Comcast Houston Hikes Broken Down

Are there details as to the $200 million investment they sited as the cause for the hikes?

Even when TWC controlled Houston's market, price hikes happened several times, but what is going on now is even worse then ever.
I had cable service here in Houston for 6 years. For about 2 years ago TWC decided to do some upgrades in my area, when they completed my digital service went down to hell! Constant drops of the signal on all HBO, Showtime channels, most of VoD, as well as CNN International and some HD channels.

They came to fix my service multiple times, they even replaced all cables from the node up to my TV but nothing helped.

I went then on my own and swapped the STB and the problem was mostly sorted out, kind of.

Then they started adding additional fees almost every other 3 months, moving channels in and out, dropping some for good including (CNNi), moving Tennis Channel to so-called Sport package. Why should I pay for that sport package just to get one single Tennis channel when I don't care about any other channel they force me know to buy?

I don't care about football, baseball, basketball... I never watched then and I never will!

Then HD channels started implementing some sort of compression which caused huge amount of pixelation on all fast movement scenes.

Then when I finally called back in January about the quality and increased prices we pay, the CS lady said that "there is nothing I can do". I have been loyal customer for 6 years and they could not give me any promo/special price (I had all digital packages including HBO and SHOWTime).

In response I said that then I have no choice but to switch to U-verse. I could not believe what I have heard after that!!! She said "Whatever... Is there anything else I can assist you?"

The word "Whatever" just made my day! LOL I instantly called and signed up for u-verse. It had been installed 1.5 weeks later after I called.

Now I have U-400 package with HBO/Cinemax/Showtime/Starz plus never touched by me many Sports channels and not perfect HD service, plus DVR, the Internet and all for $138 per month, the same price I paid for TWC/Comcast and gotten not all channels included in U-400.

I have to be honest that I don't even watch 90% of what U-verse has. No one physically can watch all 400 channels. LOL

But U-verse is not ready yet. They do not have the Tennis channel.

HD quality (especially on locals) is pretty bad, though they say that new codecs should change that. WE SHALL SEE!

Only 1 HD stream per household...

Two Words:

Dish Network

Unless you live in an apartment complex. Hello 200$ deposit to put up an antenna, yet along a freaking dish.

It's against the law for them to do that.

Maybe, or maybe not. It depends on where you are locating the dish.

Yeah I'm seeing the difference. Until 3 years ago I had TWC digital cable and Speed channel was included in basic digital service. Since my poor credit prevents me from getting Uverse I had to go with Comcrap, and they want me to pay for a whole 14 or 15 channel sports package just to get Speed. I have no interest whatsoever with football or basketball or all that other nonsense. On second thought, sometimes Fuel has stuff I like, but mostly I watch Speed. With the package and equipment I have it looks like I'll about break even on the price changes.
I don't even consider any dish service. They regularly loose signal when storms roll in, no matter which service or what part of town I'm in, and here in Houston it doesn't take much for a hard rain or full thunderstorm to pop up and block satellite signals.

There is a Tennis Channel?

Go figure....

I am going through the same thing in Houston. I am looking at Dish, but when I go to their builder I am not able to select a HD TV AND a PVR. I can only get a SD TV with a PVR.

Is this possible or is it a user error?

Zoly, Do you play tennis around town? Where and what level do you play?

No, I do not play. But my roommate does. And now he needs a new person to play with. PM me

Thought about Dish for a moment, till I priced thier gear VIP222 for the 4 HD sets I have would be 1000.00 up front.

When I first priced DirecTV I came up with a similar number for all of my TVs. Just a bit over $900. I already had Dish and was not at all interested in spending that kind of cash.

Then I called DirecTV. The person got me all sorts of credits and freebies and got my cost to install down to $175 which included my first month of service. He also gave me 3 programming credits that saved me a total of $25 a month for 2 years.

You never know what you will get from either DTV or Dish until you call. All I had to say was "I am interested in switching from Dish" and the dude tripped over himself to save me money and get me to change. It worked. If you call and don't like what the first person offers, decline and call back later. There is wide latitude in what these CSR's can offer you to sign up.

I just surfed over to www.dishnetwork.com and used their Dish Builder.

I pretended you wanted the Everything Pak (America's Top250, plus all HD, plus Showtime(s) HBO(s) Cinemax(s) and Starz(s) networks. Local Networks, Local HD's

I put you had 4 TV's, two HD, two SD. Set you up with 2 DVR's.

Price was $106 a month plus tax for everything. Course you could save $$$ if you didn't need all those movie channels or full packages, etc.

There's a one time setup fee of $49.99 but you will get $49.99 credit back, so....

See thats the problem I want all the sets to have HD boxes, dont want SD on a HD set

Ok I'll adjust. I was making assumptions.

When I use the builder after you get to 3 sets it tell you too call CSR--when I did that they would part with 3 boxes and wanted me to feed the 4th set with the SD output of the dual tuner box

Directv is better it seems as to the amount of boxes you have, when we were in the DC area we had 4 and never any issues

Yep you're right it says call CSR.

Course you could negotiate with em.

You need to look into the starting offers, They set up your whole house for way less then $1000. In fact it's close to free with rebates and stuff.

They don't seem to want to give you 4 boxes for some reason,when I talked to one rep they want too part with only 3 and use the SD output on one box for the 4th HD set

They don't want you to have more than 4 tuners, since the default equipment that is installed can handle that. Since the 622/722 are dual-tuner boxes, they count for 2. You can get more tuners, but you will likely have to pay extra for it.

Directv seems easier to deal with most of the time, at least thats what I hear. I would think that the PQ would be the same from either Directv or Dish

Check this out. Have to act fast tho:

»www.allsat.com/?PID=227502

Your right about getting the right CSR, thats a real important part of what kind of a deal you get. I can go to Costco and get the Directv STB for 84.00 each (granted it's leased) but that a lot better than 1000.00.Directv may well be commited to becoming a HD leader now for a change, and maybe worth looking at thier package, we had Directv for 8 years in the DC area before we moved from the rat race to the country. Comcast is the internet provider as DSL is not here, and I must admit that when we did a side by side Comcast PQ was better. That may have changed now that they have the new MPEG4 compression not sure. Are you getting good PQ with your setup?

simple solution: cancel your cable service.

either go without, use an antenna, or go satellite. those are your options.

Bitch-n-moan is, sadly, a valid option too.

Cut the price of one time services and jack up the monthly stuff. More money in the end to pay for the cuts on the other.

I wish that there was another viable option for internet service but too far from Ma Bell for a fast connection and the fiber is going into the neighborhood down the street. My Sprint Broadband Direct died when a building went up and I got RoadRunner which was not that bad. When Comcast took over the speed went up some but I am now experiencing micro-outages. Oh, bitch and moan, ponder the lack of choice and propaganda on the TV. When the micro-outages occur Comcastic becomes Comcraptist.

At least I have my antenna with amplifier for HDTV.