I love this game they play where they won’t raise package rates but they will nickel and dime you to death with all the bullshit “fees” that can oftentimes add a huge amount to your bill.

We still have a cable box but it’s looking more and more like we will ditch that and go 100% streaming and some OTA.

As it stands now, virtually all of our two children’s shows are via streaming channels, and I went through our favorite channels lineup and realized we basically only watch 3 networks on cable in real time regularly anymore and stream everything else:

Food Network
HGTV
Hallmark

I’ve given up long ago on CNN and MSNBC, and even ditched FNC this past year and I have ZERO interest in sports of any kind but we are being charged “fees” like this crap:

Sports Broadcast Fee: $8.50 and going up to something like $12.50
Broadcast TV Fee: $8.50 and going up to around $15
X1 box Fee: doubling from $2.50 to $5

Comcast seems to be intent on driving away a couple million more subscribers this year I guess, I just DON’T get it.

I think I can get the 3 networks via Sling, does anyone have that and can confirm? Would you recommend that?

If you rely on tv or internet for entertainment it is going to be expensive and more so all the time. That is just how it is.

Yes you can do netflix, roku, sling, yada, yada, yada. But it is going to be or get to be expensive.
there are no bargains unless you just do over the air antenna tv.
Streaming is the next thing that you will see get expensive fast. Whatever the next thing is, it will be expensive. You can bet on it. If you watch, you will have to pay for it. Plain and simple.

We have direct tv. No streaming, hell we don't even have hdtv and still have our old receivers for crissakes.

It is all expensive.

I understood that Comcast discontinued TCM for a time. Did that get resolved?

We have DirectTV.

quote:

Originally posted by shovelhead:
I understood that Comcast discontinued TCM for a time. Did that get resolved?

We have DirectTV.

My understanding is that they moved it to a different package. One day we had it, the next it was gone and it was $9 +/- if we wanted it back.

I've been a Comcast customer for 10+ years. Price increases are as follows.All are per month. $1. for modem rental. $1.50 regional sports fee, pretty much NESN (NE Sports Network) charges. $5.20 broadcast fee. the 1st box fee went up $2.32. Total increase per month is about $10.
I pay it. I pay quite a bit for my TV and internet. I have GIG internet speed (wife works from home and needs it) and I dont lose my TV reception due to shitty rain, snow or foggy weather. DSL and Satellite TV cant say that. I have great services and I pay for it. Such is life. Im not gonna spend my nites flipping between apps to find something when I can push one button and speak into my remote and the program pops up. Oh yea, I can record 6 shows simultaneaously.
I dumped Satellite (Directv and Dish) prior to going to Cable, the picture was nice, the price was not great and couldnt handle the weather in NH as well as customer service sucked. My .02. sigguy(the 1st)

Get the equipment you need to stream (Roku, firestick, nvidia shield) and then pick the best service... which sounds like Sling for you. It’s not expensive unless you you keep adding more services like Netflix, amazon prime video, etc.

Streaming services have horribly compressed audio. Once you subscribe to a number of them the cost savings go out the window. I have been with Dish network for 2 decades and remain a loyal customer as they don’t jack you all the time and also let you cut out the channels you do not want. Obviously that won’t work for everyone but seeing as I only want the non-commercial movie channels it works out extremely well. I’ve tried almost all streaming services and end up ditching them. I prefer to have the redundancy. If the internet goes down I can watch Tv. If the Satellite is down for the 2-3 times a year where it’s flooding rain hard enough to knock the satellite signal out I still have the DVR and the internet. Comcast and Spectrum are pricier which is why Dish is cheaper. A satellite doesn’t need the coax in the ground. There is no clear answer. Streaming services will go up in price. And soon they’ll require a 12 month commitment.

Cheap route... get a solid OTA antenna, get the best one, worth it. Then subscribe to something like Netflix’s DVD/Blu Ray in the snail mail plan. You’ll get physical media in the mail which trumps any cable, satellite, or streaming service in terms of picture and audio quality.

The new Comcasted Tower in Philadelphia is clearly visible from Broomall PA, nine miles away ...

