Talk of The Villages Florida - What Do You Make Of Cable Companies?

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What Do You Make Of Cable Companies?

I read an Dish Advertisement touting the great savings on various programs. However at the bottom, disclosure in such small print that I needed a magnifying glass came conditions written apparently by a law team.

Most of us on this forum remember a simpler time when we attached an antenna to the roof and watched TV free. We remember the convenience of a public phone booth and writing letters and notes.

Then cable TV came along and promised you that with a minimum purchase you could have several stations and with a premium secure the latest movies.

Advance to today:cus: That's right it seems no matter which company or combination thereof customers choose, price, product, quality ,service continuing to plague customers.

I understand and agree that the advances in communication technology are a natural and desired progression; albeit flawed due to security issues. I am not debating this issue.

What I am interested in discussing are those generic features, options concerns people have regarding all cable companies.

For instance I noticed that the so called "pay premium stations are loaded with movies I have seen a dozen times. I also noticed that the latest releases require a rental of $5.99. So to me this begs the question why am I paying premium for movies that have been around for a long time and not getting the latest releases covered under my premium payments. This is a long way from when cable initial began by promising up the date movies. What I see here is pure greed.

Another sore spot for me is that my cable company is forcing me to watch commercials. I pay for my TV viewing so I can avoid commercials. However greed comes in again because the cable company gets my monthly payments and revenue from TV advertisers.

If you don't like what you have, there are always other options. Is's a free country the last I heard.

Rollie

Hi Rollie: I understand and appreciate your viewpoint but that is not my issue.

Perhaps I wasn't clear and if not I apologize but the point I was attempting to make is that we have gone from free TV to very expensive TV/Internet/Telephone usage and based on an exhaustive recitation of TOTV threads on this subject people seem not to be satisfied with their companies because they keep doing what you suggested switched.

What I am asking is an opinion of what members believe should be contained in a cable package that creates value for their dollar because apparently people are not getting what they expected and perhaps some of this frustration should be channeled to regulators or the heads of these companies or both.

Personal Best Regards:

I plan to investigate all my options gong forward as I think all cable companies are very deceptive in their practices. They start you at a low rate and then after a year, charge prices that are exorbitant.

Someone informed me of a new antenna that will not be in existence very long, as cable companies are working to put them out of business. It figures.

I have purchase a new stereo receiver and if one has wi-fi in their home, they can buy a blue ray player and connect to "netflix", for $8/month. Seems like a cheap alternative for watching movies.

Unfortunately, I grew up being addicted to television as it was the new invention that captivated it's audiences so I like the variety cable companies offer. I remember my first cable bill being $11/mo. What a bargain then.

NOW? ARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!

cable or satellite they seem to all operate similarly. Lowest cost = let's say for example 50 channels, next 125 channels, next 250 channels to which premium movie channels can be added anothe 3,4 6 or 8 channels.

Just how many does a person watch? I will make a generous guess of 10%.

So the payments being made are really expensive on a per channel viewed basis.

I would like to see a basic package that contains the local channels and then an alla carte offerring thereafter. I am not aware how the pricing is structured by the providers today. But I would guess they could be very creative allowing one to make up their own package, no doubt most would have 25-50 select channels (again being generous...nobody, I don't think, watches that or more!?).....and come in price wise substantially less than the mega number of channel marketing of today.

I suspect with the swiftly advancing streaming technologies that all current providers will have to do something. The current loos of customers is of notice to the providers but not sufficient enough numbers...YET....for them to change.

It will happen. In the mean time I think a basic package plus streaming would save anybody a lot of $$$$$ starting tomorrow.

I don't like the fact that I pay for channels I don't watch or rarely watch. So the 250 special as stated actually watch maybe 15 channels. I would prefer to Pay for my channel selection and not the package deals. But, That's why they don't offer pay per channel, They can't jack up prices offering you carp you won't watch. I use to like HBO and showtime but as stated play mostly reruns most of the time now and they have talk shows that spread their political views. Most of the sporting events are now mostly pay per view live so they can scam more money out of you, then they show it as rerun.

I cut our cable TV services back a little at a time over the last 4 years.

We dumped cable TV altogether few months ago. Just as I suspected, we do not miss it one bit! Just like others' comments, we were only watching a handful of shows.

We are using indoor antennas, with a computer as a dvr to record OTA broadcast (no subscription fee for the DVR).

We use netflix (stream + DVD). If we want to purchase more recent broadcasts or movies we can stream from Amazon.

Of course we spent some money on the alternative solution/services to replace cable TV... but it nets out to a fairly good savings compared to our previous expense.

In the end we will not save anything. I intend to redirect those dollars to other entertainment/electronics/computer stuff that we actually use and get benefit.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rollie (Post 941440)

If you don't like what you have, there are always other options. Is's a free country the last I heard.

Rollie

Well...yes and no. And this is what I think is the crux of the problem with these companies. There is almost zero competition at the consumer level. If you have cable, you are generally limited to one cable company. These companies lobby municipalities in order to get the exclusive right to cover a municipality. If you don't like what you have, you do have the right to switch to a satellite dish, but often not another cable company. Here in Lady Lake, we can get Comcast. Verizon and Brighthouse are not available here. I do not want to go to a dish. I have heard too many negatives about them so I'd prefer to stick with cable. If I want cable, I have no other choice.

It would be like you want to buy a four door sedan but you only have the Toyota Camry available in your area. If you want another choice it is a two door pick up truck.

If we had true competition at the consumer level, these companies would have to be more responsive to their customers. I think that the satellite dish companies tend to be better with customer service and pricing because they do have to compete for customers.

Oh thank God I am not alone.

