So last Summer, I got really into the NFL Network. I watched it pretty much all day. Then, around the time the season started, it suddenly dissapeared from our package, so when we went to the channel it said “please call for ordering information, you are not subscribed.” Not really willing to pay, I figured that we had been getting some sort of free trial and gave up. I was talking about this to a friend, and he said there’s no way its a free trial, that should be included in my cable package. I checked the website, and sure enough, it was part of the package we paid for. Confused, I called Comcast. Apparently, about the time I stopped getting the channel, they restructured their packages and arbitrarily removed this channel from our package (one of the most expensive packages) without telling us at all. The lady told me to call back tomorrow to talk to someone in sales about this. I will be extremely angry if they don’t give it back to us free of charge, and I’m already pretty angry that they would just remove a channel from our lineup without telling us or lowering our rates.
Especially since they’ll be carrying live games next season. I’d be pissed as hell if they pulled it now.
Now if they’d just get their crap together and get the hi-def feed going…
This is nothing new to cable companies. Incontinent Communications a few years back decided you could only get Premium channels (HBO, Starz, etc) if you had digital cable. Suddenly you lost the option of getting one HBO over the analog setup. You either get 11 channels or none, pick one. And according to them, suddenly the analog feed souldn’t support HBO.
Me: “You’ve been carryin the feed over this same line for 10 years now.”
Them: “Well with the different configuration we can no longer offer single channel service over the analog line.”
Me: “But it’s the same cable and equipment in place here for the 10+ years I’ve lived here. Or was I hallucinating that I was watching the channel a few years ago?”
Them: “Sir, it simply isn’t possible to offer single channel service to you without signing up for digital cable.”
Me:
Me: "I noticed 2 years ago the NFL Network was carried on channel 46 over the analog feed.:
Them: “Yes, but now we can only carry it over the digital feed due to bandwith restrictions.”
Me: “So it’s now in HD?”
Them: “No, but we need to preserve bandwith space for other channels.”
Me: “Well, isn’t the bandwith the reason someone would need digital? To be able to have access to 200 channels?”
Them: “Yes, that’s exactly why we need to move it to digital.”
Me: But the people that don’t have digital will still have 70 channels available right?"
Them: “Of course. We at Incontinent strive to offer quality cable service to everyone in our areas.” (Fiefdoms)
Me: (Exasperated with the charade) “So are you telling me that CNN, PBS, HSN and Comedy Central use less bandwith than HBO, NFL or Bravo?”
Them: “Well no. They all use the same, but we need to carry them on digital to handle the demand.”
Me: “But every subscriber gets the first list I mentioned. The latter, particularly HBO, is optional depending on the tier of service. More people will have Comedy Central then HBO as not every customer will subscribe to it.”
Them: “Well, that’s the way we have to do it since that’s how the system is set up now.”
Me: “No, the system is set up so you can force the customers to rent (no option to buy) the box as well as pay much higher prices to get the channels that most people want. I can appreciate going for higher profits, but you should do it with steller service and quality rather than force it down our throats.”
Them: “Sir, is there anything else I can assist you with today?”
Me: “Yeah, what’s the number for DirecTV?”
Here’s the best part. For the HD service you have to buy, er rent, their converter for $9 a month. Even if the TV is HD ready, you need the converter. :rolleyes:
If true, I bet it was no accident it got pulled from vinniepaz’s original subscription with an enticement to re-order.
Good point…this increases the channel’s desirability quite a bit. And cite on the live games thing.
What about consumer laws? If I buy a certain package from the cable company ,in that I agree to pay X and they provide certain channels, can they arbitrarily change the package? I know things do change but if they still offer a certain channel that was originally in my package aren’t they under some obligation to still provide it?
Awww…who am I kidding …it’s the cable company…bend over.
Another question…
It always pisses me off that one cable comapny controls a certain area. There is no competition that might help consumers get a better package.
