  en102Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA
1 edit | TWC increases... - TWC service increases by ~$3/month
- Analog channels being removed (see »[TWC] Only 1 channel in L.A. moved to digital ?)
- Set top boxes from $8.50 to $8.99 per unit
Time for me to start going OTA
For those on Uverse Voice, price is going up $5/month.
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Canada = Hollywood North | |
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 gatorkramNeed for SpeedPremium
join:2002-07-22
Winterville, NC
kudos:2 | Meh No surprises here...
(over heard in the board rooms of a communications company near you.....) "Of course we are going to raise our rates, what are they gonna do about it? Complain over on dslreports dot com?"
Loud laughing heard...
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Give me bandwidth or give me death!
»/testhistory/661871/4f240 | |
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 HarleyYacYacoPremium
join:2001-10-13
Allendale, NJ
kudos:2 |  Price locked
Lee | |
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 | | | Re: Price locked said by HarleyYac:For me I have another 18 months. Lee I'm, thankfully, in the same boat. One year contract, but rates guarranteed for 2 years.
A month ago I got a letter from Verizon telling me that my rates and premium channel rates were going up. I called their customer service and asked why my rates were going up, and they apologized, saying I shouldn't have gotten that letter, and actually gave me $3 off my bill just for the confusion created. | |
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| | Try OTA? If you have not tried receiving TV the old-fashioned way (Over The Air) since the digital conversion, give it a shot. If you are within 30 miles of the transmitter (often located on a tall building in the center of the nearest "big" city) you can often get a decent signal with a basic antenna. If you are handy you can even build your own (have done so for $10 in materials myself). If you are further from the transmitter or live in difficult terrain a good outdoor antenna will still be less than a typical monthly cable bill.
While OTA doesn't offer near the number of channels, even when you count the second or third SD subchannels many broadcasters now have, it can be combined with other sources (Netflix, Redbox, etc) to allow you to trim your monthly contribution to your existing provider. You can also drop the HD surcharge if most of the HD you value is available OTA (e.g. football and baseball).
For those who can't do without what you now have or can't be bothered to try any alternative, just pay the increases and enjoy. | |
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| en102Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | Re: Try OTA? I purchased a relatively cheap setup, and reused my old DTV mast.
- Channel Master Stealthtenna 3010A ($50)
- Channel Master drop amp (looks like a cable drop amp, with remote power over RG-59/RG-6. $35
I'm +40 miles, but on a 'good day', I hit 59 channels including subs. Many are junk, but may be worth it, IMO with the price of cable getting higher, with less decent programming.
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Canada = Hollywood North | |
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| | | | Re: Try OTA? Good for you, when I lived in Canyon Country I couldn't get but 1 channel with a similar setup! Darned mountains! 8-) | |
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|  antdudeA Ninja AntPremium,VIP
join:2001-03-25
United State
kudos:4 | The only thing about OTA no SyFy (ugh, that name), Cartoon Network, TNT, etc.  | |
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|  BF69Premium
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN | said by jmmilner:If you have not tried receiving TV the old-fashioned way (Over The Air) since the digital conversion, give it a shot. If you are within 30 miles of the transmitter (often located on a tall building in the center of the nearest "big" city) you can often get a decent signal with a basic antenna. If you are handy you can even build your own (have done so for $10 in materials myself). If you are further from the transmitter or live in difficult terrain a good outdoor antenna will still be less than a typical monthly cable bill. While OTA doesn't offer near the number of channels, even when you count the second or third SD subchannels many broadcasters now have, it can be combined with other sources (Netflix, Redbox, etc) to allow you to trim your monthly contribution to your existing provider. You can also drop the HD surcharge if most of the HD you value is available OTA (e.g. football and baseball). For those who can't do without what you now have or can't be bothered to try any alternative, just pay the increases and enjoy. Enjoy it while it lasts because the FCC is looking to give the rest of the TV spectrum to the mobile companies. OTA has about 10 years left. | |
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| | | | Re: Try OTA? said by BF69:said by jmmilner:If you have not tried receiving TV the old-fashioned way (Over The Air) since the digital conversion, give it a shot. If you are within 30 miles of the transmitter (often located on a tall building in the center of the nearest "big" city) you can often get a decent signal with a basic antenna. If you are handy you can even build your own (have done so for $10 in materials myself). If you are further from the transmitter or live in difficult terrain a good outdoor antenna will still be less than a typical monthly cable bill. While OTA doesn't offer near the number of channels, even when you count the second or third SD subchannels many broadcasters now have, it can be combined with other sources (Netflix, Redbox, etc) to allow you to trim your monthly contribution to your existing provider. You can also drop the HD surcharge if most of the HD you value is available OTA (e.g. football and baseball). For those who can't do without what you now have or can't be bothered to try any alternative, just pay the increases and enjoy. Enjoy it while it lasts because the FCC is looking to give the rest of the TV spectrum to the mobile companies. OTA has about 10 years left. so the fcc will let local news die?
