Comcast Video-Only Subscribers See Rate Hike - 4.5% increase impacts approximately 15% of Bay Area customers
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Comcast Video-Only Subscribers See Rate Hike
4.5% increase impacts approximately 15% of Bay Area customers
02:38PM Saturday Aug 30 2008 by KathrynV
tags: prices · business · cable · Comcast
Tipped by Boricua65
Comcast will be raising rates next month on San Francisco Bay Area customers who subscribe only to cable. The increase will be about 4.5% on average and is cited to be due to changes in the economy ranging from increased programming fees to rising gas prices. Those customers who combine their video subscriptions with broadband or phone services will not be impacted by the hike. This seems to be an annual trend for Comcast which wants to push customers into bundling their services.

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Chiyo @ 30th Aug 02:44PM:
Seriously Gas Prices?

ok what? next they'll blame the hurricanes what gas prices does the satellite dishes that beam down the content from the providers run on 90 octane?

Why just say "because we feel like gouging you more?" seriously get dish much cheaper.

we expect continued increases in programming, particularly in sports ... More reason to watch your locals ;)
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hopeflicker @ 30th Aug 02:45PM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

OMG!!! absolutely SHOCKING, I say.
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Smith6612 @ 30th Aug 02:55PM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

It's one of the reasons why I've had satellite for seven years now, and a few of my relatives for 10+ years now.

Anyways, hasn't the price of has been dropping lately? In my area, gas used to be last month $4.10 a gallon for unleaded. Now it's $3.55 the last I checked.
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needforspeed59 @ 30th Aug 02:55PM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

Yes, gas prices. Are you surprised. Gas (oil) is affecting the price of everything. How many vehicles and miles do you think a company like Comcast logs each year? Do the math. Allompanies will have direct expenses like gas going up affecting their bottom line. Then there will be the indirect costs going up as their suppliers up their charges to cover their increased gas costs. It is a multiplier or ripple affect that squeezes businesses and customers alike. It is has an affect of strangling the economy as consumers cut back on spending and as inflation spirals up and up. Surprise! Comcast is going to pass this on to customers just like the cost of gallon of milk has been passed on by dairy companies. What's milk going for now? $3.50- $4/gallon? Evil, greedy cows and farmers in the dell!
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aciddrink @ 30th Aug 02:59PM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

The big problem with all this though is the fact that even if the gas prices dropped drastically over night, these rate hikes would stay in place out of greed. You will never see a large corporation like Comcast lower their prices (unless forced to by local competition), they will only find reasons to raise them.
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needforspeed59 @ 30th Aug 03:00PM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

said by Smith6612 :

It's one of the reasons why I've had satellite for seven years now, and a few of my relatives for 10+ years now.
You are joking right? Satellite has raised its rates every year for the last 6-7 years in a row. The only saving grace is while you in the initial contract you sign to get their special deals. After that, your rate goes up. I am not defending cablecos or bashing satellitecos, but trying to point out the obvious. They are raising rates. It's been mostly due to programming costs but now you have gas prices tearing into all companies' bottom lines. Guess what, all those DirecTV and Dish trucks and their contractors you see rolling around town use GAS.
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needforspeed59 @ 30th Aug 03:02PM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

True. it is called the inflation ratchet affect. Rates ratchet up. Your next rate increase may not be as big, but it will happen as other costs go up for a business.
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cypherstream @ 30th Aug 03:21PM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

How about the gas that fuels all of the Comcast trucks and vans? How about the rising energy costs that increase Comcast's cost to power the system, Headend, Call Centers, and other Operational centers? How about the rising healthcare and benefits costs that come with running a large company? How about the general costs of goods such as groceries going up, making employees demand better pay rates at evaluations? How about the falling value of the dollar, and how each dollar you spend just doesn't equal what it used to be?