My question is, is it physically practical for there to be two cable companies competeing? Is it just politics and cable companies influencing the local laws?
I figure that’s why they bury that line in the contract that says, “This package subject to change at any time for any or no reason.”
Where I live, I can’t get ANY cable TV. The only option available is satellite. Luckily, I’m very happy with my DirecTV (including my NFL Sunday Ticket!) The NFL channel is one of my favorites and is part of the standard package as far as I know. I hear so many horror stories about cable and remember what it was like. We’ve been with DirecTV for almost 10 years now and haven’t had a problem.
The local cable guy came out to our place once to see if they could/would run service out to us (I wanted a cable modem). He left laughing so hard I thought his face would split in two. sigh
Amish country?
I live in central north Carolina, and we’ve got the same problem as Boggette. No cable, no DSL. Satellite internet service is the only high-speed available, and it’s too expensive. In some places, the ‘information superhighway’ still tails off into a dirt road.
Mennonite in my neck-o-the-woods.
Hopefully someone with more expertise (which wouldn’t be hard) will swing by with a better answer, but my impression is that it’s difficult/impossible for two providers to share the same physical infrastructure. I’m not sure whether the problem is technical or legal
About ten years ago the local public utility decided to wire the city with a fiber-optic drop to every building that had an electric meter. The rationale was to give them the ability to monitor electric usage more closely, in preparation for the (now indefinitely-postponed) advent of energy deregulation. In order to do this, they had to string the cable themselves—they couldn’t use the existing (privately owned) system.
Sidenote: since there was a lot of excess bandwidth available, they also went shopping for franchisees to exploit it. They found several in the cable internet area, but couldn’t find anyone to take on the cable television behemoth; so amid much wailing and gnashing of teeth about taxpayer-subsidized competition with the private sector, they went into the biz themselves. As a result, not only do I have a choice of cable television providers, but Comcast* provides better service at a lower price here than in the megalopolis to the north. Of course, the latter must be a coincidence. . . .
- Current slogan: “Live the life Comcastic!” Doesn’t anyone give these things more than a moment’s thought? It’s entirely too close to “craptastic,” and my mind automatically reads it that way.
You are laboring under a basic misunderstanding of the technology. The feed, and whether it is digital or analog, is not determined by your cable provider. The signal is formatted at its origin. That is to say, HBO has ceased trasmission of all analog signals. The cable operator has no choice in the matter; they can’t continue to provide programming in a format that simply isn’t there.
It appears from this exchange, you are confusing digital with hi-def. Two different animals. All hi-def is digital, but not digital isn’t necessarily hi-def.
This is because of technical limitations on analog signals. Each channel consumes 6MHz of bandwidth, be it digital or analog (Hi-def on the other hand requires just about 19.3 MHz per channel off the top of my head). Analog signals are carried between frequencies of 54MHz and 550MHz allowing space for about 82 analog channels. It simply isn’t feasible to transmit analog signals at frequencies above 550MHz as they deteriorate more rapidly over shorter distances than do signals carried on lower frequencies. From 550MHz to 750MHz (or 860, or even up to 1GHz in rare instances) digital (and hi-def) signals are carried. How your cable provider allocates this limited spectrum will depend in large part on the format of the signals they’re accepting for re-transmission. A chunk of that space will carry regular digital and a chunk of it will carry hi-def digital. As more and more hi-def is made available (and demanded by subscribers), there is less spectrum available for regular digital. Problem here is there are more and more regular digital signals being substituted at their source for the old analog transmissions. It isn’t always practical, because of technological limitations on the existing amplifiers to reallocate analog spectrum to digital. It can be a costly and lengthy affair to upgrade hundreds of amplifiers.
There’s more to this of course, that isn’t strictly technical. For instance, most content providers demand that the cable operators offer their programming in packages. MTV, for instance, won’t permit an operator to take MTV by its lonesome. If an operator wants to offer MTV, they’ve gotta take MTV2 and VH1 and a bunch of other shit, too. MTV may also restrict the tier (or tiers) in which a cable operator can place their programming.