maybe will see more CLTV like channels out there by then?
but what about free and free to air EAS?
how about analog am radio? (there way to many batty only radios that are analog only.) | |
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| | | | | Re: Try OTA? said by Joe12345678:how about analog am radio? (there way to many batty only radios that are analog only.) Analog AM radio is going nowhere. The spectrum is pretty much useless for anything else. | |
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| | | | | Re: Try OTA? said by NOVA_Guy:I wouldn't worry about that too much. With the way things are going in government now, in 10 years Congress will be debating an "entertainment care bill" and special interest groups will be touting how cable TV and high speed internet should be a "right". After all, those who don't have access to 200+ channels and the ability to pirate the latest PC games via torrents are soooo deprived. Poor, poor folks....  I doubt that Comcast et al would argue against such a bill, as it would allow them to increase rates even more while keeping those additional charges hidden from the general public because they will be funded through taxes. No in 10 years we may see forced all a carte pricing. | |
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| | | Reviews:
 ·VOIPo
·Callcentric
| Re: Try OTA? OTA may not go away, but high definition over the air will go away. The FCC will leave 1 or 2 stations broadcasting per market, and cram all of the TV stations on standard definition sub channels. Then they'll take the extra spectrum and sell it to the highest bidder. If you want the "premium" of high def for your super cool flat screen TV, you can afford to subscribe to a provider of your choice to get HD. That is their philosophy on the deal.
Sure, they will reserve some spectrum for "poor people" service so providers can bid on that, and be required to provide low cost or free service with it. Let's see them knock each other over to get that. Didn't work out so well with the 700mhz auctions for the public service bands. | |
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| | | | | They are not using it in what regard? If you look at the channel with a spectrum analyzer, every bit of the channel is used regardless of what data is contained in the MPEG stream.
Any unused bandwidth in the stream is filled with NULL packets. There is no such thing as "not using their bandwidth". During periods of high video entropy, the number of NULL packets decreases as that gets allocated to active video. Stations with sub-channels have very few NULL packets because they are using every bit of their bandwidth.
You can't simply say "hey Mr. TV, gimme back that 4 megabits of spectrum that you're not using" because it's contrary to the ATSC standard and the way the transmitters work. They are using it; it's either marked as spare space or allocated to video. Regardless of which it is, they're transmitting 19.39 megabits all the time.
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| | | | said by BF69:said by jmmilner:If you have not tried receiving TV the old-fashioned way (Over The Air) since the digital conversion, give it a shot. If you are within 30 miles of the transmitter (often located on a tall building in the center of the nearest "big" city) you can often get a decent signal with a basic antenna. If you are handy you can even build your own (have done so for $10 in materials myself). If you are further from the transmitter or live in difficult terrain a good outdoor antenna will still be less than a typical monthly cable bill. While OTA doesn't offer near the number of channels, even when you count the second or third SD subchannels many broadcasters now have, it can be combined with other sources (Netflix, Redbox, etc) to allow you to trim your monthly contribution to your existing provider. You can also drop the HD surcharge if most of the HD you value is available OTA (e.g. football and baseball). For those who can't do without what you now have or can't be bothered to try any alternative, just pay the increases and enjoy. Enjoy it while it lasts because the FCC is looking to give the rest of the TV spectrum to the mobile companies. OTA has about 10 years left. OTA TV should have been history anyway. In Europe and Asia they have satellite broadcasting, free to air even. | |
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 JonPremium
join:2001-01-20
Lisle, IL
1 edit | They're all doing it So all those that commented in the uverse story and that have been coming to the uverse forum to say how much AT&T hates their customers can suck it. Your service provider apparently hates you too. 