There's much at play here. The Content providers are feeling the same pinch (ESPN/ABC,Fox,Viacom,Time Warner,etc..) so they are in turn charging more to all of their operators. How about Sports venues going up like crazy, hence the appropriate programming costing so much, as well as debates as to why it took Comcast so long to get half decent sports programming (ie, Big Ten), and they still don't even have ESPN-U yet.
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anon @ 30th Aug 03:33PM:
Corporate Greed and Discrimination = Comcast

Why not do it across the board to all of their customers at a lesser percentage, they will get more dollars, and it hardly seems fair to pick on those that only want video. This reeks of corporate greed, and the backlash from this will be heard.
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Rob @ 30th Aug 03:45PM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

said by cypherstream :

How about the gas that fuels all of the Comcast trucks and vans? How about the rising energy costs that increase Comcast's cost to power the system, Headend, Call Centers, and other Operational centers? How about the rising healthcare and benefits costs that come with running a large company? How about the general costs of goods such as groceries going up, making employees demand better pay rates at evaluations? How about the falling value of the dollar, and how each dollar you spend just doesn't equal what it used to be?

There's much at play here. The Content providers are feeling the same pinch (ESPN/ABC,Fox,Viacom,Time Warner,etc..) so they are in turn charging more to all of their operators. How about Sports venues going up like crazy, hence the appropriate programming costing so much, as well as debates as to why it took Comcast so long to get half decent sports programming (ie, Big Ten), and they still don't even have ESPN-U yet.
Sorry, I don't buy it. If everything you said was true, then every company (AT&T, Verizon, Charter, Cox, etc) would be hiking the prices.

It's not about rising fuel prices. It's about Comcast's yearly schedule to raise rates. It's nothing new. In fact, I'm surprised they raised the rates so late in the year.
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anon @ 30th Aug 03:52PM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

said by Rob :

Sorry, I don't buy it. If everything you said was true, then every company (AT&T, Verizon, Charter, Cox, etc) would be hiking the prices.
Are you just assuming they aren't raising prices somewhere just because there isn't an article on here stating such a thing?

This is just mentioning SF Bay Comcast customers, it didn't say all of them.

So do we know that AT&T in Chicago isn't raising rates in the suburbs? Do we know that Cox in Norfolk, VA isn't raising rates right now?
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battleop @ 30th Aug 03:56PM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

I am just wondering. When gas prices drop are you giving your employer money back?
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cornelius785 @ 30th Aug 03:57PM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

uh, that can be be applied to pretty much every rate hike that has ever occured since prices were placed on goods. so that point is pretty worthless.
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hussle87 @ 30th Aug 04:07PM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

It woulnt cost that much to run the system if it was FTTH. It would save alot because you dont have any neiborhood power supplys. think of how much verizon saves by cutting out these power supplys in their fios system.
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jmn1207 @ 30th Aug 04:07PM:
Comcast Northern Virginia Rate Hikes

I just opened a letter from Comcast this morning that informed me that my rates will be increasing $5 for my service. It seems as if all TV packages are increasing by about $4-5. My current TV price for all channels is $105.95/mo and will be going to $110.95. Sports package is still at $5 for now and my first DVR box is still $13.95 with each additional box costing $15.95 each.

Naturally, my internet is the same at $52.95 for Blast. So Comcast can still pretend that their rates have remained the same, while continuing to absorb the cost through their other services.
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Unit649 @ 30th Aug 04:14PM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

Uh, they are. My AT&T "residential" phone service went up about $17 dollars over the past 2 years alone. It was a major reason why I went to Comcast for internet, as the "bundle" with DSL didn't even help me there either. The next step may very well be the "Triple play" once my Cable Internet service 6 month introductory price expires.

Everyone is raising prices. You should be glad you're not in the transportation business. The words "Fuel Surcharge" oughta make you cringe-they are the main reason everything in the store is costing more, besides the increased cost of simply growing food or doing business. The amount they are raising the price by is nothing-my garbage rates recently increased almost $5 a month because of the cost of diesel also. Sure, cable does raise rates every year, its a vicious cycle, but you do reach the point where you can't simply "absorb" the costs anymore. Not unless you want to be out of business, of course.

