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Is Comcast going to implode?

I wish so so badly that there was an alternative in my area to Comcast. We can't get satellite because we live in an apartment complex and the signal would not work from our balcony anyway. Comcast is a hugely sucky company and nothing they offer is reliable in any way. I can't even access On Demand 85% of the time...I have to unplug the whole system from the wall and plug it back in then wait 20 minutes to use it. And that of course causes the guide to empty out. Fucking stupid.

The biggest factors in which apartment we choose to live in next time we move will be whether it has a washer and dryer and if it will be an acceptable location for receiving satellite. I love my TV and movies and Comcast is fucking it up.
 
pookha said:
Robert Maxwell said:
Er, all those things point to Comcast actually doing very well. If they can provide shitty service while making you pay through the nose, business is good.

I hate Comcast, but they seem to be doing just fine.
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i dont know.
i just turned in my cable box today and for every person getting equpment there were three or more turning stuff in.

around here comcast service has just been awful.
there was a period of time it was like playing roulette whether the channel you wanted to watch would be on or not.
and they would not prorate your bill for the time that service was messed up.
and pretty par for the course they didnt ask why i was canceling the cable.
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Here is the most recent article I could find, which shows profits are up despite fewer subscribers. Subscribers are declining because we're in a recession, of course, but also because Comcast is jacking up prices. Subscribers were increasing as late as Q1 this year.

This is probably the most interesting part:

The number of (new) Internet subscribers plummeted 77%, and the number of video and television customers dropped as well. Furthermore, ad revenues continued to fall, dropping 20%, as advertisers have been more reluctant to advertise in this economy.
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I hate monopolies, especially ones run under inefficient, ineffective and deceitful ones like Comcast's. True few monopolies are ever good or beneficial to their customers but Comcast is an example of a particularly bad one even by the standard.
 
I've had Directv for about 7 years now. I have been extremely happy with the price and the service. Do I like everything-no, but I don't think that's ever going to happen.

I wouldn't subscribe to Comcast if it was the only thing I could get. I would rather just watch dvd's and internet feeds than deal with the Comcast customer service and pricing.
 
Hate comcast. paying over hunderd for cable and internet. since going to digital ( oh wow ) you now have to use the cable box, which makes it hard to record lots of different channels on the multiple VCRs I use. pain in the ass really.

who has direct tv, does rain interfear with the signal? got trees acrss the street how bout that?
 
Soon, ConCrap-as well as other cable cos, will be reducing basic cable service down to a bare minimum 22 channels, mostly, the local broadcast stations, and a few low rent basic networks. The AVS forum (avsforum.com) is filled with posts from around the country mentioning ConCrap switching to a predominantly digital model, where they provide you with 1 or 2 cheap jack free QAM tuner like boxes to unscramble the Extended Basic tier.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1170940
 
I have Dish Network and unless it is raining like crazy--and I mean raining so hard you're worrying about flash flood warnings--the signal comes in crystal clear. The days where any stray raindrops nuke your signal are long gone. If the dish is installed properly, it takes a damn ferocious storm to knock out the signal, and even then it'll only be until that part of it passes.
 
^ What about the dish being physically knocked off your roof? That's always a risk during a storm, innit?

And don't you still have to have two dishes - one for normal service and one for local channels?
 
^ Chicagoland area here (DISH). I have 1 dish and get all the locals and the"Americas 200" (or whatever the number is now).

A second dish would only be necessary if I wanted 2 (I think) more local channels (1 Spanish language and 1 low end public TV channel), neither of which I care about. This is due to (for some reason) those routing through a different satellite.

And yeah, it's always possible for high winds to knock anything down, mine is on a 2nd floor apartment balcony, so it's kinda protected.

And like I mentioned earlier, I only lose reception when an extremely powerful storm is first passing through, usually before the rain even starts. Just during that first dark front hitting. It just has to be aligned as well as possible.
 
You guys who have Comcast in Chicago, just be happy you don't have to deal with them in Central Illinois. They used to be Insight here until about 2 years ago, and they're still trying to figure all the wiring out. When I first got high speed at my townhome it would go out every time it rained, and every Friday at 5:30 PM, usually until about an hour before the tech could get there Saturday at 3 PM. Then they never found a problem, so couldn't do anything. It wasn't until a senior tech came out from Indiana did they realize this was affecting everyone on the block, and I was the only one calling about it. There was a "standing waveform loopback" in the wire from the main street, and it was cancelling out service for everyone at peak loads...

Oh, and to top it all off, they're closing the Peoria office, so now tech support loads will increase even further.

And to top it off, I'm paying over $100 for 10 Mbit service, with about 25 or 30 HD channels... I don't even watch standard def TV anymore, buy they refuse to offer any competitive deals with what Dish and DirecTV offer with all HD for like $30/month. So I'm just going to cancel TV now that baseball is over and just get all my TV shows elsewhere...
 
Mr. Laser Beam said:
^ What about the dish being physically knocked off your roof? That's always a risk during a storm, innit?

And don't you still have to have two dishes - one for normal service and one for local channels?
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Nah. We've had gale-force winds in Indiana (50+ mph) and the dish doesn't even budget.

You only need one dish, too. Current dishes can handle both the regular signal and the "spot beam" used for local channels.
 
^ It's OK. My dish doesn't budgie either, but other birds have been known to perch on it.

My mom is looking into getting internet, and CC says they don't offer it in her area...those idiots. On top of it, her cable TV looks like crap most of the time, I'm gonna talk her into getting the DISH, more channels for less $$ anyway.

Then she'll have to settle for some other form of internet access.
 
cylkoth said:
Soon, ConCrap-as well as other cable cos, will be reducing basic cable service down to a bare minimum 22 channels, mostly, the local broadcast stations, and a few low rent basic networks. The AVS forum (avsforum.com) is filled with posts from around the country mentioning ConCrap switching to a predominantly digital model, where they provide you with 1 or 2 cheap jack free QAM tuner like boxes to unscramble the Extended Basic tier.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1170940
Click to expand...

that sucks! we can only afford Comcast basic + expanded!
We also have Comcast for highspeed internet. I dont know about satellite, being from Miami we get lots of rain/storms. :(
 
Ar-Pharazon said:
^ It's OK. My dish doesn't budgie either, but other birds have been known to perch on it.

My mom is looking into getting internet, and CC says they don't offer it in her area...those idiots. On top of it, her cable TV looks like crap most of the time, I'm gonna talk her into getting the DISH, more channels for less $$ anyway.

Then she'll have to settle for some other form of internet access.
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Is DSL available in her area? There's also wireless broadband, although all the major providers cap that, as far as I know. I had DSL at one time and was quite happy with it.
 
Pretty much every other option is available. I hoped to get her the CC for the lower price since she already has the cable TV.

AT&T is probably the way to go, I don't figure she's going to be an internet junkie like me.
 
I know how you feel about Comcast; I have the same thing with the Cable One monopoly in my town. We only get about 60 network and cable channels, and there's only 25 or so that are available as HD.

Of course, satellite is an option for people who can use it; but in a rural city, you often run into the problems of immovable obstructions to the signal (such as the large number of trees surrounding the house of one of my friends). For me, the problem is that my property is a lightning rod due to an underground river; any satellite dish I put up would be struck by lighting and fried a day or two after installation.

I've been hoping AT&T cable will become available here, but most of the phone lines in my town are still century old copper and thus unable to carry the signal. They are replacing with fiber optics, but it's at a snail's pace; they don't even had an ETA on it (and given that my area still doesn't even have something easy like AT&T 3G, I can't imagine the fiber optics will be finished within the next 15 years).
 
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