Regional Talk > Extended Pacific Northwest > AT&T Cable TV Trouble

AT&T Cable TV Trouble

They went digital, which means the premium channels are no longer assessible on the analog systems

That's too bad, digital cable is really bad. Anyone who channel surfs and comes from normal cable outstrips the speed at which the cable can display new channels, so you have to slow down to about 3 seconds per channel. And the built in guide was waaaay too slow for me.
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please let my at&t broadband work right today!

spyder, what do you suggest digital or a dish? Just curious because I have basic cable now and was wondering what the options are and what you all like best.

But I do agree with the digital it does seem slower especially when I like flip through the channels.

I've never had a dish personally. The only reason we had digital at my house in the first place was because they talked us into it but we stopped using it pretty quickly. Now we're back to expanded basic cable.
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please let my at&t broadband work right today!

reply to roxy4
I have just purchased DirecTV in the last two months. I must say, I am absolutely in love with the service. My bills are exactly the same price as basic/analog cable, yet I get every channel I wanted plus a few more!

I went to Northgate, bought a two room package at Best Buy for $100 with free professional installation and then a $70 rebate. I am also a Tivo subscriber, and it integrated wonderfully. I will never use cable again.

Honestly, I can not tell you how happy I am to have AT&T out of my life completely (no AT&T phones, cable, wireless!) Plus, right now, if you sign up with DirecTV, you get the chance to purchase the Sunday Ticket NFL package at $50 month. If you buy that, you get ALL their channels (minus porn, of course) for four months for free!!!

HBO, STarz, Showtime, Cinemax, sports pack, everything for $50/month for four months. After that, just reduce your plan back to the standard with locals and you pay only $41/month (and I still get more channels than AT&T provided me.)

If you make the jump, consider other sources besides Best Buy and get a Tivo tuner included for just a little more. You will never understand what a great piece of electronics that is until you buy one.

Good luck,
Pixel
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Up here in Seattle, we like the rain; it gives an excuse to get online and frag!

One thing to mention I think is that dish tv only works on a set with a tuner, whereas on all tv's in your house you will at least get regular analog if you go with digital cable. At my parents house this was a concern as there were 3 rooms that people tended to watch the most TV, but they did some viewing in another couple of rooms. A dish would not be a good choice for them.
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please let my at&t broadband work right today!

Well, there is some merit to the additional room problem. However, if you purchase correctly, you can get multiple room setups on a huge discount. I have seen 4 room setups for as little as $100 installed. And, just like digital cable, you pay the $5 per extra receiver. The quality and choice, however, surpasses any cable that I have ever had.

This is, however, the very same reason that my father will not go to satellite TV...he has five TVs in his house. (not sure why...) But, since I live in Seattle in an apartment, it works great for me because I only HAVE two tvs.

Great point, however.

Pixel
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Up here in Seattle, we like the rain; it gives an excuse to get online and frag!

reply to Hambaggers
Seattle and Satellite TV are an interesting combination to me. I just moved here from San Diego, and I signed up for the free moving special from Direct TV: You leave your dish at your old house, and they come out to your new house and install a new dish free. All you have to pay are the taxes on the cost of the installation. I wasn't around when they came out, but my wife said the tech spent an hour wandering around our lot. We couldn't get a shot at the satellite from anywhere because of the (big) trees in our back yard. DirecTV is pretty sticky about getting people to follow their one year contract, but after this, they had to let me out of it, which was surprising.

I switched to AT&T Broadband, and I'm enjoying it, only on account of the one single lonely CBC channel they carry from BC. We have digital service, but I haven't noticed any problems with it yet. In fact we are completely dependent on AT&T Broadband for Cable TV, Internet, and Telephone. I felt better when the installer told me that the Sammamish plateau was the site of a testbed installation for Internet and Telephone for AT&T.
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Larry Gadallah, VE6VQ gadallahl@yahoo.com Key fingerprint = D679 5D9D 4127 7403 68FD D7F3 8668 EBA5

reply to Hambaggers

AT&T CABLE TV OPTIONS

reply to Hambaggers

Re: AT&T Cable TV Trouble

said by Meister_:

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I would get direct tv but there is three tvs in the house and i dont wanna have to pay extra for each receiver.