2BNTV that is exactly what I mean

BTK again my concern as the cost vs value issue and shows that these companies are not meeting their customers demands

RCMoser couldn't agree more HBO/Comcast has a liberal agenda which to me is self defeating. For instances they produced Game Changer (circa 2012) for the simple joy of trying to humiliate Sarah Palin. The movie is still on their menu. Why? When it comes to entertainment I want to be entertained I do not want a movie or TV production to send me a political message. I chose venue for that.

Journey of Life: you offer some good options

Dr. Winston : Exactly my reference in my original post was addressing the Dish advertisement on the back page of this morning Parade. The entire ad reeked of deception.

In a final analysis for me the jumping from one company to another is not going to fix the problem they really don't care. Pressure needs to be placed on these companies along with some real competition.

I want TV/Internet? home /cell phone service with one company at a fair price and I want to unbundle or tailor TV station to view to what I actually want to watch. I also want the option to DVR more than two shows at a time and I don't believe I should pay more for the right. I also want to opt out of all commercials at my will.

Consider what you pay annually times 30 million customers and you can see that these cable companies are taking advantage

"Ala carte programming will NEVER happen."
Some of us learned a long time ago yo NEVER say NEVER.

You did not mention fiber optics. You did not mention where the wireless generation of products will take the industry. You made no mention of off air technology and where it could gravitate toward.

I personally do not believe how and what we see on our televisons today will not be delivered in the same fashion in 10 years or less.

The best option everybody has avialable tomorrow to reduce costs is to call the provider and get the lowest priced package that includes the local stations.

Getting differing sports packages is already ala carte.

I want to meet the people who are paying $350 per month to watch television and use the internet!

At our end of the world we have four competitive vendors, COMCAST, CenturyLink, Bright House and Dish. We also have fiber to the house so speeds from the land guys are wonderful.....know nothing about DISH internet speeds. The content providers, as stated, are charging the cable companies who in turn pass it on to us. That's knows as free enterprise......when we were all working (or are working) we wanted to be paid as much as we could get.....that is also free enterprise. It still baffles me that when we want the money coming to us free enterprise is ok, when someone wants our money free enterprise is a bad thing. Anyway, as stated before, you have options including computer/internet entertainment technology.....but like everything else in this world...it is pay as you go, the decision is how much can you stand.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GuardMeSecurity (Post 941696)

Premium channels = Premium programming and no commercials. People don't get premium channels for movies anymore, they get them for original programming.

Ala carte programming will NEVER happen. Content providers buy blocks of channels, some you want, some you don't, but a channel is not purchased on an ala carte basis, the content providers would never allow single channels to be purchased. For instance VIACOM owns MTV, Nickelodeon, teen nick, Comedy Central, etc etc.

What controls your cost is the cost of the content provided. Although cable companies also have whats called an "ogolopoly" which basically means that they all get together and fix prices. No competitors actually compete, they trade customers.

The only difference is technology.

3 types of technology

Cable (RF modulation DOCSIS 3.0 max internet speed of 105Mbps, cheap to run, easy to maintain, maximum profit margins, still uses satellites to receive transmission, just better recievers, DVR's are crap)

Satellite (direct line of site but is unidirectional, meaning the content only flows one way, is prone to outages when LOS is blocked, always requires lengthy contracts, but generally has good DVR technology and picture.)

IPTV (Internet protocol television. Completely digital, utilizes digital binary interpreted by a computer to decode signal, generally very reliable when ran fiber to the home, fiber to the DSLAM presents problems when you consider signal degradation due to cross talk from ADSL2+ and VDSL2 technology. Internet speeds up to 1000Mbps when fiber to the home is used. Has excellent whole home DVR technology, uses wireless boxes, is highly upgradable and scaleable for technologies such as 4K in the future.)

Issues with IPTV are sometimes picture freeze and pixilation, but that is 99.9% of the time due to a badly terminated CAT5 cable.

Area providers

Cable: Comcast.

Satellite: Dish, Direct TV.

IPTV: Centurylink.

They all raise the price after a year, they all require a contract, and they all cost the same in the end. The exception is Direct TV unbundled. If you bundle comcast standalone internet with direct TV your end bill is going to be OUTRAGEOUS. I've seen people paying $350 a month with 30Mbps internet and phone with comcast and then paying standalone for direct TV.

Obviously i know what i'm talking about, i am also very familiar with the villages (i've been working there for over 3 years)

So if you have any questions about any of these services, just PM me.

You direct your comments on the very issues needed to be discussed i this thread and especially pointing out that there is no competition and that the going back and forth by viewers would not solve the problem

My comments concerning commercials was directed at the fact that Comcast offers On Demand. However they have with their TV Show menu disabled fast foward. The result is that you are forced to watch commercials and if you have to stop viewing you are required to begin over again. I pointed this out to Comcast stating that they limit my DVR to two recordings. So my reaction to all of this is that there is not a program I find that important that I need to watch commercials. Actually there is not much good TV viewing.
I also noticed A&E removed its top rated show Longmire because it drew older people

I charge Comcast $10 everytime I get a stupid person, if they balk I make it $15.

They also allow me to rebundle when the bundle runs out.

It works for me.

Boy, Oh Boy, you really hit the nail on the head. At the onset, cable tv was free of ads but not anymore. As far as movies go, yes, indeed, they, for the most part are rehashed over and over again......eg. Sat companies have ads for $19.99, $29.99...by the time you ask about hooking up another tv or two for the bedrooms, the price hovers around $100.....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patty55 (Post 942162)

I charge Comcast $10 everytime I get a stupid person, if they balk I make it $15.

They also allow me to rebundle when the bundle runs out.

It works for me.

So how much do they owe you at the end of the month?:smiley: