Cord cutters

[rah]

I was thinking more protecting from the rain. In the old days of big bulky one, I'd agree, but the newer small ones arn't that obnoxious.

 

[Farm Boy]

Hokay. So let's just say if the dish leaves the roof of it's own accord, I won't be reinstalling it, but frankly I don't see a reason to take it down either. Aesthetics? Sounds like something that'd cause you to replace the wife in the first place. Now it's making its own problems!

 

[civvver]

There are tons of companies that provide TV besides Comcast. There are tons of companies that provide phone (both landline and cellular) besides Comcast. There are tons of companies that provide internet besides Comcast. Nobody is putting a gun up to your head and telling you you've got to use them.

As mentioned in this very thread there are even more options these days (sling TV, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime). I'm sure Comcast's market share is decreasing (as it deserves to) but don't say that's a monopoly.

There is only one cable internet option at my house. As I understand it, it's cus the charter townships won't allow other companies to come in an lay cables due to a contract. How is that not a monopoly? There are other internet options but they are not cable internet cus comcast owns the cables. Just cus comcast's monopolizes local communities and not nation wide doesn't mean it's not a monopoly. I find it really hard to see why cables are any different that phone lines or gas lines or electric lines which are all classified as utilities and heavily regulated and often come with more choices.

And google is a completely different thing. When you go online you can use any search engine you want. I cannot choose any cable internet provider I want. Maybe google should be broken up, they have a lot of anti trust suits coming in in europe, but they got that way cus they provided the best service and everyone flocked to them.

 

[civvver]

In most cities their source of water is a monopoly. In many cases so is their electricity. The massive hatred Comcast gets is beyond me. That said, I don't use them myself and never will.

those things are classified as utilities and heavily regulated and price controlled. There's no intro promo rate on your water for instance and they cannot raise the price without getting a bunch of municipal approvals.

I was thinking more protecting from the rain. In the old days of big bulky one, I'd agree, but the newer small ones arn't that obnoxious.

You usually just caulk the holes in your siding and it's barely noticeable and water proof.

 

[rah]

That requires actually doing something.

 

[uppi]

There is only one cable internet option at my house. As I understand it, it's cus the charter townships won't allow other companies to come in an lay cables due to a contract.

Even if it was allowed, no other company might see the value to lay cables. If there is already sufficient cable infrastructure in a place, there is little economic value in laying new ones. On top of the expenditures for laying the cables, you have to come up with the maintenance (which tend to be high for cable because of all the amplifiers). And then you would have to offer competitive pricing - well, with the prices I have seen in this thread, not that competitive. So even without town councils interfering you would see a local monopoly, or at best a duopoly emerging. A cable network is not something the free market is very good at.

 

[caketastydelish]

There is only one cable internet option at my house. As I understand it, it's cus the charter townships won't allow other companies to come in an lay cables due to a contract. How is that not a monopoly? There are other internet options but they are not cable internet cus comcast owns the cables. Just cus comcast's monopolizes local communities and not nation wide doesn't mean it's not a monopoly. I find it really hard to see why cables are any different that phone lines or gas lines or electric lines which are all classified as utilities and heavily regulated and often come with more choices.

And google is a completely different thing. When you go online you can use any search engine you want. I cannot choose any cable internet provider I want. Maybe google should be broken up, they have a lot of anti trust suits coming in in europe, but they got that way cus they provided the best service and everyone flocked to them.

Good arguments. Comcast is the devil.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

This "wife" analogy just gave me a weird image: Man walks down the aisle in church to get married. The officiant asks if he takes this satellite dish he's carrying to be his lawfully contracted TV provider, to have and to hold until the next model comes out. The man says, "I do."

The officiant says, "I now pronounce you man and satellite dish. You may go home and watch a football game."

 

[Commodore]

The massive hatred Comcast gets is beyond me

Read up on the issue and maybe you will understand it better. I used to live in an area where Comcast was the only provider and it was a nightmare the entire time. Now live in an area that is Time Warner (slowly making the transition to Spectrum since Time Warner was bought by Charter) and while they are still crap, they are just run-of-the-mill corporate America crap, not the complete s***show Comcast is.

 

[civvver]

Good arguments. Comcast is the devil.

I didn't say they were the devil. I just said how can you deny they aren't a monopoly? And it's not limited to comcast. It's pretty much every cable provider in the US. You get one set of cables coming to your house. Other options are different techs. Someday wifi or cellular tech should be good enough cable is rendered obsolete but it's not there yet.

Even if it was allowed, no other company might see the value to lay cables. If there is already sufficient cable infrastructure in a place, there is little economic value in laying new ones. On top of the expenditures for laying the cables, you have to come up with the maintenance (which tend to be high for cable because of all the amplifiers). And then you would have to offer competitive pricing - well, with the prices I have seen in this thread, not that competitive. So even without town councils interfering you would see a local monopoly, or at best a duopoly emerging. A cable network is not something the free market is very good at.

Which is why most physical line sort of things like water, gas, electric and phone, and public roads, are public utilities. Because free market solutions for those things don't hold up well due to the massive infrastructure up front investment. Somehow cable escaped this designation. Probably because at the time when internet first came about it went over public utility phone lines and you did have a pick of isps.


