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Comments on news posted 2013-02-20 12:25:39: Here in the States the start of the new year has seen an absolute flood of rate hikes for TV and Internet services from the likes of AT&T U-Verse, Comcast, and Charter Communications. ..

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rit56
join:2000-12-01
New York, NY

rit56

Member

Rate Hikes

Does anyone here think it will ever get to the point where people truly leave in large numbers? Second question will regulation return?

Morfein
Lead Peon
Premium Member
join:2004-09-08
Brownsburg, IN

Morfein

Premium Member

Good question.

If the middle class continues to see stagnant wages while everything around us increases... I would think they would start losing customers.. maybe at a trickle.. but instead of any gains quarter after quarter nothing but loses.

I also question this when it comes to healthcare. Every year for many years I have been getting around 15% premium increases.. as well as less for my money.. higher deductibles and such. How can that keep going? As it sits now I pay about 10% of my income just on premiums... never mind the $4,000 individual deductible and $6k family.

Oh well.. not like I can do anything about it.

Back to the topic of Time Warner.. I have no other option when it comes to internet. AT&T doesn't service my house even for telephone, so they say.
brianiscool
join:2000-08-16
Tampa, FL

brianiscool

Member

$20

Did you know a $20 item back in 1920's is now worth $220.

Morfein
Lead Peon
Premium Member
join:2004-09-08
Brownsburg, IN

Morfein

Premium Member

I don't think you factored in depreciation....
travisdh1
join:2007-10-20
Wooster, OH

travisdh1

Member

Dropped basic tv service.

I'm not sure which big-name cable provider the local outfit is associated with, but they bumped up their rates as well. We dropped the tv service like a hot potato, sadly they've got the next best thing to a monopoly on internet access in the area. (We get speeds up to 10mbps on DOCIS3, aren't we lucky?)

dcurrey
Premium Member
join:2004-06-29
Mason, OH

dcurrey to rit56

Premium Member

to rit56

Re: Rate Hikes

Ok just got my 2-15-13 to 3-14-13 bill.

Seems they raised my HD dvr from $10.95 to $12.99 of course this bumped my franchase fee another $0.10,

So do I get to look for larger bill in March or does this one reflect the changes?

BTW they actually are charging people for the remote. WTF.
openbox9
Premium Member
join:2004-01-26
71144

openbox9 to Morfein

Premium Member

to Morfein

Re: $20

Not applicable when you're discussing inflation and the value of the dollar.

AnonPerson
join:2000-08-26
Lexington, KY

AnonPerson

Member

Mail spam

This price hike is really going to make me jump on all those spam offers that are constantly filling my mailbox trying to get me to sign up to TV package instead of only paying them for internet.

(This post was sarcastic, I'm not really going to sign up for TV)

cyberxxix
@vpnreactor.com

cyberxxix

Anon

a remote charge WTH

50 a month and the remote cost about 5 bucks people will find ways to cut back. don't companys think about that NO they don't.
they will lose customers and customers will cut back so they lose
elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA

elray

Member

Not competitive?

Nonsense.

Most households have a choice of 3 or 4 pay-tv options.

Its the content.
whoyourdaddy
join:2013-02-20
Honey Brook, PA

whoyourdaddy to cyberxxix

Member

to cyberxxix

Re: a remote charge WTH

seems like company's are charging for every thing now days soon the will start charging .50 cents a month for the cable wire ill bet u on that.

djrobx
Premium Member
join:2000-05-31
Reno, NV

djrobx to rit56

Premium Member

to rit56

Re: Rate Hikes

said by rit56:

Does anyone here think it will ever get to the point where people truly leave in large numbers? Second question will regulation return?

Non-sports fans might cut the cord. If you've ever used Netflix streaming on a big screen, it's quite good. Stuff is just a season or two behind. Once you use it, it's VERY clear why the networks hate it, and why all the Video-service-slash-ISPs are seeking data transfer caps to limit it. It's a ton of commercial free entertainment for a very low monthly fee.

That will still leave a hefty percentage of customers that will keep subscribing because they "just have to" be able to watch those games in real time. There are a lot of sports fans out there and I doubt the 300lb gorillas involved with that programming are going to risk disturbing their cash cow.

There's also some perspective to consider too. Even $150-ish for a month of entertainment is relatively cheap compared to going out to the movies, out to dinner, a music concert, or drinks in a bar. Competition is really the only thing keeping prices down.
djrobx

1 recommendation

djrobx to cyberxxix

Premium Member

to cyberxxix

Re: a remote charge WTH

Cable companies have been charging for remotes for a long time.

My favorite is that if you decide NOT to accept the remote charge because you want to use your own universal remote, some cable companies will actually disable the IR receiver!

cut costs
@sigecom.net

cut costs

Anon

goodbye TW-Insight

Wow salesman came to the door and offerfed us HSI 15/1 for $14 less per month than TW for the first year. Sold. Bandwidth and quality are actually better than Insight. Just netflix and OTA for us.

Anonymou5e
@rr.com

Anonymou5e

Anon

It's Sports and greedy broadcasters

ESPN, FOX, CBS, etc. are a large part of this. Professional teams keep jacking up salaries, and those costs are recouped via television rights, and guess who pays for that? You the customer pays for it.

Each time you see a Flacco or a Tebow, or a LeBron get these mega-deals those costs are being shifted to the fans ultimately. Sure some is made up in increased ad revenues but a large part of it comes from television rights.