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said by PixelFreak:

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said by Meister_:

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I would get direct tv but there is three tvs in the house and i dont wanna have to pay extra for each receiver.

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I would look at your bill again...if you are on digital cable, you already pay $5 per extra receiver ($10 a month if you have three total.) DirecTV charges the exact same amount per additional receiver, you have twice as many channels for the same price, and the Tivo combination you can purchase is insanely affordable (and a device I can't live without!)

Pixel

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Roger. That makes sense, loud and clear.

Analog cable to other TVs = no charge.

Remember, however, that the FCC has mandated that by 2005 (yeah, still a ways away), all cable transmissions must become digital (no more analog) to save on the bandwidth alloted to cable TV. Once that occurs, simply splitting the cable without a digital decoder (hopefully - by then they are small and affordable) will no longer work to remote TVs.

As for me, I am (so far) a DTV devotee!

Pixel
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Up here in Seattle, we like the rain; it gives an excuse to get online and frag!

reply to Hambaggers
damn, i didn't know that. heh.

reply to PixelFreak
The cable companies can transmit digital signals from their head ends (tower/dish site) without a box in your house - when the new law takes effect it will be the consumers responsibility to have digital ready tv's in their homes and the box issue will no longer be a problem - they will however keep the boxes to control the premium and PPV (pay-per-view) events available because they are big money makers. In reference to the Sat vs Dish question - they are the same thing - the only difference is with digital cable the dish is at the headend and they have technicians to service them - with the Dish or Directv the dish is on your house and YOU are the service technician - in some cases the retailer where you bought your dish will promise service - but read the small print they charge on average $80.00 for a service call and they come at their leisure. Also with the dishes you must have a credit card and they will charge you for the first year even if you dont like the service and disconnect with them you still have to pay. On a good note the TIVO is a cool product.....

Scare tactics aside, I have had nothing but good luck with satellite, at a much lower price point than cable could EVER give me. The even better part? I get clearer, completely digital channels (even locals!) without the typical ghosting that occurs on the Seattle local channels.

Seattle's local channels ghost in most locations around King County because of the strong transmission towers in the region and the cable signal "bleeding" over each other, creating a small time shift in the signal (over the air travels at differing speeds than through the cable).

Also, even if you have "digital" cable through AT&T, your local channels are still broadcast to your house, through the cable in ANALOG. The upper tier channels may be completely digital - but any channel that you can split to another TV without a digital box from AT&T is in analog form (otherwise, how would your basic TV decode it?)

As for the scare tactics with billing, etc., don't forget that folks who work for the cable company often "troll" groups in an effort to boost support for their product - especially since they now consider themselves "broadband" providers (your mileage may vary - see KiroTV 7's story about the service issues from the cable giant).

If you want to continue to drop money in a huge, apathetic hole for cable and suffer less choice and inferior quality, feel free - it's your choice. Dumping money into a continuously underserved and non-competitive market (cable) is one way to "avoid" service contracts - but you as the consumer pay the price through late or unreachable service techs and lower quality transmissions at higher monthly rates.

Think about it though - isn't that even worse that having a service contract? I think so...

Pixel

REMEMBER: These are simply opinions.
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Up here in Seattle, we like the rain; it gives an excuse to get online and frag!

Hello all.

I would like to get the NFL Sunday ticket so I don't end up blowing $30 bucks at a Sports bar every sunday. However, I live in an apartment building with strict construction/modification rules, so I can't install digital satellite TV.

Does anyone know which digital cable company (if any) in the Seattle area will be carrying the NFL Sunday ticket?

Thanks.

NFL sunday Ticket was cornered by Direct TV