Anyway regarding comcast customer service, I did have my first negative experience with them last night. My internet disconnected right in the middle of a dota 2 match in which we were making a comeback. Extremely frustrating, now I'm in low priority queue to boot. But I digress. I checked my router and modem, reset both. Was able to connect to modem fine over wifi. So it obviously was an issue with the signal coming in. I called comcast and told them this but of course the techs still want you to spend 20 minutes troubleshooting. I can't say I really blame them, you have to have a systematic approach to these things or many easily resolved issues would get missed so I went along. She ran her diagnostics and said well we can talk to your outside box but not your modem so we'll have to send a tech out, and we made an appointment. She also told me if it's a wiring issue in my house or with my modem it's a $60 service charge, but if it's the lines outside or comcast equipment it's no charge and I agreed. Then I went to watch tv cus no internet, and the tv didn't work. I called comcast back to tell them to ensure the tech would be able to address both issues. This time the lady said there was an outage in my area and services would be restored at 5am. I said ok fine but why didn't the other person know that. She just said it was possible the system couldn't detect the outage at that time.

Long story short I spent about an hour total on the phone for comcast to tell me what I already knew, that their service was done. My gaming got interrupted to boot. Not a huge deal, it was late and I was about done for the night but annoying to deal with.

 

[rah]

My service with them has always been top of the line. They let you know when call traffic is high so you may have to wait.
They always show up when they say they will. It's all about setting expectations, (whether good or bad)
The last call, I got the same, "if it's a wiring issue in your house, you will be charged" When the guy came out it took him a bit figure out it was an internal wiring issue but said, don't worry, I'll write it up so it looks like our issue so you won't be charged. He fixed it and I never got charged.

Again, if only they weren't so expensive.

 

[civvver]

ha appliance people on warranty calls do that all the time for me.

 

[uppi]

She just said it was possible the system couldn't detect the outage at that time.

Long story short I spent about an hour total on the phone for comcast to tell me what I already knew, that their service was done. My gaming got interrupted to boot. Not a huge deal, it was late and I was about done for the night but annoying to deal with.

The worst thing is that the hour spent helped nobody: Comcast already knew (well, should have known) that your internet is down and you did not get your internet fixed any faster. Ironically, the high prices they charge may contribute to the bad experience: The have enough money to pay people to talk an hour to you without any tangible result.

If it is true that their system could not detect the outage, their system is bad. A good system can detect such an outage within minutes at most.

The gaming getting interrupted is hard to avoid (unless they get really good at preventive maintenance). But the hour on the phone is something that is entirely unnecessary.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Anyway regarding comcast customer service, I did have my first negative experience with them last night. My internet disconnected right in the middle of a dota 2 match in which we were making a comeback. Extremely frustrating, now I'm in low priority queue to boot. But I digress. I checked my router and modem, reset both. Was able to connect to modem fine over wifi. So it obviously was an issue with the signal coming in. I called comcast and told them this but of course the techs still want you to spend 20 minutes troubleshooting. I can't say I really blame them, you have to have a systematic approach to these things or many easily resolved issues would get missed so I went along. She ran her diagnostics and said well we can talk to your outside box but not your modem so we'll have to send a tech out, and we made an appointment. She also told me if it's a wiring issue in my house or with my modem it's a $60 service charge, but if it's the lines outside or comcast equipment it's no charge and I agreed. Then I went to watch tv cus no internet, and the tv didn't work. I called comcast back to tell them to ensure the tech would be able to address both issues. This time the lady said there was an outage in my area and services would be restored at 5am. I said ok fine but why didn't the other person know that. She just said it was possible the system couldn't detect the outage at that time.

Sounds like my experience with Frontier, minus it happening during a gaming match. Frontier doesn't charge a $60 charge but charges $99/hour (but otherwise the same, if it's outside they pay, if it's inside you pay)

The have enough money to pay people to talk an hour to you without any tangible result.

Was he talking to someone that whole hour, or put on hold for most of it? My experience is if you want to sign up for service you can talk to someone right away. Tech support or to disconnect service the wait time is longer, sometimes much longer.

 

[uppi]

Was he talking to someone that whole hour, or put on hold for most of it? My experience is if you want to sign up for service you can talk to someone right away. Tech support or to disconnect service the wait time is longer, sometimes much longer.

Well, I obviously don't know, but since he had to go through the "Try turning it off and on again" routine, made an appointment, and had to agree to the potential service charge, I assume that he spent the larger part of the hour talking to someone.

 

[civvver]

No, I got right through the fist time to tech support, 22 minutes spent on the phone according to my call history. Next time I waited on hold for probably 5 minutes, total call length was 13. I guess I exaggerated a little. I spent some time troubleshooting my modem and router myself (reboots, connecting via hard line over wireless etc), and then there was time between those calls when I tried the tv and manually reset the boxes. Which for some reason takes forrrreeevvvveeerrrrrr. It takes 5+ minutes for the X1 to reset and connect to tv again. I supposed I was subconsciously referencing the entire affair which was around an hour from time internet went out to time I was done talking to them the second time.