Oh and... HA HA! | |
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| en102Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | Re: They're all doing it Yup - I remember when AT&T was gloating how they haven't increased their price like cable/satellite... well, looks like they ALL increased.
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Canada = Hollywood North | |
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| | | They don't care enough about their customers to hate them. | |
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| | en102Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | Re: They're all doing it Very true. | |
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 backfeedis giving feedback
join:2002-12-16
Peru, IN
 ·Comcast
| Comcast I worked with the account retention folks at CC and managed to keep what I have and only ended up with the $2 modem rental increase for my triple play package. OTA from my location is difficult, so I am happy for another year! 
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There are 10 types of people. Those who can read Binary and those who cannot. | |
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|  MemphisPCGuyTaking Care BusinessPremium
join:2004-05-09
Memphis, TN
·Comcast
| Re: Comcast Time for me to cancel Comcast VOIP, buy a Docsis 3.0 "Modem", get Magicjack and a nice OTA antenna. One thing the CreditCard company gouging taught me was I CAN do without 
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Onsite Computer Support in Memphis
»www.memphispcguy.com | |
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| | | | Re: Comcast said by MemphisPCGuy:Time for me to cancel Comcast VOIP, buy a Docsis 3.0 "Modem", get Magicjack and a nice OTA antenna. One thing the CreditCard company gouging taught me was I CAN do without OTA antenna may not be need as HSI only is the same as basic cable (likely just OTA in clear qam) and HSI.
And the price of basic cable / line fee is part of HSI only. | |
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| | | | I've done the same and don't miss cable one bit, I get 28 channels OTA for FREE. Cable is loaded with junk & fluff channels and is very expensive.
People seem to have forgotten that OTA is free and easy to get in many areas.
At one time it was the only way to get HDTV. The great thing about it is HDTV OTA is, it's not compressed I wouldn't worry about it going away any time soon. Remember your local cable provider gets their local channels OTA too and then charges you to receive them, and even extra charges for HD Channels; I've no need for a middle man.
MagicJack works great too, 5 years of service for $59.95 | |
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| | nothing new. sorry had to say it. | |
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| antdudeA Ninja AntPremium,VIP
join:2001-03-25
United State
kudos:4 | Re: nothing new. Yup, everything is going up like my Kaiser insurance (over $500 next year!!). | |
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| | en102Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | Re: nothing new. Wait until Obamacare kicks in... Government will make it illegal to be without health insurance, and the private insurers like Kaiser will raise rates... because its illegal to not have it.
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Canada = Hollywood North | |
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| | | | | Re: nothing new. said by en102:Government will make it illegal to be without health insurance, what are you in jail for (no health insurance). USA at its best.
Im sorry i have had about enough of this BS country. | |
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| | | | en102Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | Re: nothing new. If I'm not mistaken, they'll fine you.
Personally, I suspect that this will 'only' apply to actual 'citizens' or 'legal residents'. Those living under the radar, will continue on as usual, but won't be able to use county hospitals for free anymore.
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Canada = Hollywood North | |
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| | | | | | | Re: nothing new. They'll fine you and if you can not pay, the IRS will go after you. That'll be VERY pleasant! 8-) | |
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| | | | | |  DavidNow accepting new patientsPremium,VIP
join:2002-05-30
Granite City, IL
kudos:78 | Re: nothing new. See that's what I can't figure out.
