What is your TV worth to you? I'll take it as read that those who pay more get more, but -for my money- there is no TV worth what they ask over here.
Do you feel your area is expensive? Is there a monopoly where you live?
We have the basic service, but only 'cause it's free with the broadband connection.... (we get a rebate on the internet connection for having both, rebate is equal to TV cost ....TV is free). if it wasn't, we'd shut off the TV altogether. We use it almost exclusively for DVDs and videos.
That said, we pay $60 for the internet service -I know where my proirites lie ;). see separate poll for this one!
Ahhh yes, cable's way of force feeding their service on you. The "free" limited basic. What they don't tell you, is that their $60 per month easily includes the fee for the basic cable. They just price it up to $60 so that they can earn off those that just want broadband.
Whereas my phone and internet combined barely reach $60, my TV and radio are heading towards triple digits. Mainly because of FSC/Setanta. During the summer break, I pay $60 for DirecTV and TiVo, plus the $12 for Sirius in the car so I don't have to listen to a 15 minute block of commercials on my way to work. Then that rises by $24 for my footy fix once August or September roll around.
Damn, you're nosy today.
I don't have digital, but next best. Radio is free through the air. There are a good number of genre radio stations on my ISP homepage.
I didn't watch much TV before my wife died, but then it provided faces to go with the voices. I'm trying to wean myself off it now and go back to reading. To be fair, I also had cataracts that interfered with reading but much less with TV
What they don't tell you, is that their $60 per month easily includes the fee for the basic cable. They just price it up to $60 so that they can earn off those that just want broadband.
Erm, what do you mean "what they don't tell you"? Who on earth thinks the service they actually physically provide costs $60? They have a monopoly, they can name their price. Of course the cost of anything "free" is included with what you're paying for. :roll: Do you seriously think the rest of us don't get this? That we really think Happy Meals are good value and the toy is a bonus?
Sirius radio $120 a year .
for tv, internet and phone see other thread .
we don't pay for tv - just invested $10 in some rabbit ears so we get about a dozen channels, pretty much the same stuff thats on cable, but doesn't cost $60 per month. I still listen to bbc radio over the internet or NPR - can't stand the radio programming here, country or classic rock is not my cuppa tea. And its not as if radio and tv here provide some kind of service worth writing home about, its more of a distraction than anything.
I know it doesn't cost that to them, everyone is in the business to make a profit. But cable companies all seem to be of the opinion that we have to pay them for their TV service as well as other services. Oh and then overinflated prices at that. $40 for VoIP service? Who are they kidding? It's not like Comcast, Charter etc have better customer service than the infamous Vonage.
- will never be a cable customer again while living in the US. Mainly because I once worked for one.
I like the part where if you call up to cancel or downgrade cable service, they charge you a fee for the privelidge.
The epitomy of bare-faced cheek. We should give them a bill for travel when we take the rented equipment back.
That's a way to make you stay at the higher level. I can see their reasoning to some extent, it's so you don't call up and order HBO just for the weekend. Then make a minimum charge period for a higher level of service. You can't get it for less than 7 days, say.
Or you do what DirecTV do, and allow almost all package and service changes over their website, accessible instantly. They only charge a minimum of a day, so if you want to watch something on HBO, you get charged 40c for a day's service. It's more to them than 0c if you decide not to get it.
Maybe and I wouldn't mind but I don't subscribe to any of the premium channels - haven't had HBO, Starz etc. since the freebie trial ran out years ago.
Still, I had cable downgraded for less than a day after the world cup and then called back to cancel the downgrade - when I used the cable again, they'd given me back the music channels that I lost last time I downgraded, at no additional charge.
It's all a scam and the squeaky wheel gets more than the quiet one.
Let's see if I can highjack this thread for a minute. I have Comcast, but if I go away for a little while I get disconnected, similar to dial-up. I called them and said I needed it to be continuopus if I went to VoIP. The dude checked my cable modem and said there were no drops recorded. I should go ahead and get VoIP end its continuous search would keep the connection.
Does this make sense?
The connection should not cut out that often.
Mine occasionally goes when they renew the IP lease - there is a configuration error between the cable modem and the router but if I just reboot both of those, it's fine for another month or two.
Is there something left over from when you used to connect to dial-up that might be doing it?
No. I never had this one on dial-up.
I was thinking of using Vonnage, but I might try comcast, they have a first year deal. and they will have an incentive to find out what's wrong. I may have to buy a cheap cell while things get sorted out.
I always had terrific problems losing my IP while on cable, with AT&T at the time but that market is now owned by Comcast. I was always resetting the modem, running ipconfig or configuring the router to get a new IP, at least once a week. This is a common complaint of cable broadband. Since getting Verizon DSL I have had to reset the router maybe twice in a couple of years.
VoIP on cable is almost not worth the hassle from my experience of the service without VoIP. They don't give you anywhere near the bandwidth they sell at, and it fluctuates too much. You need a steady stream of data, not one that will dip and dive whenever Johnny next door jumps onto Limewire or gets the bit torrents running again.
Vonage isn't the only deal in town for a third party VoIP either. There's Lingo and also Cordia which my friend just signed up for. Cordia offers an unlimited North American service for $15, or $25 if you want a dozen or so European countries in the free calling area.
It's weird though, I don't lose the IP, I just click on home a couple of times. After I've physically disconnected, Real player checks the line the first time i use it and it says I have a Tsomething line.