wbertramPremium
join:2005-08-19
Allentown, PA | reply to pswiss
Re: [Speed] Increase letter - LeHigh Valley I called re the new charges for the SD converters. was told the "free" converter offer expired after 1 year. |
|
fhaberEnhanced For Lynx
join:1999-11-23
New York, NY | reply to steve1111
RCN is definitely pricier than many others. You just have to decide whether the content is worth it to you. I proritized. I saw the perpetual niggly troubles other Manhattanites had with the other broadband providers, and contrasted that with my RCN broadband pipe: super-solid, near-advertised speed, crisp DNS, quick repair (generally), OK customer service (even the Filipinos), few venal tricks (redirects, etc.).
Even FIOS here is oversold in certain areas.
OTOH, I wasn't watching muct TV, now that it's descended past lowest-common-denominator into the true sub-basement. I was watching less sports. I can rent the movies I want (or buy an occasional PPV). So, from pushing $300, I'm down to $150 + (lots of) taxes. I'm set for now.
I also still have several landlines. They're pretty cheap now, and I love the clarity. |
|
|
|
 rcncaresEmiliePremium,VIP
join:2012-01-04
Gainesville, VA | reply to tigrzeye
The rate adjustment notification did not list out specifics of what service increased. For example, if your letter stated this: The current rate for the RCN services you subscribe to is $74.95 per month excluding taxes and fees. Effective with your next billing statement, the new monthly rate for those services will be $79.95 excluding taxes and fees. Part of that $5 increase is the price of the converter box that you now see listed on the invoice.
As much as we would like to keep our prices exactly the same in all markets (it would make it much easier on our front line agents), our general costs vary across markets and especially across states, which is the reason our prices are higher in one state than they are in another state. I hope that sheds a little light on things. Emilie |
|
rcncaresEmiliePremium,VIP
join:2012-01-04
Gainesville, VA | reply to ESPN
ESPN - If you would like to privately send me the name on your account, I can review it for you. Sometimes I can help adjust things and sometimes I can't. Of course we do not want to lose customers. We truly are working hard to provide an excellent product for a good value. |
|
| reply to tigrzeye
I just got my March bill and see the $20 increase, which got my attention.
After reviewing, I see that one converter is no longer free and there are no other discounts applied.
It's a fine line RCN is walking. They need to increase rates for content, but by doing so they're gonna lose customers.
I, for one, will start seriously looking at the "other" provider as well as satellite.
I think it's totally ridiculous that RCN can't do something for long time subscribers like myself (over 20 years).
It's far harder to gain a new subscriber than it is to keep an existing one....  |
|
| said by mightyhog: FIOS can't come soon enough. We need the competition here, but I'm sure Verizon is no better. They're not after the honeymoon period wears off. But FIOS is not coming. Unless they already have a franchise agreement with your township, they ain't coming. They're no longer negotiating to rollout to new areas.
said by indiggio:It's far harder to gain a new subscriber than it is to keep an existing one.... Unfortunately that doesn't appear to be the case, what with the sweetheart deals offered to new subscribers and the hosing delivered to existing ones |
|
| Here's what I think. One, a big portion of my bill is the rental prices. Which we must rent to be able to receive even the basic channels. I think we as consumers must start putting more pressure on the FCC to get more consumer products available in retail stores that we can purchase on our own. Products that can take advantage of CableCard technology like the FCC had envisioned, but never really backed up. In my house, I have three rentals, and one additional tv that I only get the basic OTA channels on. All but one are HD sets. And the rental cost alone on my bill is $30.00 a month. If I want to add HD to the forth set, there's another $12.00 a month, getting closer to $40.00 a month just in rentals. A CableCard is I think $1.50 to $2.50 a month. Big difference. I want to know why I can't walk into Walmart or Best buy and purchase a reasonably priced cablecard product (like we used to be able to do with VCR's), and then just rent the cablecard. Hell, if I could do that, I might even be more inclined to purchase additional premium channels from RCN with the money I could save on the rentals. Or, here's something, why not have the rental price go down as the length of the rental goes up. I've had the same boxes in my house for several years. And the rental price is going up. Why? How long does it take to pay for the device's initial purchase price? And that's if it was new when delivered. The rental prices are a real issue for me.
It's like going to a restaurant and paying not only for the food, but also having to pay for the utensils to eat it with. |
|
| shaw cable has rent to own and buy up front. |
|
| reply to quattrog
The problem is the Cable Cards are going to be obsolete soon. They are phasing them out. The cable companies are going to Switched Digital Video or IPTV on FIOS that saves bandwidth.
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched_video
The FCC needs to step in and say they need to keep the Cable Cards and provide the necessary tuning adapters. Comcast, FIOS and Time Warner have been deploying this in test markets. Not sure about RCN |
|
| My first HDTV was a Toshiba with Cablecard. It was great. It started to have problems and needed to be replaced. I couldn't get another set with cablecard. I contacted Toshiba and they stated that it was being dropped from their sets due to what they stated was an issue with cable support. (this was back in 2007). They stated that yes, there were initial issues with setting them up and working correctly. But that in most cases, it was an issue that was not the fault of the tv manufacturer. But that the cable companies at the time, didn't want to support it, and would constantly put the tv manufacturer on the hook for any issues with connectivity. Was that true or not? I don't know. But Sharp and Toshiba were early adopters and had them on many sets of many sizes. And from my understanding, they ARE now two way so VOD should no longer be an issue. |
|
| reply to gmogoody
The FCC should step in and mandate that cable co's need to offer tuners for sale to those that want to purchase them outright.