If you have been unemployed, how exactly are you going to afford heath insurance? much less be able to pay a fine for not having it? | |
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| | | | |  RobIn Deo speramus.Premium
join:2001-08-25
Kendall, FL
kudos:3 | said by en102:Those living under the radar, will continue on as usual, but won't be able to use county hospitals for free anymore. HA HA HA.. OH OH OH.. HE HE HE..
What fantasy world are you living in?
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CheckSite.us | YourIP.us | Reverseip.us | |
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| | | | | | I have no health insurance, so they put me in jail, and now I have free health care!  | |
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| | | | | | said by hayabusa3303:said by en102:Government will make it illegal to be without health insurance, what are you in jail for (no health insurance). USA at its best. Im sorry i have had about enough of this BS country. At least in Jail health care is free and it is by law.
but $500 /m more for health insurance is a joke and is why we need a way for all people to be able to pick a plan and not be forced on to what there job has. | |
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| | | | ak3883
join:2005-08-20
Portsmouth, RI | said by hayabusa3303:said by en102:Government will make it illegal to be without health insurance, what are you in jail for (no health insurance). USA at its best. Im sorry i have had about enough of this BS country. Then LEAVE, nobody is stopping you. | |
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| | |  dvd536as Mr. Pink as they comePremium
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ
kudos:4 | said by en102:Wait until Obamacare kicks in... Government will make it illegal to be without health insurance, and the private insurers like Kaiser will raise rates... because its illegal to not have it. Exactly what happened when we went mandatory auto insurance. rates doubled!
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When I gez aju zavateh na nalechoo more new yonooz tonigh molinigh - Ken Lee | |
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| |  NOVA_GuyObamaCare Kills AmericansPremium
join:2002-03-05 | Isn't it funny that we're in a recession yet folks keep increasing prices and rates like we're in the middle of a boom period? Meanwhile we're seeing a net loss of jobs from the Obama administration's stimulus package, home values haven't come up a bit, and the credit card companies are doing worse than their usual tricks-- increasing interest rates to ~30% for folks. (Their excuse this time is that they have to pay back the federal government loans that they shouldn't have gotten in the first place.)
Obama = Bush. The more things "change", the more they stay the same. Special interests abound, and the pandering to them by our lawmakers never stops.
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To all liberals: I am NOT one of your parents, so get the heck out of my wallet. It's time for you to grow up and take some personal responsibility for taking care of yourselves, which means not relying on the government to give it all to you. | |
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| | | antdudeA Ninja AntPremium,VIP
join:2001-03-25
United State
kudos:4 Reviews:
·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: nothing new. said by NOVA_Guy:Obama = Bush. The more things "change", the more they stay the same. Special interests abound, and the pandering to them by our lawmakers never stops. Dude, all presidents are the same. Nothing new. Hence, why not votes from me. Same old. | |
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| KearnstdElf WizardPremium
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ | also notice that it video has a 100% dependable rate increase every year.
we have our own modem and the internet rate as been 42.95 steady and speed goes up and up. TV rates go up and the broadcasters provide less content. hmm and they wonder why other forms of entertainment such as gaming is surpassing their viewership.
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[65 Arcanist]Filan(High Elf) Zone: Broadband Reports | |
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 heat84Bit Torrent Apologist
join:2004-03-11
Fort Lauderdale, FL | Black boxes anyone? This is just gonna encourage more people to steal cable.
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Bit Torrent is my DVR. | |
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| | | Re: Black boxes anyone? black boxes are for analog and analog is pretty much done via cable
OTA + Netflix for now is the way for me
OTA + Netflix + Apple TV and internet subscriptions coming up
If there was an online NFL subscription it would be all over for cable | |
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| | We need make EPSN a premium We need make EPSN a premium as there are people out there who want the other stuff but not the high priced sports.
Same thing with disney channel.