It’s a very complex set of factors which determine what and how your cable operator is able to configure his program offerings.
This question arises here quite often. There is currently great interest in cable overbuilds. An overbuild is when another operator moves in and builds a new cable network in an area served by a competing cable network. Whichever cable company operates in your area, it cannot be doing so without what’s called a franchise. That franchise is granted to a cable operator by your city council, or some other local governing body. If you want a competing cable operator to take an overbuild feasibility study, you should be lobbying whatever local governing authority has the ability to grant an operating franchise.
Additionally, lots of small independent telcos are beginning to offer television programming over their fiber/copper networks. IPTV, which is a huge coming thing, is making this possible. I’m currently working with 5 independent telcos to develop channel line-ups for their video services to be offered later this year.
And their is a lot of interest in the so-called Fiber To The Home networks right now. They’re still a bit expensive tho’. I’m also getting ready to deisgn (as of the contract signed last Friday) a large new FTTH network for another client.
Lots and lots of exciting stuff happening in the convergence of telecom right now. A few years and the market is going to look completely different. IPTV is gonna play a huge, huge role in that. In probably 3 years, you’ll see lots of televising programming available only via the internet. It’s all hinging on MPEG-4. We need MPEG-4 capable set-top boxes and away we go. There are a couple in field trials right now. Telecom is back, baby. And it’s back, BIG.
And of course UncleBeer has to come along with his fancy-schmancy “logic” and “reason”. Prick.
I’d still like to know what the fuck is up with having to lease an HD converter even if the TV has the HD hardware installed.
One other thing this fucking company did, and maybe someone can explain it to me.
3 years ago I dropped $75 to get the special low, low rate on the cable modem. In 3 years of trusty service I had to reset it once. About a month ago the bill included a flyer about a new modem I could get at the low, low trade in price of $35 upon return of the modem I bought to begin with.
So I called customer scurvis to ask what it was about and got some explanation along the lines of “We’re changing the hardware or something that will make your modem obsolete soon. At that point you’ll need to purchase the new modem but at a higher price.”
:rolleyes:
I still don’t know what the hell they’re doing or why I’m forced to buy even more equipment now. For what we pay a month in service, I would think Incontinent could eat the one-time $35 charge since I have no choice in the matter. They ain’t losing money on us. Maybe it’s something I don’t understand. Well, no, it is something I don’t understand.
Anyway. I went and got the new modem. Absolutely no change. In fact, on average I’m getting slower download speeds from the same sites I’ve been going to for years.
The best part of it all? In the last 3 weeks I’ve had to reset the fucking thing 8 times. When the Sopranos ends the series, I’m going DSL and satellite. Fuck it.
DirecTV just participated in a scam on my identity theft., If I am living in CA, WHY would they set up an account for a home in Milwaukee that I would be BILLED for in California? I am not that nice, and it’s not even in may name.
In order to clear it up they won’t TALK to me, it all has to be done in writing, with a copy of the police report.
Fine. And I will tell everyone I know - and everyone who reads my mag - to stay away from DirecTV.
Regards,
Inky
:rolleyes:
Ha, the Google ads for this thread have thrown up an ad for my old nemesis, cable company NTL!
Their piss poor service is one I wish to forget and I’m glad I’m no longer so poor I have to rely on them for TV, phone and internet.
I’ve really learned to hate Comcast over the years even when they’re not missing appointments and interrupting my internet service. In my opinion its because they are a pseudo-monopoly…they offer the one and only cable internet and cable TV service in the greater Philadelphia area. If you want to watch TV via cable or get fast internet they’re it and they know it and abuse their position. I’d love to see things change so that any carrier could send broadcasts and internet down the same cabling. We’d see Comcast change their tune so fast you wouldn’t even recognize them.
Hmm, now that sounds promising. You mean we won’t be stuck with Comcast forever? Woohoo!