Post #396,239
11/11/14 1:05:25 PM
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Hmmmm.
What I was trying to say is that if I don't need Comcast/MediaCom/TWC/etc. to "subscribe" to the channels I want to see (like HBO's decision this year) and as long as local foo is accessible via OTA, why would I need the Cable TV business at all? I could achieve the long time dream of subscribing to only those channels I wanted. Obviously, I'd still need the ISP business, but why would I need the Cable TV business? From my POV, and I could be wrong, while I'd love to see content providers split from service providers, in the case of cable companies, if you force them to split the ISP/Cable TV into two entities, one will thrive and the other will perish.
Having said all that, I cut my "cable" bill by more than half by dropping the TV subscription. We've streamed exclusively for about 2.5 years now and I haven't missed a thing - despite living far enough out in the boonies that receiving OTA transmissions now would require a rooftop antenna. Here, I get to jab the whole "digital is better" myth. Back in the bad old days of analog, we got 5 channels with indoor antennas and 4 of them were always crystal clear. We've always had cable, but my neighbor was over watching a locally broadcast game through my cable subscription and commented, "God, my picture at home is better than that and all I have is bunny ears." So, we went to his house and I'll be damned if he wasn't right. Exact same TV's, too.
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Post #396,240
11/11/14 1:32:55 PM
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It might vary with the cable company.
My folks in Winston-Salem have TW. It seems to me that their channels are much more compressed than ours (Cox in NoVA) - it's very common to see blocky stuff, especially with fast action. But lots of commercials, and the BBC channel, are much more compressed with Cox than some of the big networks.
There's a whole mess of stuff about the big cable companies that is as transparent as depleted uranium. Similarly, the call quality on cell phones varies a lot and some of it must be due to the way the companies run their networks. Lots of luck finding anything more than plans (HDVoice! VOIP!! Coming soon!!!1) so that one could make an informed decision...
:-/
À la carte channel subscriptions sounds like a good idea (the NFL and the NCAA would hate it, of course), but I wonder what would happen to things like local news. I imagine it would make it worse, as hard as that might be to believe... But maybe it would make things like "community access" actually thrive. Who knows.
Cheers,
Scott.
("Eh? What did you say? Try again?")
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Post #396,241
11/11/14 1:54:02 PM
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if I and the wife were not sports junkies I would cut the cable
although now living in a flat country just 80 miles from nola I may invest a buck to see what ota I can get. Need to convince spouse that watching Duke football and basketball is off the table. No, on second thought.... Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
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Post #396,245
11/11/14 4:25:34 PM
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Understood.
If it weren't for hockey streams, I'd be insane by now. ;0)
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Post #396,250
11/11/14 6:00:04 PM
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You must not have Comcast then
http://forums.comcast.com/t5/Billing/Internet-service-only-62-95-a-month-I-m-not-paying-that-Bye-Bye/td-p/1335081From the 1st reply: The 48.95 price for Performance is the "With Cable" price.
The 62.95 price for Performance is the "Without Cable" price. They'll clean you out one way or another and this is actually an improvement: when they borged our local cableco around ~2006, Comcast's take was that if you did not want cable, then you obviously had no need for high speed internet either and all you got was 1.5Mb/s (instead of the 6 we had before), for 150% of the old price.
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Post #396,251
11/11/14 9:10:07 PM
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I do at the other shop.
Business basic, highspeed intarweb and phone cheap (or relatively cheap) Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
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Post #396,279
11/12/14 6:14:21 PM
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Ah, that racket
I babysit 7 of those lines. The modems they originally delivered ("improved experience" SMC 8014's) had the wonderful habit of locking out frequently used sites after a few days. The fix was to switch the modems to bridge mode and put a real router and DHCP server behind them. But the only way to accomplish that is ... pay Comcast $15/month extra for a a static IP.
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Post #396,272
11/12/14 1:18:10 PM
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MediaCom always line item broadband for us.
We've had them for years (only game in town). The *sucked* big time for a lot of years, I'd often get d/l speeds of 0.25 for my "up to 12 Meg" subscription. Happily that all changed over a year ago. But the bill was always 42.95/month (5.00 off each month because I used my own modem) and it still is *but* instead of unlimited, I pay 10.00 extra for each 50G above 250G I use in a month. The basic TV rate that we killed was around 60.00 a month.
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Post #396,257
11/12/14 3:09:15 AM
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"Digital Is Better".
Unfortunately, sometimes that means better for the broadcaster, not the consumer.
Wade.
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Post #396,262
11/12/14 10:03:12 AM
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Sometimes?
I think it's fair to say whatever changes a cable company (or telco, or other ISP) makes are always better for whoever is making the change. They're only ever better for the consumer by sheer accident.
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Post #396,282
11/12/14 6:36:40 PM
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I meant more broadly.
Digital OTA TV is better for the consumer in a few ways: smaller antennae, less interference, more channels.
Wade.
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Post #396,300
11/13/14 8:38:14 AM
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Except in cases like mine. Where it means fewer channels. ;0)
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