Where is all a cart? | |
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| | | Re: We need make EPSN a premium said by Joe12345678:We need make EPSN a premium as there are people out there who want the other stuff but not the high priced sports. Same thing with disney channel. Where is all a cart? ESPN and Disney were both extra charge premium channels when they first appeared on cable. And they were supported by commericals at the same time. The only other premium channels at that time were HBO and Showtime, who offered no commercials. People rejected the concept of paying extra to watch commercials and didn't exactly sign up in droves, so these two networks eventually made deals with the cable companies to add them to their expanded basic tiers. The rest is history.
To this day, ESPN is still the single most costly channel in any rebroadcasters linup, and it still has commercials. If they ever went a la carte, ESPN woud lose millions of dollars a month. 44% of cable/FIOS households are women only, or with a woman as head of the household. If only half of them didn't pick up ESPN under an a la carte system, well.... the numbers would be staggering.
That is why it will never happen unless the FCC forces it on them. A truely competitive system that a la carte would bring cannot support 300+ channels. You would see those 300 channels drop to about 50-60 in less than a year. | |
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| | | Re: If people only knew how easy it is to steal cable Internet! is not hard but not that easy either.
and here u go putting down RR again, but I also see ur posts of how bad ur DSL has been lately...
complain much? | |
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| | Reviews:
·Comcast
 ·Verizon FiOS
 ·MSN
2 edits | Re: If people only knew how easy it is to steal cable Internet! First off, my DSL was running at 1/3 (1.7/.65) download speeds. They fixed it in a day.
For the past 3 days my friend's 10/1 Extreme cable last has running .7/1 (yes, that IS a decimal point!). Still broken-and he pays much more then I do.
Same thing last month. TW believes there's a couple of heavy downloaders on his node. They claim that they can't do anything about it for at least a month.
You tell me who cares more-DSL Extreme (where the General Manager gets back to you usually within a couple hours and FIXES the problem-or Time Warner who basically says "too bad!"? | |
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| | FIOS.... What is with this FUD with FIOS? If I read that last chart right, I'll be paying the same as I pay now or even less (20/20 connection @ $47/mo, all movie channels, all hd channels, etc.) for a 35/35 connection, all movie channels + all hd channels. Is this really a rate hike? Or maybe Karl has finally become a FIOS opponent? | |
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 acid343211Hallo lisa Aus AmerikaPremium
join:2001-08-31
Byron, GA | Greedy idiots Why do providers think it's necessary to increase there rates in Services i thought there's no inflation,
I will be Cutting back on DirecTV by 40% to offset the cost increase and my cellphone bill by 20% Wanna go up more i will cancel its about time people say enough.
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Visit-
www.liveleak.com/view?i=e32_1231680425 | |
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See 7 replies to this post |
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| | Time for a Friend with a Slingbox | |
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Reviews:
·Shaw
| Don't they worry about people switching to internet content? I seriously wonder how much the cable industry thinks they can charge people? They'res been a been a pretty big switch to digital phones from landlines, which i'm sure impacts the telcos.
Don't these cable companies realize the internet could cut them out as well? With internet distribution, do people really need the cable company as an unnecessary middleman.
Kinda smells like the recording industry's thinking.... lets chase more customers away by charging insanely high prices for content laced with commericials! | |
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| | | Re: Don't they worry about people switching to internet content? I think the worry is the reason for the hikes. Like the cell phone companies afraid of becoming dumb pipes in the near future. They are bleeding the customers for all they can as fast as they can because they know it will be short lived.
IMO, of course. | |
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|  BenPremium
join:2007-06-17
Glen Carbon, IL
1 edit | said by zod5000:Don't these cable companies realize the internet could cut them out as well? With internet distribution, do people really need the cable company as an unnecessary middleman. I believe that the cable companies are more than aware of this. This is why it was them who started off with implementing data transfer caps on residential tiers. This is to discourage Internet video, or at least large amounts of it. That way, one could easily watch a few YouTube clips, but couldn't say, watch that many shows or stream that many films.
With the caps, then what options does a customer have? Let's see here.
A) Don't use Internet video, or use much less of it, and instead get TV through the cable company.
B) Get a much more expensive tier that doesn't have caps.
Either way, the cable company gets the money. | |
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