  rit56
join:2000-12-01
New York, NY | 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? | |
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 | | | Re: Rate Hikes 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. | |
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| Reviews:
 ·RoadRunner Cable
 ·ViaTalk
| 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. | |
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| KearnstdElf WizardPremium
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ | 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.
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[65 Arcanist]Filan(High Elf) Zone: Broadband Reports | |
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| | Reviews:
 ·Verizon FiOS
| Re: Rate Hikes The content owners demand higher carriage fees, then when the MSO's and Satellite companies try to fight them, people switch providers in groves. Then these are the same people to bitch about their high TV bills.
As a whole, we are responsible for these high TV prices, because NONE of these cable companies are raking in ridiculous profits.
So on 3, everyone stop tuning to ESPN, go read a book instead. Ready... 1...2....3 !!
Oh, not ESPN? Must be AMC who is one of the biggest bullies against providers these days. Sorry, we wont talk about them until their carriage fees are $4 a month. | |
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| | | 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?
Please start the regulation soon before these cable companies simply make us all broke!
To bad we will have to get rid of the corrupt politicians first, before that can start!
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The Firefox alternative.
»www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/ | |
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| | $20 Did you know a $20 item back in 1920's is now worth $220. | |
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| | | Re: $20 I don't think you factored in depreciation.... | |
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| | openbox9Premium
join:2004-01-26
japan
kudos:2 | Re: $20 Not applicable when you're discussing inflation and the value of the dollar. | |
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| | | | | Re: $20 Because he said "item".... is why I made my little joke. /shrug | |
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| | | | openbox9Premium
join:2004-01-26
japan
kudos:2 | Re: $20 Sorry, missed the sarcasm tag. Not all items depreciate in value anyway  | |
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| | | KearnstdElf WizardPremium
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ | also the fact that CATV services and content prices are accelerating faster than inflation would cause them to on their own.
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[65 Arcanist]Filan(High Elf) Zone: Broadband Reports | |
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| | 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?) | |
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Reviews:
·Insight Communic..
 ·Windstream
| 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) | |
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| | 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 | |
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| | | 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. | |
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| |  SeleniaI love DebianPremium
join:2006-09-22
Lanesboro, MA
kudos:2 | 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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elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA | Not competitive? Nonsense.
Most households have a choice of 3 or 4 pay-tv options.
Its the content. | |
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| Reviews:
 ·DIRECTV
| 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. | |
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| | elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA | Re: Not competitive? said by horseathalt7: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? | |
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| | | | | Re: Not competitive? I'm wishing TW has the guts to put ESPN in a special Sports Tier.
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B-Movie DVDs | |
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| | | |  DryvlyneFar Beyond DrivenPremium
join:2004-08-30
Newark, OH | Re: Not competitive? That would be great if all providers did that, but it won't happen because then they'll no longer be able to easily hide behind ESPN as an excuse for raising rates. I think it would be nice if the price of channels were itemized on everyone's bill so they could see just how much certain channels are contributing to their overall bill.
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In relative terms life is shorter than the blink of an eye. Remember that each and every day because in the end it's not about what you've done but how you've lived.
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| | | | | 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. | |
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| | | | elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA | Re: Not competitive? said by mikedz4: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.
Wrong.
Anywhere in the country, you can ask permission to place a satellite dish in an apartment or condo, and you don't have to ask, if you have your own private space, i.e. a balcony. | |
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| | | | |  simlesaPremium
join:2006-04-14
Astoria, NY | Re: Not competitive? No balcony in my apartment, and my landlord doesn't let me put a dish on the roof or outside wall. | |
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| | | | | | elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA | Re: Not competitive? Indeed, we too live in that same boat, void of satellite rights and TelcoTV options.
But that doesn't prove a lack of competition - our neighbors on all sides have access to four flavors of pay-tv.
If that was important to us, we would move, as we have in the past when utilities failed us. If your landlord isn't flexible enough, and you so desire satellite over cable, you might consider the same.
Your cable company is still competing with satellite, even if you can't obtain it - they aren't yet sophisticated enough (yet) to determine that or use it against you. | |
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| | | | elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA | said by mikedz4: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.
Yes, you can, so long as you have a private area, such as balcony, in which to place it. | |
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| | | | | It must be magical to be inside your head where economies are always perfectly competitive and cable MSOs never do anything wrong. Truly, the Kool-Aid you drink is a heady brew, indeed. | |
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| | | | elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA | Re: Not competitive? said by MrBungle87:It must be magical to be inside your head where economies are always perfectly competitive and cable MSOs never do anything wrong. Truly, the Kool-Aid you drink is a heady brew, indeed.
