About cable and other TV services

[tfarrell.livejournal.com]

So, we all know RCN has turned off their analog signal. (They got my neighborhood today.) I phoned up RCN and asked them to disconnect my service. I thought I might share some information on our alternatives.


I was paying about $65/month for standard cable from RCN. I don't remember what their "basic" cable price was.

Comcast doesn't seem to want to divulge their pricing on their web site. They offer a promotional price for roughly equivalent service to what I had (except with box) for about $40/month, but it says that's only for 6 months and then you get charged their regular price, whatever that is. Their lowest package starts at a promotional price of about $30/month, and again, they don't divulge what you'll be paying after 6 months. A comcast guy just stopped by my house to offer me a special of about $90/month for cable, phone, and internet, with no contract. I'm guessing that's also only for 6 months, I forgot to ask.

Dish Network offers roughly equivalent service for about $33/month. Their cheapest package starts at about $20/month. If I understand correctly, with them you don't have to buy the equipment (dish and box) and if you get the basic equipment they don't charge extra for it. They usually have some kind of promotional deal about installation charges.

DirecTV has packages from about $30/month up, but like Comcast, those are promotional prices - after 12 months you'll be paying more. (But hey, 12 months beats 6 months, and I'm sure most providers will raise their prices in a year anyway.) DirecTV requires you to own your own equipment, but they'll apparently give you some equipment for free, depending on what you want.

I'm not going to get any of these right now. I'm going to take the money I was spending on cable and use it for legal downloads of TV shows. You can purchase downloads of popular shows from iTunes and Amazon Unbox, as well as getting free shows for streaming viewing on Hulu, Joost, and I understand a few shows are now being put on Youtube too. If you, like me, only watched a few shows anyway, these alternatives may actually get you what you want for less money. I'm going to give it a try, anyway.

Comments

Most annoying thing for me

[skokefoe.livejournal.com]

We've got their DVR box and get the expanded basic (ie, we get Comedy Central, but not BBC America), so we didn't need to hook up a new box or anything, but now the channels are changed. That wouldn't be that big a deal if they changed them in a rational way, but now they are a hodgepodge of basic and premium and expanded basic and whatever other tiers they have.

Totally gone are the days of flipping through 40 channels in a row that actually come in - now you'll go to Comedy Central (for example) and then up one to Animal Planet and that works fine. Go up one more and you're on TVOne and 4 other channels in a row that aren't in the regular "expanded basic" tier. Then you get to 4 more stations that DO work, followed by 9 in a row that DO NOT work. This goes on for hundreds of channels in a row.

Even with our super-high-tech DVR box, I have not seen a way to remove these channels, so if you want to keep clicking through, you'll have to go through all the channels you don't get.

Extremely annoying to me - it feels like they are forcing you to click through all the channels you COULD be getting if you'd just spend a few more dollars a month. It's bad enough that I'm considering giving up cable all together.

Re: Most annoying thing for me

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

Well, many big stores with multiple levels force you to go through an entire floor to find the stairs on the opposite side. Perhaps they plan to put ads on those channels. Or perhaps they already have subliminal ads masked as noise!!! :)

Re: Most annoying thing for me

[tfarrell.livejournal.com]

Tivo will let you turn off channels you don't receive or don't watch, so when you press the channel up button it will skip the ones you turned off. So will MythTV, or EyeTV.