It's monopolistic to have to have customers be required to rent tuners. |
|
| said by indiggio:The FCC should step in and mandate that cable co's need to offer tuners for sale to those that want to purchase them outright.
It's monopolistic to have to have customers be required to rent tuners.
The FCC has already stepped in and mandated that cable companies needed to support any Cable Card tuners that the free market wanted to sell to consumers. It's called separable security. The free market responded by not really making any additional tuner solutions available for sale. Direct your ire at Motorola, Scientific Atlanta, Pace, etc.
The real issue isn't that the rental prices are too high, its that there is no real hardline competition in the Lehigh Valley (except for the subpar Service Electric in *some* places) and there isn't going to be since Verizon has stopped expanding Fios. It's painfully obvious that RCN has made the calculated business decision to to gouge Lehigh Valley residents because the options are limited.
In the other areas where RCN competes (Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, DC and NYC) there are other established hardline competitors, and therefore RCN must price competitively. In the LV, they felt the need to price competitively in the near past because it was apparent Fios was coming. They they couldn't risk poisoning the market opinion of them knowing that in the near future customers would have a choice. That's no longer a concern, and so they no longer worry as much about losing customers to higher pricing.
What's worse is the excuses they try to give are downright insulting, like we're too stupid to see through them: "our general costs vary across markets and especially across states, which is the reason our prices are higher in one state than they are in another state." Like you really expect your customers to believe that cost of living in the LV is higher than those other 5 areas, so you have to pay your employees more? Or your real estate costs and taxes are more for your hubsites, call centers and tech garages here than in those metropolises? Please.
The reality though is that it is what it is. RCN is not a monopoly, because we do have choices. There's SeTV for many, DSL for internet, multiple satellite companies for video. They are free to charge what they like, and those of us for whom those alternates are not available or not viable just have to suck it up. That doesn't make it less disheartening to be charged a 30-40% premium over RCN's other customers simply because there's no other company that cares about the Lehigh Valley. |
|
| Right, so obviously that legislation didn't work, as they can't force companies to make something that's not going to be profitable for them (Motorola, etc.).
So the next step would be to force the cable companies to do something more for subscribers. Cable co's are already forcing subscribers to use their equipment. So to they should be forced to make tuners available for purchase. The same should go for satellite companies. |
|
 owinePremium
join:2002-08-29
Chicago, IL | reply to tigrzeye
Just curious, but you know how much these converter boxes are when sold new, right? Hugely expensive. Even at $20 per month it would take over two years to equal the retail price of a HD DVR. |
|
| What? These tiny little black boxes w/ no HD? Yeah, that's what the cable companies would probably charge to purchase them.
There's nothing in these boxes, probably $20 US to manufacture. |
|
Reviews:
 ·Comcast
| reply to owine
said by owine:Just curious, but you know how much these converter boxes are when sold new, right? Hugely expensive. Even at $20 per month it would take over two years to equal the retail price of a HD DVR.
The STB market is weird. A Tivo costs $250 + $20/month. But you could build dual tuner PC that could beat the pants of off any STB for something like $400.
Cable Cos didn't exactly grease the wheels for cablecard adoption. The rollout was slow, they were expensive (and cost a truck roll to install), and they were poorly supported. BYO boxes w/cable cards are always at a disadvantage to leased boxes because they aren't capable of 2-way communication. Even now, cablecards are almost a secret-handshake option--cablecards aren't really "compatible" with any of the package options, and even when you say you need "additional cable equipment," cablecards aren't listed as an option.
Some of this is because the CableCARD standard handcuffs cable cos and equipment manufacturers. Some of it is the FCC's fault. And a lot of it is the fault of content owners imposing overzealous DRM requirements--they'd encrypt the image between the TV and your eyes if they could. As all sorts of examples have shown, crappy DRM is a really good way to torpedo any shred of consumer interest. |
|
owinePremium
join:2002-08-29
Chicago, IL Reviews:
·RCN CABLE
| TiVo actually costs $99 for the cheapest, but requires you commit to $240 in monthly service charges for a year and another $20 per month beyond that, or $500 for the life of the box. It's similar to a cell phone company that sells you the equipment below cost because they will recoup the cost by locking you into service. Total monthly cost of a TiVo is almost $30.
Now, cable companies lease you the equipment because they are able to buy in bulk (aka discounted rate) and own the equipment. The cost of these boxes is huge, especially the DVR boxes. It's not a $100 cable modem kind of situation. I don't know if the RCN folks are able to shed light on the cost, but from what I know about Motorola boxes, the HD DVRs cost upwards of $500+, not sure about other boxes.
Given the cost of the equipment, I think the monthly equipment fees are reasonable, especially given the great benefit of free replacement of faulty equipment. |
|
Reviews:
·Comcast
| said by owine:Given the cost of the equipment, I think the monthly equipment fees are reasonable, especially given the great benefit of free replacement of faulty equipment.
Agreed, except for cases where the monthly rate increases for the same piece of equipment. At least grandfather the old rate until the customer swaps it out for a new box. It's probably a royal pain to implement in the billing system, but it's almost insulting to see the leasing fee increase when you're using old equipment. |
|
| reply to rcncares
Could you please elaborate on how the "general costs" vary between Philly and the Lehigh Valley. Both are in the same state so the "across states" line doesn't fly. While you claim costs "vary across market" and "especially across states" it appears to me the costs DO NOT vary from market to market and DO NOT vary across state lines. Rather, they are basically the same in every market EXCEPT for the Lehigh Valley. Why is this? |
|