Fuel prices are and will continue to affect everything. If it goes on a truck, its going to have a surcharge. The trucking companies have no choice, anyone that transports anything by truck doesn't have a choice, and anyone that uses energy from powering their computers to driving somewhere to powering a Cable Modem Node has no choice. Either you pay the prices, or you get nothing. Either you pass on the costs, or you eat up your cash reserves and you go out of business.

I'm not saying the entire thing is justified. I think the price I pay for cable is pretty outlandish because of the fact that I pay for the ability to watch advertisements on many channels, but the energy debate just won't fly with me or anyone else who uses energy every day to get work or things done. Those costs are increasing, and I don't see them going away very soon. And we're all going to pay for it, sooner or later.

You should be lucky if you get the bundle its not included. I have a feeling if you get the bundle after the date of the increase, the bundle will cost more. If not, then they are eating that cost. Be glad they can, come next year that may not be possible. If you want to deride them, deride them for the costs they pay the video producers, deride them for the costs they incur for doing stuff they probably don't need to, but don't deride them for energy costs. Anyone who uses energy sees and knows that has gone up. Major companies as well as you wind up paying the same thing. The only lucky thing is the company can recoup the cost better than you or I.
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EPS @ 30th Aug 04:25PM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

Verizon raises its prices too, you know... and they still need power for the central offices, for the vast amount of POTS customers (POTS has line power, after all), for their vast array of network equipment... the power costs passed on to the consumer in FiOS are a fraction of Verizon's (or any other major telecommunications company's) power expenses.
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redsonrising @ 30th Aug 04:45PM:
How is this news?

Comcast raising rates, how is this news? Them not raising rates, or even cutting rates, that's news.

r_r
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anon @ 30th Aug 05:05PM:
Well...

yeah, the price of eggs in China just went up.
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hussle87 @ 30th Aug 05:53PM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

true I guess until they get people of the copper there expenses will keep getting higher.
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Mactron @ 30th Aug 06:04PM:
Because they can...

It's all about financial brinkmanship. At what point will too many customers vote with their wallet and move on.
It's an annual event and Comcast has refined it to an art.
Their Bean Counters are excellent. Their QOS and CSRs are so-so at best at this franchise.
Comcast pushed me over the edge with their yearly increases years ago. Is this the year they push you over ?..

It's your choice with every annual increase. ;)
--
If only the Verizon CSRs worked this well. ;)
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anon @ 30th Aug 06:14PM:
yeah right

I've had triple play sine june and it's gone up every month 20-50 cents because some stupid cdv fees that change monthly.
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spewak @ 30th Aug 06:17PM:
Re: Because they can...

said by Mactron :

It's your choice with every annual increase. ;)
That is what these yearly increases in all forms of entertainment are about: CHOICE! It is the consumers choice to subscribe to all manner of monthly entertainment, charges and all. Conversely, it is the consumers choice to walk away from those same monthly charges. :huh:
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Dogfather @ 30th Aug 06:20PM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

What makes you think the other providers aren't raising prices? My Cox HSI just got hit with a 7%+ price increase.
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N3OGH @ 30th Aug 07:10PM:
Re: Because they can...

Well, I all ready dropped my DVR and HD digital box. Right now all I have is extended basic, and quite frankly, I'm ready to drop it.

The cost of cable a month could buy me enough gas to, I don't know. Mow the grass?

Everything seems to go up but my pay....
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Cabal @ 30th Aug 07:46PM:
Re: Corporate Greed and Discrimination = Comcast

Corporations exist to make money. If it didn't, it would be a not-for-profit. And it would still need to pay for increasing costs and the faltering dollar.
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NOCMan @ 30th Aug 07:48PM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

They operate trucks, own datacenters, and many other things that require energy. In case you have not noticed energy prices are about 50% higher than last year.

Feel lucky that's all they're trying to raise it by.

Wait until the hurricane hits LA/TX. You have not seen gas prices jump yet.
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kinabrew @ 30th Aug 07:52PM:
Re: Corporate Greed and Discrimination = Comcast

...it hardly seems fair to pick on those that only want video.


