95 a month for 6 months- 1/3 of the usual monthly fee. I thought it sounded like a good deal so I signed up. A week later I call back asking why my Cinemax hadn’t been turned on. They said it had but that they only send it to ONE cable box in your house (the one that I rarely watch).
They never mentioned that through the entire 15 minutes of nearly unbearably tedious boilerplate I had to endure. I told them to cancel the service and that their “promotion” was deceptive and particularly cheesy in light of the fact that I was a paying customer. I’ve never seen a company take such advantage of the fact that they’re a monopoly.
I just get the standard (non-basic) cable package and internet connectivity and it’s $80+ month. Maybe I’m cheap, or maybe I’m just hearkening back to the days when cable was $13.95/month, but I find this pretty outrageous.
I’ve seen the rates steadily rise over the past five years as Mediaone was gobbled up by AT&T was gobbled up by Comcast. The increase in the cost of internet connectivity was particularly bold-faced as they didn’t even bother to defend it on the basis of increasing costs – they essentially said “We know you’ll pay more for this, you chump, so we’re going to charge you more.” The last time they raised the cable rates, they blamed it on ESPN (something I never watch.) Now the rates are going up again in January.
Meanwhile, they keep begging me to sign up for digital cable (which buys me what, exactly?) and various premium channels. My reaction is pretty much “You guys have shown no compunction in reaming me for every service I currently get – why should I buy more products that you’ll continually increase the price of?”
My cable bill exceeds all my other utility bills (water, electricity, and phone service) combined.
I just got done cancelling all services (cable TV and internet) I had with Comcast because I cannot bear to give them my money anymore. They didn’t do anything particularly egregious, just the normal jerky stuff like denying I had called, being asses when my cable was turned of “by mistake” and other minor irritations. It’s the fact that they’re a monopoly and I can’t get dsl in my area that makes me hate Comcast so much. I was also paying $80+. (When I called to cancel my cable television and just keep internet, the woman says, “you do know your high-speed access charge will go up, right?” I say yes. What she doesn’t bother to tell me is that I can’t have one without the other, and the ‘extra’ charge is for basic cable!)
Because your community managers (city council, county commissioners, village administrators, whatever) have granted only one cable company the franchise to operate in your area. Your gripe, in this respect, is with the local politicians, not necessarily the cable operators. Cable companies can and do “overbuild” other operators if a) it’s economically feasible and b) can get the local officials to grant them a franchise. If you’re dissatisfied with the service you receive from the incumbent cable company, go to your city administrators and tell them. See if you can’t get them to court other cable operators.
Enjoy your outages during rainstorms, heavy snow and on windy days.
You’re lucky they’re not charging you for a business account. Those can be much more expensive due to expected greater bandwidth comsumption. Plus, it sounds like they gave you a properly pro-rated refund. I can’t see any legitimate aspect of your gripe with this.
I wonder how often it’s feasable to build that entire infrastructure in hopes of winning away some customers. I can’t see how it would be a good bet in anything but a big city and even then the current population would have to be extremely dissatisified with service. Granted, Comcast in breaching that critical mass.
I hate to sound like an arrogant, self-righteous prick, but you don’t have to have cable TV, you know. Last time Comcast raised their rates around here, I just cancelled my TV account and went back to rabbit ears. If you’re still paying what they charge, you must think it’s worth the cost, or you’d cancel. Leastaways, that’s how I see it.
Oh, I know. However, my dad likes movie channels and I prefer what’s on cable to what’s on most of the network - which is why he’s checking into DirectTV now.
The fact that I will pay it for channels that I do like still doesn’t change the fact that they’re price-gouging, though.
mostly untrue. unless your installation sucks, but that true of many things. I have satillite. it gets pretty windy in the spring and in the fall here. never seen it windy enough to block or even hamper the signal. I have never seen enough snow to block it here, and correct me if I am wrong but does Richmound Virginia even get much snow?:dubious:. extremly heavy rain has done it a few times but from what I hear it also knocked out cable. The cable company here (comcast) seems to spew what you said UncleBeer. what is your proffesion?