US Cable Support → Bright House Networks > If you could add a product, feature or make a change...

Re: If you could add a product, feature or make a change...

That feature is currently available....but only on certain channels.... On those channels with the ENHANCED Feature, If you press SELECT and that channel is also in HD....Or SD...it will display...you can Highlite it and press Select. Having written that, I would also prefer it just show on the Guide.....less steps to manage.

^ thats not the same as he is talking about with the satellite

Im not sure why they dont do it, I cant see a reason as far as space or ability goes. Verizons is the same way ours is, I dont really get it but I doubt there going to change it at this point. People get pissed enough when you change one little thing.

Sorry I can't answer that one Gigahurtz....sorry. I'll try to see if there is an answer to it however. Might take a day or two.

Improvements:

1. Stop the copy protection nonsense. I pay for your service, let me record shows in full HD reliably on any device I want. I can get around your restrictions now with some annoyances and hacks. All your content is easily available online now, you aren't stopping anything and you never will. If you keep making things difficult I'm just going to drop cable in favor of downloads. I realize this is not *all* Brighthouse's fault, but you are a major player and have some say.
2. A la carte options for TV channels
2. Better peering.
3. Improved upload speeds, actual last mile fiber at reasonable prices
4. Better communication with customers. TV lineup, network maintenance, etc are all done with little or no customer notice.
5. A support line that not down 100% of the time when there is an issue in the area.
6. Customer owned equipment options

What Brighthouse does well an should continue to keep doing:

1. No caps or messing with my traffic
2. Decent number of HD channels

The change I'd love to make is more granular packages. Not a la carte (as I understand why true a la carte would probably be bad), but break the channels up into a few groups that make sense so that people that have no interest in a particular type of programming can skip it.

For example:

Local (self-explanatory
News (with CNN, MSNBC, FOX News, CSPAN, etc...)
Entertainment (with AMC, BBCA, E!, Style, etc...)
Science/History/Documentary (with Discover, TLC, Natgeo, Animal Planet, etc...)
Sports (with sub-packages: Basic, Sports Pass, NBA League Pass, etc...)
Premium (with sub-packages: HD Extra, HBO, MAX, SHO, TMC, Starz, etc...)

Probably not feasible even as "CEO for a day" with current carriage agreements, but that's what I'd like to see the industry go to as a compromise between a la carte and the current model.

That would be nice. Im pretty sure its not the cable companies thats so against this, more the content providers that wont allow it.

Keep the channels that you don't get from showing up in the guide! Nothing more frustrating that finding a show you might want to watch, pressing select, and finding that "You are not authorized for this service" or some similar verbiage.

ispgeek...the same can be said for the ESPN channels. These channels would never be offered to cable companies unless they were within a standard cable package. Well why does BHN and every other cable and sat company force all those people that don't care about sports to pay for it. I just don't see how its okay for espn but its not okay for say NFL Network. I do understand that ESPN is more popular than NFL Network but the same logic applies.

Companies use these types of excuses and get away with it because most consumers don't see the connection between other channels such as the NFL and ESPN.

So I say if your going to force ESPN down my throat why do they sit on their high horse and say they are standing up for us by refusing to add the channel because the NFL is unwilling to allow it on a digital sports tier so that only customers who want it pay for it.

This isn't just a BHN matter though as all the TV companies use these types of tactics all the time. If ESPN had varied content that would appeal in some respect to everyone and had very high quality content I would say differently. However your either a sports fan or your not and if your not why should BHN and everyone else force these customers to pay for channels that have nothing of value for them. To add insult to injury these are also the most expensive suite of channels on standard cable.

Edit...Also note this is coming from a very die hard sports fan that likes watching the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB. This makes ESPN, MLB Network, NHL Network, NBA TV, and NFL Network channels that are of extremely high value in my home. I'd like to hear what you and others opinions of this are because it sure is a topic that can have very passionate viewpoints no doubt. By the way ispgeek this was a really good idea for a topic and it seems so far to have some really good idea's and viewpoints. Gotta give ya kudos for this thread.

Im thinking ESPN gets away with it because if im not mistaken, there contracted with disney channels and espn is all around sports, not just football. Im guessing the cable companies feel its worth whatever dollar amount to have an all around sports channel vs ONLY nfl.

Somewhat trivial.. but I'd like to see a DVR playlist (queue). in other words, the ability to select several recordings to play in order without further prompting.

To jump away from the TV side of BHN... I would like to see the capability to block phone #'s. Preferably via the Easy Gadget would be nice, but even if I have to log in to the website and do it.

^^ I am with you on that one! Thats the reason I dont have home phone service. 99% junk calls coming in all the time.

Would be nice to allow the customer to use their own equipment for the phone service. Then the ISP/provider could off-load voice mail, call blocking, caller id blocking, and other tasks onto the end user equipment.

BHN could recommend what equipment to use, or you could lease the equipment from BHN, or just use a regular MTA if you don't want the option to control everything yourself.

Here is another one that I'm sure many would appreciate: usage meters.

Now that the only TWC/BHN are left uncapped, I'm sure many would love to be able to see exactly how much data they're using each month. That way people would be able to make a decission, quickly, if BHN comes down and says "y0... we h3rd 200GB/month was sexy!"

I think a big reason they dont like customer owned equipment is because its never geared directly for this paticular network. Same crap with deal with on tivo's and other cable card devices.. Issue after issue because its a product not designed to work with our specific system

That's why I said they could recommend a certain device that BHN feels suits their needs best.

Then for that, you have the customer sign a waiver stating that they are using their own equipment, that BHN cannot help them with the said equipment.

Those who would rather use their own equipment I would think would be tech savvy enough to work out their own problems w/o BHN support. Maybe a call in to make sure there are no network issues or to make sure they have the right info.

Simply put - "You want to use your own equipment? Fine. Go ahead. Sign this waiver saying that we will not offer any support except to give you network status and setup data (like IP address, etc etc). If you want full support, you will have to use BHN supplied equipment."
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"F is for Fire that burns down the whole town...
U is for Uranium...... Bombs...
N is for NO SURVIVORS!!!!!" Sheldon Plankton