In the Condo community I’m moving into, there is no FIOS availability. It also doesn’t allow satellite dishes to be attached, and my balcony is low and surrounded by trees.
The local cable provider is Cox, a company I hate beyond all reason.
What other options are there for internet and TV access? There are obviously a ton of options for TV once one gets a good Web connection, but what else can I try?
It’s in Centreville, VA if that helps.
Thanks for any suggestions you may have!
Technically, they can’t prohibit you from getting a satellite dish installed. But I think they can refuse to have it installed in an area that isn’t part of your immediate “condo exterior,” like a shared roof or wall. So if the prime spot (the balcony,) is a bad location like you say, you might be out of luck anyway.
The problem is that a lot of cable companies have essentially local monopolies. It sucks, and there’s not much you, as a consumer, can do about it.
Have you looked into U-Verse from AT&T? Though I imagine if there’s no FiOS, there’s probably no U-Verse, since IIRC they use the same physical fiber network.
I take it you won’t be satisfied by the speed of DSL?
Didn’t you check on the cable provider before deciding to move there?!?!?!
If I didn’t have FIOS or an alternative to Cox I’d move.
How come you hate Cox so much? I’ve got 'em, and, yeah, I grumble a bit at some of their practices, but I don’t hate 'em. Just sorta dislike 'em some. They’re more like lima beans than cat shit…
(They’ve steadily been raising their prices. I finally said nuts, and told them to turn off my TV entirely. I don’t watch that much. They contacted me and offered to cut my TV rates by $80 a month. To me, that kinda implies they’ve been overcharging me that much or nearly so all along!)
Why do I hate them? Because the service in my current neighborhood was so spotty I had to give up working from home until FIOS became available. Because month after month I went days without service, and they never credited a penny to my account for it. When it did work, it was about half the speed I was paying for, and when I tried to get them to address the problem, they would demand that I take a day off of work to “meet their technican” who had no need whatsoever to even enter my property to address the problem.
And then, when I finally gave up , canceled my service, and dropped my boxes off at their office, their clerk asked me why I was canceling my service, and I told him that it was because it was so unreliable. He sneered at me, and said in a loud sarcastic voice anyone in the store could hear -including my child who was standing beside me- “Or MAYbe you just can’t afFORD it anymore.”
I called to complain, and the person I spoke to said “So, you don’t have our service anymore right? So what exactly would you like me to do about it?”
Hate. Cox.
For basic TV, you can get a “real” indoor antenna (for ATSC over-the-air broadcasts). Or try an indoor satellite dish.
For your Internet connection, if you can settle for a few gigabytes per month, I guess you can use a data plan from a cell phone provider (through tethering or a device such as a USBConnect).
I know, right? :smack:
Just because you had bad service in one neighborhood with Cox doesn’t mean you will have bad service with Cox in a different neighborhood. It’s the luck of the draw. All of these services have a majority of satisfied customers and a minority of dissatisfied customers.
So sign up for Cox. If that is unsatisfactory try the alternatives (usually DSL from the phone company and a cellular service like Verizon with 4G, maybe a wireless service like Clearwire
Holy F—! I’d have raised the roof! I’d have written letters to every newspaper, every tv station, every federal, state, and local regulatory agency, and to every corporate officer in the entire Cox hierarchy! The Better Business Bureau, the State Secretary of State for Corporations, the whole schmear!
(I know this, because I have been that mad at another company who treated me badly, and I did all of those things!)
But, wow… That’s one doggone good reason for hatred! Ick!
Honey, I could go on for hours. Hours I tell you! That’s not even the least part of it with them.
PAstTense has a point on the reliability though, where I am now was one of the first neighborhoods inour area to get cable, and the infrastructure is just old. Over 30 years old.
I did see a dish antenna on another first floor balcony today - so maybe it’s not out of the questions. Ohpleezeohpleezeohplleeeeeeezzzzz
Gadz! I wish you and I could sit and chat for hours!
re dish antenna, I know nothing about these myself…but someone told me that you can use them indoors, set nearby a window, so they don’t have to be bolted to a wall or roof or balcony or whatever. Maybe?
Dude, you do not want satellite internet. Trust me on this. You don’t.
Satellite TV, OTOH, is pretty rockin’.
You need to check out your usage before you go to satellite internet. When they throttle you, they make telephone dial up look fast.
I hate Cox with a passion and would use dial-up first before I’d ever put another cent into Cox. This is also due to a customer service issue I had with them.
Pay attention to monthly limits on any service you consider. If you’re in an apartment complex, there is a good chance that you’re in range for decent DSL service that won’t have monthly limits. I have basically DSL speeds and I can stream videos on low res without any stuttering.
Check out a data dongle from Sprint or some others and compare that service. (broadband over cell phone dedicated for computer use) You’ll have similar monthly limits, but it won’t die out because a bird pooped on your dish. I’m pretty sure you can now get pay as you go data services through some cell companies if you want to avoid the 2yr contract thing.
My son claims he uses his Android phone for his internet connection. I find it hard to credit but he plays games (WOW and others) online so he aught to know.
COX vs FIOS I really think it has to do with location. I’ve had COX cable for years and yes, sometimes I’m ready to rip it out of the wall. Other times they surprise me with something useful or with a helpful employee. Of course they charge an arm and a leg. But my mom, in a different city, recently swithed from COX to FIOS and you couldn’t pay me to use that service. I’ve been on the phone with them a few times trying to get things fixed and the story changes every time. Her phone service is spotty, her internet connection is spotty, they connected the TV boxes in her house wrong and I had to redo them. The other day they just turned off her HD channels and told her she isn’t supposed to get it. She is basically paying to get rabbit ear quaility TV.
Do you potentially just need Cox for TV alone or do you need them for your Internet as well?
Can you use Verizon for DSL?
Satellite Internet is full of latency and transfer limits/throttling.
I second the DSL suggestion, and DSL is generally not limited.