It exactly as fair as charging $15 more per month to customers who only want internet service.
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anon @ 30th Aug 08:43PM:
Time for an Antenna

Try it, if you can get a signal you have a better picture. If you don't have a good line of sight then you are stuck with cable, satellite or heaven forbid, not watching the boob tube.

I have Comcast internet only and get calls about twice a month wanting me to bundle. I politely tell them no, Comcast has too many micro outages in my area. I have been looking for software that would monitor and report uptime so I could ask for a rate reduction but so far I have not been able to find anything. Any ideas?
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mikepd @ 30th Aug 08:55PM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

said by needforspeed59 :

said by Smith6612 :

It's one of the reasons why I've had satellite for seven years now, and a few of my relatives for 10+ years now.
You are joking right? Satellite has raised its rates every year for the last 6-7 years in a row.
You're the one who has the facts wrong. Maybe in your area sat costs are going up every year (I seriously doubt it though) but here in Florida where we have been Dish subscribers since 1997, our costs have been the same since the last price hike last year. As a matter of fact, they have dropped slightly by a few dollars as Dish changed its price structure for the HD packages and we lease our 722 DVR rather than buy it outright. That combined with every time we had a major thunder storm, Brighthouse needed to do a truck roll to fix the problem and with Dish we only have to wait until the weather passes, makes sat a much better choice for us. It rarely goes out for us except in very bad weather and the PQ is better than cable but that was before Brighthouse did the fiber upgrade so I assume they are on a par by now.
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funchords @ 30th Aug 09:03PM:
Seems reasonable to me.

1. Inflation is about 5.5% a year right now, and Comcast's last increase in that area will have been 11 months ago.

2. There is a certain economy of scale in bundled services or larger packages of the same service.

3. I see more Comcast vehicles rolling than I do police cars -- gasoline costs certainly have to have a large operational impact.

On the other hand

4. While producing content is a labor-heavy job, I'm not sure Comcast's content producers (the networks) are doing a very good job. I'm seeing less local content, less independent voices, and more commercials and infomercials. I'd like to see Comcast raise the bar on the industry and refuse to carry local affiliates that don't carry a certain level of local programming.
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HiDesert @ 30th Aug 10:10PM:
Re: Seems reasonable to me.

said by funchords :

I'd like to see Comcast raise the bar on the industry and refuse to carry local affiliates that don't carry a certain level of local programming.
I like to see regulation making it illegal for content providers to bundle crap channels when it comes to carriage negotiations.. hint.. Disney. This is why we pay more then fair carriage for many crappy channels and why everyone is forced to carry the mega expensive sports channels that only a minority watch.. Its also why channels do not have to make it on their own based on viewership or merit. Carriage extortion through channel bundling by the evil providers like Disney is the number one issue here.
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fonzbear2000 @ 30th Aug 10:38PM:
More wonderful greed!

They keep raising prices on video. Now, they're going to have the 250GB cap. The less people download, the less it costs Comcast. I'm VERY surprised they've never increased the price of internet.
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dvd536 @ 30th Aug 10:48PM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

said by Rob :

said by cypherstream :

How about the gas that fuels all of the Comcast trucks and vans? How about the rising energy costs that increase Comcast's cost to power the system, Headend, Call Centers, and other Operational centers? How about the rising healthcare and benefits costs that come with running a large company? How about the general costs of goods such as groceries going up, making employees demand better pay rates at evaluations? How about the falling value of the dollar, and how each dollar you spend just doesn't equal what it used to be?

There's much at play here. The Content providers are feeling the same pinch (ESPN/ABC,Fox,Viacom,Time Warner,etc..) so they are in turn charging more to all of their operators. How about Sports venues going up like crazy, hence the appropriate programming costing so much, as well as debates as to why it took Comcast so long to get half decent sports programming (ie, Big Ten), and they still don't even have ESPN-U yet.
Sorry, I don't buy it. If everything you said was true, then every company (AT&T, Verizon, Charter, Cox, etc) would be hiking the prices.