Nope. Economies are never perfectly competitive, but even duopoly competition is usually better than government regulation.
MSOs have done plenty wrong, but they've done more right in the past ten years, and they deserve credit for it.
If you're upset about your pay-tv bill, that's the result of content costs, not cable profit margins; if you want to lobby for anti-trust action against content bundling, go ahead, its worth a try. | |
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| | | | | said by elray:said by horseathalt7: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? Many place. You easily ignore line of sight issue with Satellite. Up till last year when UVerse finally got to my area, most people on my area had ONE choice for TV... Charter because most did not have line of sight for either satellite provider and there wasn't anything else. | |
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| | | DryvlyneFar Beyond DrivenPremium
join:2004-08-30
Newark, OH | While that's true when it comes to TV, I don't consider the major satellite vendors or my local telco competitive at all when it comes to Internet service. So unfortunately my family is pretty much stuck with TWC for Internet service at the very least which is around $60/mo as a standalone service.
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In relative terms life is shorter than the blink of an eye. Remember that each and every day because in the end it's not about what you've done but how you've lived.
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| | SeleniaI love DebianPremium
join:2006-09-22
Lanesboro, MA
kudos:2 | said by horseathalt7:said by elray:Nonsense.
Most households have a choice of 3 or 4 pay-tv options.
Perhaps they do in SoCal but not most of the rest of the country. I agree Charter was basically going to raise my internet price by 50% in one bill, and I don't even use that much bandwidth....If they don't have other options soon I will be leaving them and getting basic ATT DSL at 30$/mo. I will NOT pay for speeds I won't use and don't want. Hogwash. I have at least 4 here in small town America, where cable internet doesn't even reach(without the help of my 2.5 mile wireless backhaul link to a modem I have hosted across the lake I created to get Time Warner Cable internet back and ditch dreadful Verizon DSL, the whole town's only option). It's called crappy analog cable from Charter(all they offer here, no HSI or phone) or Satellite provider A, B, and C(maybe more). The Satellite providers compete with cable nationwide and with each other. Now, if you said there was no competition on affordable fixed-line broadband, I would agree with you. My town, only served by Verizon with 6 week service calls, a slow, lossy connection that goes down more than a $2 whore, and numerous billing errors that get referred to outsourced tech support, is a shining example of this(Why I spent a few grand on equipment to backhaul a TWC connection, which is serving me very well).
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A fool thinks they know everything.
A wise person knows enough to know they couldn't possibly know everything.
There are zealots for every OS, like every religion. They do not represent the majority of users for either. | |
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| | 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. | |
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| | | Re: goodbye TW-Insight You may want to read the recent outages and problems with WOW. | |
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| | | | Re: goodbye TW-Insight said by TBusiness: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. | |
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| | 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. | |
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| | 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. | |
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 banditws6Shrinking Time and DistancePremium
join:2001-08-18
Frisco, TX
·RoadRunner Cable
| 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.
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"The counsel of fools is all the more dangerous the more of them there are." -Ólafr Höskuldsson | |
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Reviews:
·AT&T U-Verse
·MegaPath
| 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??? | |
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 IowaCowboyWant to go back to IowaPremium
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA | 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. | |
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Reviews:
·Frontier Communi..
1 edit | F*ck yeah, America! Check out the little notice they gave me. THEY'RE CHARGING FOR THE ON-SCREEN CHANNEL GUIDE.
You've gotta be shitting me, Time Warner. This is where we part ways, my cloak and dagger friends. | |
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| DryvlyneFar Beyond DrivenPremium
join:2004-08-30
Newark, OH | Re: F*ck yeah, America! Wow, that's just low. We haven't received that notice yet, but thanks for sharing. My wife and I have been talking for awhile about cutting at least TV service with TWC... I think this too may be what finally tips the scales. I'm tired of getting bent over by these bastards!
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In relative terms life is shorter than the blink of an eye. Remember that each and every day because in the end it's not about what you've done but how you've lived.
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| | Here is an idea... They cable co's. need to find a way to charge 5 cents for each and every button press on the remote. That would end useless channel surfing. | |
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simlesaPremium
join:2006-04-14
Astoria, NY | Downsizing I'm planning to return my DVR box next week and replace it with regular HD box. That should offset the increase. Ideally, I'll just replace both with a Tivo and Cablecard. | |
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