Outside of sports, all of the broadcasters are feeling pinched, they know they are losing subscribers to services such as Hulu and Netflix and thus they are trying to milk out as much as they can. Just look at the hissy fit Viacom had about TWC offering alternative viewing methods (aka iPad) that they didn't get to monetize.
Kearnstd
Space Elf
Premium Member
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ

Kearnstd to rit56

Premium Member

to rit56

Re: Rate Hikes

Why does CATV and Sat go up so fast?

Simple, The content owners keep wanting more and more money. This is driven in part because some stars keep wanting more and more money(500k per episode is not enough for some, Why they cannot do their job for 200k a year I dunno. They do less work than a Plumber.) But since as a society we keep feeding the machine, it would be dumb of the stars and content companies not to try for more money. I am pretty sure the plumber would ask for more too, But his profession has actual competition.
15444104 (banned)
join:2012-06-11

15444104 (banned) to elray

Member

to elray

Re: Not competitive?

said by elray:

Nonsense.

Most households have a choice of 3 or 4 pay-tv options.

Perhaps they do in SoCal but not most of the rest of the country.

I agree Charter was basically going to raise my internet price by 50% in one bill, and I don't even use that much bandwidth....If they don't have other options soon I will be leaving them and getting basic ATT DSL at 30$/mo. I will NOT pay for speeds I won't use and don't want.

Morfein
Lead Peon
Premium Member
join:2004-09-08
Brownsburg, IN

Morfein to openbox9

Premium Member

to openbox9

Re: $20

Because he said "item".... is why I made my little joke. /shrug

motoracer
join:2003-09-15
united state

1 recommendation

motoracer

Member

Already Expensive

TWC is already ridiculously expensive. Everybody that I know has terrible things to say about TWC TV anyway.

Thanks, but no thanks TWC.
openbox9
Premium Member
join:2004-01-26
71144

openbox9 to Morfein

Premium Member

to Morfein

Re: $20

Sorry, missed the sarcasm tag. Not all items depreciate in value anyway

banditws6
Shrinking Time and Distance
Premium Member
join:2001-08-18
Frisco, TX

banditws6

Premium Member

Typical ESPN

As someone who isn't that interested in sports, the primarily ESPN-driven seasonal rate hikes were really annoying to me. Like others here have stated, non-sports fans are typically among the first to cut the cord and that's exactly what I did over two years ago: went with an OTA/Netflix solution. But content producers and publishers -- particularly those in the sports business -- know that fans need their fix. They aren't afraid to ask for more money from transmitters like TWC and the other cable cos. This is not likely to change anytime soon.
TBBroadband
join:2012-10-26
Fremont, OH

TBBroadband to cut costs

Member

to cut costs

Re: goodbye TW-Insight

You may want to read the recent outages and problems with WOW.
Kearnstd
Space Elf
Premium Member
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ

Kearnstd to openbox9

Premium Member

to openbox9

Re: $20

also the fact that CATV services and content prices are accelerating faster than inflation would cause them to on their own.
TBBroadband
join:2012-10-26
Fremont, OH

TBBroadband

Member

Programing costs

If it was truly programming costs, then why aren't companies like TWC locking in their contracts with Disney-ABC or CBS with longer terms at current rates???? Smaller companies can go much longer before increasing rates but yet these large companies just can't do it. Why? Maybe because others are more greedy and are up front???
elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA

elray to 15444104

Member

to 15444104

Re: Not competitive?

said by 15444104:

said by elray:

Nonsense.

Most households have a choice of 3 or 4 pay-tv options.

Perhaps they do in SoCal but not most of the rest of the country.

Where is it in this country, that a Time Warner Cable customer not have access to the two major satellite vendors, and possibly, TelcoTV?

Swindle
Shattered Dreams
join:2006-07-24
Tampa, FL

Swindle

Member

I'm wishing TW has the guts to put ESPN in a special Sports Tier.

IowaCowboy
Lost in the Supermarket
Premium Member
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA

IowaCowboy

Premium Member

Poor Grandma

My grandma spends most of her time in bed and she lives on a fixed income.

TV is her only fun in life. I put a nice Samsung 26" HDTV next to her bed, complete with DVR.
Body Count
join:2010-09-11
Columbus, OH
Netgear CM1000
Ubiquiti EdgeRouter ER-4
Ubiquiti U6-Pro

Body Count to TBBroadband

Member

to TBBroadband

Re: goodbye TW-Insight

said by TBBroadband:

You may want to read the recent outages and problems with WOW.

While it is true that WOW had a few outages, they seem to have got their crap together and fixed the major part of it because it's not happening anymore.

mikedz4
join:2003-04-14
Weirton, WV

mikedz4 to elray

Member

to elray

Re: Not competitive?

If you rent the apartment or house you can't just put up a satellite dish or even outside antenna without permission and sometimes paying a deposit to put the dish or antenna up.

Selenia
Gentoo Convert
Premium Member
join:2006-09-22
Fort Smith, AR

Selenia to whoyourdaddy

Premium Member

to whoyourdaddy

Re: a remote charge WTH

said by whoyourdaddy:

seems like company's are charging for every thing now days soon the will start charging .50 cents a month for the cable wire ill bet u on that.

Shhhh don't give them and their investors any ideas :S
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