It's not about rising fuel prices. It's about Comcast's yearly schedule to raise rates. It's nothing new. In fact, I'm surprised they raised the rates so late in the year.
We[cox] just got our rate hike.
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jsz0 @ 30th Aug 11:02PM:
Re: More wonderful greed!

In fairness, programmers keep raising prices on them so ultimately that is going to get pasted to the consumer who is making the choice to buy the product or not. For example, charing for both SD & HD feeds of the same channel doesn't make a lot of sense to me but the programmers do it anyway in most cases.
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anon @ 30th Aug 11:27PM:
msg deleted

deleted by a moderator
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anon @ 31st Aug 02:19AM:
And then......

There will be another hike at the begining of the year just like EVERY year.
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anon @ 31st Aug 02:20AM:
That's all B.S.

The whole argument about gas and programming costs are all bs in this case. Yes, they can all easily apply, but what makes it bull is that they are not applying the rate increases across the board to all their customers. They are singling out their video only customer to penalize and coerce into their triple play products.
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fiberguy @ 31st Aug 02:47AM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

said by aciddrink :

The big problem with all this though is the fact that even if the gas prices dropped drastically over night, these rate hikes would stay in place out of greed. You will never see a large corporation like Comcast lower their prices (unless forced to by local competition), they will only find reasons to raise them.
Oh knock it off!

Seriously.. stop with the conspiracy theories. What you are not looking at is the fact that they have not raised rates over the cost of fuel yet.. in other words, they've eaten the costs of the rising fuel costs. Comcast doesn't have a sign on it's building that raises the price of cable and posts it like gas companies do..

Gas was $1.39 about 3 years ago.. it's upwards to almost, in SF, $5.00. Last time I was there, just 5 days ago, there are placed that still sell if for $4.30 per gallon.

Think about it.

.. and if anyone doesn't want to pay the price for cable.. DROP IT! Exercise your right to cancel your service, or purchase less.

Ever flown lately?? Ever seen the rise in cost of a ticket.. and then added on the cost of the extra bag and the cost of the mean and drinks? Educate yourself before you blab on about the rising costs of.. well.. EVERYTHING! .. and wake up. Cable is a luxury.. if it's too high, the gen rid of it, or get a second job if you want to keep it that bad.
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fiberguy @ 31st Aug 02:51AM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

said by NOCMan :

Wait until the hurricane hits LA/TX. You have not seen gas prices jump yet.
Even Katrina when it hit didn't disrupt actually damage the rigs.. it wont' spike that bad.. not around the elections.
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fiberguy @ 31st Aug 02:55AM:
Re: Corporate Greed and Discrimination = Comcast

said by Why oh why :

Why not do it across the board to all of their customers at a lesser percentage, they will get more dollars, and it hardly seems fair to pick on those that only want video. This reeks of corporate greed, and the backlash from this will be heard.
You know nothing of why then. Its all about raising your average monthly bill. Those that take a single product are not spending as much with the company. If more people were spending more, it raises revenue.

There are ways to make money.. volume, or quality.. you can cut the rate, gain volume and have smaller tickets.. or, you can have less customers spending a higher rate.
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siouxmoux @ 31st Aug 03:08AM:
ATT Responce The Bay Area Gets THDVR And no Price Increase!!

Wow Once Again Comcast, is Early this year for its annual Price Hikes. Normally Comcast Price Hikes season starts in November. But the last couple of year Comcast have been kicking off its Price Hikes Season Earlier and Earlier. To be Completely Honest. This annual Comcast Price Hikes Celebration is becoming to commercial for me

BTW ATT Response to Comcast. The Bay Area Gets THDVR And NO Price Increase!! :D :D
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ChrisXP @ 31st Aug 04:20AM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

said by aciddrink :

You will never see a large corporation like Comcast lower their prices (unless forced to by local competition), they will only find reasons to raise them.
Yep. Once raised, it's raised for good. With the same problems never resolved, too.
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KrK @ 31st Aug 04:24AM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

I want to know how employees can raise their labor rates charged to companies they work for.

