After yesterday's discussion of the awfulness of Comcast DVRs, Peter Suderman points out that all their other service is terrible too. Roger that. I have too many Comcast horror stories to share them all, but my favorite was the technician who showed up to install my service without the equipment to splice coaxial cable. This seems like the sort of thing you really ought to have on you if you are going to install coaxial cable in someone's house. When he finally came back with his equipment (after first trying to get me to move the television to right next to my bed, where the existing hookup was), it took him half an hour to splice a head onto the end. I've done my fair share of cabling, and while it can be confusing to have only the one wire onto which you crimp your pre-made head, this seemed a bit excessive. Yet he got mad at me when I offered to do it for him. This is one of the many reasons why I am a loyal reader of Verizon's Fios website. Someday, we shall be free . . .
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You cable people amaze me. Like battered spouses, you complain but always return to your beloved programming pimp, which treats you like garbage.
I haven't had pay TV for nearly a decade, but in the mid-1990s, after suffering with cable for a few years, my roommates and I went in for a satellite dish. Best. Decision. Ever! I don't know that I ever persuaded any of my cable-complaining friends to follow suit. They'd look at me with beleagured curiosity anytime I mentioned that satellite was superior in every way, but that's as far as the conversation would go.
Now people are supposedly tied to their cable because of bundling that includes Internet access, etc. It's not worth it. Unbundle and ditch cable. Satellite's better. Fios is, no doubt, better, but potentially just a problematic down the road. I don't know -- you could always do what we Luddites do, and just not pay for television. Try it. It's liberating.
Comcast recently took over from Time-Warner in my area. Service has really gone downhill. I had a series of service problems that were only resolved when I emailed the entire management chain from the local office to the cable division CEO one Sunday afternoon. An hour later an assistant to the CEO was talking to me. By 5 PM the local service manager was on the phone to me and gave me his cell phone number. My problems were fixed (for a while) and when they came back it took another update to the CEO to get them resolved. I even got an apology card from the customer service VP.
However, the latest update, moving us to the new on-demand system is awful:
- it erased all my auto-records from the DVR
- it has significantly slowed the on-screen program guide
- load times for On-Demand listing went from near instant to 30-60 seconds
- some of the newer DVR boxes don't have a eSATA port for adding an external drive.
I've also had more frequent problems with the cable modem. I'd junk them except:
- Right now they are the only player for broadband. SWBell ran the DSL providers out of business, and the ATT DSL is slow and expensive.
- The ATT fiber to the home service (U-verse)only allows 1 HD channel to be active in the house at once. I have 2 HDTVs, often both are in use. This is supposed to be fixed this month.
- FiOS is not on the horizon here.
Comcast sucks, no doubt. Fios, which I have, is no bowl of cherries. Few HD channels, not very good interface, reception that hiccups periodically. The three-way deal is good, but I've heard the satellite services might be better.
Then there's netflix; if you can rig the network connection to teevee, you can download a huge variety of stuff over the Internet cheaper. Haven't tried this yet so can't vouch for quality, but it's tempting. Even with five premium movie channels, it's easy to not have anything you feel like watching.
Megan,
as faithful 'indexer', you're probably long CMCSK
http://swz.salary.com/execcomp/layouthtmls/excl_companyreport_C1003030_summary.html
they've got this: http://newteevee.com/2008/03/18/comcast-cameras-to-start-watching-you/
going for them, as well..
And here is (yet) another reason to dislike Comcast, they seem to be planning a "TV that watches you" set up that is eerily reminiscent of 1984:
http://newteevee.com/2008/03/18/comcast-cameras-to-start-watching-you/
Greg
There is a benefit to incompetent installers. I only wanted internet access. To get it, I was required to buy at least the most basic cable TV, for $16/month. I think you get C-Span and the weather channel. Well, the guy didn't have the right filters, so I get the second best package they offer for $16/month.
Contrary to what most people say, I've never had any problem with the service. The cable is never out. Our internet connection never even burps. My DSL was pretty reliable, but not this reliable.
But FiOS had the commercial with the repulsive little kid.
last winter in the Seattle area there was a windstrom that knocked out power in the eastern suburbs for a week or so. Not so unusual. But with power gone, cable service was out, and those visionaries who had their voice service on Comcast were up $hit creek. Qwest pounced the very next after the storm with full pages ads gloating over Comcast.
Megan,
Hate to say it, but Verizon FIOS can have lots of probs, too. We had it up to about three months ago. Then Verizon pushed an upgrade of our service and ended up erasing every recording we had on our DVR. We were so furious, we went to Dish Network for TV and back to Cablevision's Optimum online for phone and internet. Frankly, dish network is some of the best service I've seen.
I had Comcast for 5 years and then switched to Direct TV for 5 years. In those 5 years with Direct TV I've called customer service 3 times, and had all issues addressed immediately. I also lose signal about 4 hours a year (storms mostly).
I just moved to a house that could get FiOS! I gladly switched to FiOS for phone and internet, but I'll never give up my DirectTV (w/ TIVO) system...unless Direct TV stops supporting Tivo all together.
I agree with Lou. DirecTV with TiVo is great! I don't watch anything but soccer games and musical shows, but I always record the show and watch it off the TiVo, thus enabling me to skip all commercials.
I thought it was funny when my neighbor came to ask to use my phone to call Comcast, because everything was out at her house.
Based on my and other neighbors' experience with Verizon, FiOS would have to be unbelievably good to get me to buy it. They are impossible to deal with.
Even DirecTV's home grown DVR is pretty good. I used to have TV but went with their version when I switched to HD and I'm pretty impressed. Not all the bells and whistles of TiVo, but it's fast, it works, has a decent interface, and doesn't force you to think much.
And I've seen that Comcast horror of a DVR. Hard to believe it could be on the market. It's absolutely unusable.
Hard to believe that after all these years, cities still promote monopolies in cable service.
I've had mixed experiences with Comcast. When I lived in Baltimore City, their techs were outsourced private contractors who weren't too great. When I moved to the County, I got a tech who was late but who knew what she was doing when I had my install.
OTOH, a year later I called them wanting to cancel my phone service since my triple play was ending. They said they would renew it with the same rate for another 2 years. Sweet. Except in the process, they somehow managed to disconnect my internet access. When I called them up, I got transferred to four different people - the TV people blamed the phone people, the phone people blamed the internet people, ect. I finally got someone who knew what he was doing (although at one point, he went oh shit!, which wasn't terribly reassuring). He did get it working, and even called back to make sure it worked.
FIOS is available where I live, so I attempted to get it. Working with Verizon was a nightmare. Each and every time I called I ended up on the phone talking to a computer for at least five minutes before I spoke to an actual human being. I eventually gave up because I couldn't imagine how terrible their customer service must be after they have you as a customer if they treat new customers so poorly.
Comcast recently took over for Raodrunner here in Houston and while the service hasn't changed much, the prices went up (even more). The video on demand is harder to use and seems to have a lot fewer previews. I can't get U-verse or Verizion's television, so I'm looking at DirectTV. It costs about half as much for more service with the exception of video on demand. DirectTV has something like the old Pay-Per-View, but that's probably an aspect of satellite transmission.
I've already switched to ATT Yahoo DSL, which is cheaper but slower than Comcast. We'll switch TV, soon, too. I'm okay with service that isn't as good if it's cheaper as Comcast is just too expensive.