Cable television is the best thing since stealing ... _{Former CFO Comcasted, by Joseph N. DiStefano}

quote:

Originally posted by SIGGUY (THE 1ST):
I've been a Comcast customer for 10+ years. Price increases are as follows.All are per month. $1. for modem rental. $1.50 regional sports fee, pretty much NESN (NE Sports Network) charges. $5.20 broadcast fee. the 1st box fee went up $2.32. Total increase per month is about $10.
I pay it. I pay quite a bit for my TV and internet. I have GIG internet speed (wife works from home and needs it) and I dont lose my TV reception due to shitty rain, snow or foggy weather. DSL and Satellite TV cant say that. I have great services and I pay for it. Such is life. My .02. sigguy(the 1st)

Like Sigguy, I'm a long-time Comcast customer, going back to when they were "Roadrunner." My personal experience is that they take your history with them into account and will work with you on pricing if you call them. For example, they removed Cinemax from my package. If I wanted Cinemax back it would be an extra $12 a month, I called to complain and they offered to credit my account for six months of Cinemax. My counter offer was for them to credit me for a year due to my loyalty, and they agreed.

Also, if you're a Comcast (Xfinity) internet customer, see if Comcast/Xfinity mobile phone service is offered in your area. Comcast piggybacks on Verizon for cell service, so the quality of the service is equal to Verizon, but at a signifiant savings. My cell phone bill for two people went from $198 monthly at Verizon to approximately $24-$48 (depending on data usage), for two people with Comcast mobile.

Bottom line, there are ways to mitigate the cost of Comcast if you look hard enough.

Yup...have internet service ONLY with them. I was told my price would NEVER go up. Yeah...so much for that. Price is jumping $3 next month. Sunsabitches.....

My understanding is that Comcast has higher profitability providing internet service than TV service, so they’re likely happy to drop individual TV service as long as their user sticks with internet service. They get to avoid all the broadcast fees they pay to supply those hundreds of channels.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
Comcast seems to be intent on driving away a couple million more subscribers this year I guess, I just DON’T get it.

Cable TV is hemmoraghing customers, with no way to attract them back from streaming. So their only recourse to temporarily stave off insolvency is to jack up the prices on their remaining customers. This, of course, has the effect of further driving more of their customers away. But it will at least buy the cable companies another few years for their executives to keep collecting their bonuses and packing their golden parachutes before the inevitable collapse.

Not sure who your cellphone provider is but we have AT&T and with that you get access to the AT&T WatchTV app at no extra charge.
It has 40 some channels including HGTV, Food Network, and both the Hallmark and Hallmark Movie channels.

We have Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu. Still worlds cheaper than cable was when we dropped it nearly 10 years ago.

THere is no simple answer, you watch, you pay, end of story. We opted OTA when we lived in Fl. and it met all our needs, which were minimal anyway.

We now live in NC with no OTA, we have internet only at $40 p/m and stream via Netflix, Amazon (Prime) along with Roku, done deal. Cost is so low we don't even flinch when the bill comes. You may be surprised how simple life can be without all the bells and whistles from a bundled package.

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:
Not sure who your cellphone provider is but we have AT&T and with that you get access to the AT&T WatchTV app at no extra charge.
It has 40 some channels including HGTV, Food Network, and both the Hallmark and Hallmark Movie channels.

We have Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu. Still worlds cheaper than cable was when we dropped it nearly 10 years ago.

I have AT&T

Is that app something that you can access via a Roku?

In other news, water is wet.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: RHINOWSO,

I can’t wait for Comcast to be put out of business by a competitor.

Wonder who will dominate the 5G world? I have a feeling this will end cable internet.

Spectrum raised rates this year, too, so we dropped them and got a Roku dongle with Hulu live TV package.

quote:

Originally posted by Prefontaine:
Streaming services have horribly compressed audio. Once you subscribe to a number of them the cost savings go out the window.

Then don't? We have Netflix, Amazon Prime and PBS Passport. That's it. There will be no more.

As for the audio: *shrug* My hearing is crap, anyway, and my wife doesn't care much about the finer points of uncompressed audio.

quote:

Originally posted by heavyd:
I can’t wait for Comcast to be put out of business by a competitor.

You're going to be waiting a long, long, long time.

Comcast has been laying miles and miles of fiber in my area, and this area is "far suburban" to semi-rural. So they are obviously planning for a future of being primarily (only?) a broadband provider. They're already a major broadband backbone and backhaul carrier. And now they're branching out into mobile services. I honestly expect them to make a play for T-Mobile, eventually.