You always see companies saying "Due to the rising cost of ________ we must increase the price of ______ by $xx.xx..." etc etc

Imagine how this would work, you arrive to work one monday and go to the Boss/Payroll and say "Due to increasing costs of food, utilities, etc etc, effective immediately you're paying me 15% more...."

Yeah, wonder how that would work out.
--
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ropeguru @ 31st Aug 08:28AM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

said by RobSorry, I don't buy it. If everything you said was true, then every company (AT&T, Verizon, Charter, Cox, etc) would be hiking the prices.

It's not about rising fuel prices. It's about Comcast's yearly schedule to raise rates. It's nothing new. In fact, I'm surprised they raised the rates so late in the year.
[/BQUOTE

YEah... I guess that the rising cost of fuel only effects those that don't bundle. Seems logical to me. [/sarcasm :


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MrMoody @ 31st Aug 09:27AM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

said by KrK :

I want to know how employees can raise their labor rates charged to companies they work for.
You have to have an effective monopoly for it to work, like being irreplaceable or being a union.
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tc1uscg @ 31st Aug 09:30AM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

said by Chiyo :

ok what? next they'll blame the hurricanes what gas prices does the satellite dishes that beam down the content from the providers run on 90 octane?

Why just say "because we feel like gouging you more?" seriously get dish much cheaper.

we expect continued increases in programming, particularly in sports ... More reason to watch your locals ;)
Hey, don't blame them (CC). Congress (you know, those morons you and I vote into office) allows this kind of crap to go on so if they (CC) can take advantage of it, why not? :D
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CableTool @ 31st Aug 11:45AM:
Re: That's all B.S.

The price of broadband or VoIP didnt increase. The cost of video did. And does. And always will.
That is why you do not see their internet cost rise ever.

If the cost of broadband went up would you be happy as a basic only customer subsidizing that cost? Or would you be offended that you are fraying the cost of a product you will never use?

You cant have it both ways. Shit costs.
--
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anon @ 31st Aug 11:46AM:
Gas prices

I can see that running fleets of Comcast service trucks all around the country is becoming more expensive. It affects plumbers, electricians, painters, lawncare takers, and anyone else who runs trucks...

My complaint is they hike rates so often.
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dr3yec @ 31st Aug 12:47PM:
Re: Gas prices

Thats why nothing beats free tv. Hell with paying for commercials. People will pay for anything these days. Not this boy. Just my 2 cents :)
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Titus Pullo @ 31st Aug 12:56PM:
Thy coax and thy golden-goo comfort thee

Comcast is hitting basic cable subs because they're the folks with nothing more to lose. However, they carefully pick their areas of buggery. The price points are to make people give it up or go up to digital service for a few bucks more. It's no coincidence that business marketing looks a lot like negative political advertisement; marketing is marketing, and MBAs are something not in short supply.

I'm sure they'll run negative SatTV ads in those markets. At least they won't suffer the "golden goo" and the "Slowsky" family of f'n turtles we do where DSL is taking on people dropping Comcast's HSI

When Comcast hits across the board they watch the digi-boxes pile up in the corner along with modems. Comcast knows damn well that the total loss of subs (scant in areas like SF) will be offset by people who pony up a few bucks for digital service in more affluent areas because people don't like to change to a completely new medium, and since there is no cable competition ...

I pay right at $60 for basic analog cable (no box). I'm at the price point where SatTV could wipe Comcast out if they'd quit with the deceptive introductory deals and just give me a damn price -- locked in or not -- without reams of small print. They're just as greedy, so it's a 'pick your poison' proposition. Sound familiar? The lesser of two evils is still evil.

I'd wager that Comcast's rate structure at this point is as much about mitigating churn as it is gas prices.
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fiberguy @ 31st Aug 01:01PM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

It's called "a good union"... ;)
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Morac @ 31st Aug 01:51PM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

Hey Comcast, here's a free tip on how to save gas. Don't roll a truck for every single possible problem!

Rolling a truck, when the problem is in your head-end and could have been seen if someone bothered to watch problem channels there is idiotic. Comcast could probably reduce their truck rolls by at least 20% if they didn't tout that as the solution to everything.

And if you do need to roll a truck, give customers a way to check on the status of a problem without having to call up Comcast and roll a 2nd (or 3rd or 4th) truck.
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aciddrink @ 31st Aug 04:04PM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

said by battleop :

When gas prices drop are you giving your employer money back?
Very good point. If our salaries are raised due to gas prices, even if prices drop we will most likely not have or salaries lowered again. Not many people would be happy with a salary drop. This goes along the same logic I suppose.
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Lyserjic @ 31st Aug 06:06PM:
Re: Time for an Antenna

said by No to ESPN :

Try it, if you can get a signal you have a better picture. If you don't have a good line of sight then you are stuck with cable, satellite or heaven forbid, not watching the boob tube.

I have Comcast internet only and get calls about twice a month wanting me to bundle. I politely tell them no, Comcast has too many micro outages in my area. I have been looking for software that would monitor and report uptime so I could ask for a rate reduction but so far I have not been able to find anything. Any ideas?
I recently dumped the video portion of my Comcast account. In October, 2005, my "digital basic" and internet package came to about $90/mo.

The last bill I received topped $135/mo. Thats with no movies, standard tier internet. $80 of that was TV. I could no longer justify that much money a month for something we barely use.

Picked up a Samsung DTB-H260F digital tuner for my 3 year old "HD ready" TV. Built a homebrew UHF antenna and mounted it in the attic. Total cost $150 for the Samsung box. $6 for the wire to build the antenna.

Quality of the OTA DTV signals? Absolutely stunning! I was beginning to think my TV was going because the picture was so bad, I now realize it was the cable/or cable box. I've got access to all the big networks, plus a few indies in my area. Everything else we used to watch that isn't on a network I can watch for free online.

For anyone with an older "HD ready" TV who wants HD OTA locals, I highly recommend the Samsung tuner.

-L


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supergirl @ 31st Aug 08:59PM:
Re: Seriously Gas Prices?

said by Dogfather :

What makes you think the other providers aren't raising prices? My Cox HSI just got hit with a 7%+ price increase.
We got a rate hike along with lots of reps lying to sell it. Cox is quickly becoming just a big a bunch of lying SOBs that AT&T was when I had them.

They charge $7 for a digital box and like $14 a month for the DVR+ a programming fee. Digital cable with HBO/Cinemax is like $81.90. ARE THEY F@#$ING CRAZY?

They jacked prices by $30 from $131.00 to $161.OO on me.
--
Saving the world keeps me busy. However, I find Earth very primitive from my home planet of Krypton.
-Supergirl
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MySay @ 1st Sep 06:48PM:
2 things are guaranteed in life...

Death and taxes, you say? Alright... 4 things are guaranteed in life, at least if you're a cable subscriber! Besides the other two I just listed, there will always be increase in premiums AT LEAST once a year, and included with that is an increase in the amount of time you'll spend having to be interrupted w/ commercials!

No thanks, I'll stick to my Blockbuster subscription and purchase pre-viewed DVDs when I can (copying them to a fresh new DVD and putting the scratched original somewhere where it won't get much worse). Create a digital archive of your movies on a Windows Media (or other platform) and give commercial-loaded crap subscriptions a boot!
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PittsPgh @ 3rd Sep 12:10AM:
Other increases

Might want to check and see if Showtime and/or Starz got increased also. I was getting them at discount price for along time, till this bill. 10.95 minus 7.79. Now i is the full 17.95, big jump in the bill i noticed.
I see they slipped that Sport entertainment package on me again. I'll Have to go back and see when they added(Slammed) that on. They did that once before and I had them take that Sports package off.

Paul
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