F...My Cable Company!
 

They have what I need and they know it. Last month my Cable TV + Internet cost was $150 which is quite f'ing absurd. I down graded my package last week one notch and they reduced my cost to a more "manageable" cost of $130 per month and they took NFL Networks away from me.


What a big f'ing ripoff! Here's to TV Freedom and A La Carte TV.

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

Yeah, Comcast can suck my left nut...

I pay $140 a month for 2 digital converters (one with DVR), all their channels (have to pay extra for a sports package that I would love you to have but an extra 5 bucks is ridiculous - fortunately NFL Network isn't in that package) and the internet. For what I'm paying them, they should have someone come to my house and change the channels for me. Bastards. And don't get me started on their Customer Service and slowness to correct their own interruption problems.

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

What I want to know is why hasn't the cost of broadband internet come down as more and more people have subscribed to it? $44.95 per month sure isn't cheap for internet.

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

I pay Time Warner $200 a month for internet, tv and phone all in one package. Then I pay Direct TV just so I can get the NFL package and don't miss my beloved Skins EVER! God, the things I could do with $250 a month....new jet ski, new car, new hooker...

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

I thought ALL hookers were USED.

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

Or I guess they would be when you were done with them eh? Zing.

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

[quote=jbcjr14]I pay Time Warner $200 a month for internet, tv and phone all in one package. Then I pay Direct TV just so I can get the NFL package and don't miss my beloved Skins EVER! God, the things I could do with $250 a month....new jet ski, new car, new hooker...[/quote]

Why do you have both TW and DTV?

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

for the NFL Sunday Ticket...i know someone who has both 4+ months out of the year...for the Ticket.

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

Yep...I only have DTV for the NFL Sunday Ticket...dont miss a game!

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

So why not just dump TW and go only with DTV? Same channels, a little cheaper too.

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

I don't know if DTV offers this, but DVR is the greatest thing I've ever had.

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

[quote=TheMalcolmConnection]I don't know if DTV offers this, but DVR is the greatest thing I've ever had.[/quote]

They do, I have one. Don't know how I ever lived without it!

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

ok, lets here it from everyone on the count of 3. f my cable company(and where it applies,f comcast)

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

I can't - the hail storms and thunderstorms are too much for the dish throughout the year. Its a sacrafice I have to make so I can watch the skins.

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

[QUOTE=Mattyk72]They do, I have one. Don't know how I ever lived without it![/QUOTE]
Finest innovation in entertainment since hookers.

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

[quote=jbcjr14]I can't - the hail storms and thunderstorms are too much for the dish throughout the year. Its a sacrafice I have to make so I can watch the skins.[/quote]

Yeah i had DTV for about two years, and every thunderstorm, small or not, it wouldn't work. So my family switched to cable back in december, ever since then it's been awesome. I think i should invest in Tivo or w/e it's called though, i've heard nothing but great things.

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

[quote=TheMalcolmConnection]I thought ALL hookers were USED.[/quote]

IT'S HOOKER DAY AT THE WARPATH!!! HAIL!!!

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

Let me answer a few of the comments and questions about cable:

There are several very legitimate reasons why premium cable services continue to be so expensive-- and probably will remain so, regardless of the entry of telephone companies into the video market:

[B]1)[/B] Premium broadband services such as high-speed internet, digital video (including HDTV), video-on-demand and digital voice cost a premium to provide. The ability to provide such services requires cable companies to spend millions of dollars upgrading their plant from the headend right down to the equipment in the customers' homes. And that's just to get started.

Once a certified broadband plant is in place, it has to be maintained. That means training and retaining an enormous technical workforce, providing that workforce with the tools and equipment they need (they need a LOT of tools and equipment, and a lot of it isn't cheap), maintaining a large fleet of service vehicles, and paying for the gas that goes into those vehicles. And that's just for the technicians! Think of all the customer service representatives, dispatchers, routers and other office support personnel that are required to keep things running behind the scenes.

[B]2)[/B] The digital equipment that goes into customers' homes is high-dollar as well. On average, your cable company pays about $250 for a basic digital converter box. Add in all the premium bells and whistles like HDTV and DVR functionality, and now you're talking upwards of $600 per box.

Now think about how sensitive these chip-laden devices are to even the slightest fluctuation in power (no, we can't make our customers buy high-end surge protectors), and consider how many thunderstorms sweep through during your average east coast summer. That means your cable company winds up having to spend that much more money to replace damaged or malfunctioning equipment.

[B]3) [/B]Then there's the programming costs. Cable companies pay a lot of dough to all those networks that fill up the 150 to 200 channels on their digital platforms. The really popular networks charge even more. And if you want to provide their network in high definition, well yeah, that's gonna be another fee on top of that.

[B]4) [/B]People like to talk about how cable companies have local monopolies. Well, that's not entirely true, since you do have to consider that the DSS option has been around for quite some time now. And yes, the DSS companies do represent real competition to the cable companies. At least in the digital video realm.

Phone companies have been providing high-speed internet services for a while now, too, so cable has had competition in that arena as well, though DSL has never really been able to keep up with cable internet's transmission speeds. But cable companies like Comcast continuously upgrade their systems to provide increasingly higher speeds precisely because DSL is always pushing from behind. That's why high-speed cable internet service continues to demand a premium price-- competition drives upgrades, which in turn drives costs.

Now telephone companies want to enter the video market as well... and they want their pick of only the best markets to make their own plant upgrades more cost-effective, which leads us to point number five:

[B]5) [/B]The "monopolies" that cable companies purportedly enjoy are in fact government-sanctioned franchises. In order to operate in a locality, the law requires that the cable company negotiate a franchise agreement with the local government. The local government, if it has the best interests of its constituents in mind, has the right to make certain demands of cable companies, including requiring them to meet and maintain prescribed service levels, standards of performance, rate restrictions, as well as pay a significant franchise fee to the local government to operate in that locality.

Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, the local government can require the cable company to meet stringent plant coverage requirements. For most cable companies, that means their services must be accessible to at least 80% to 85% of the homes in the locality. This of course means the cable company winds up spending a lot of money to extend their plant to areas that may never justify that cost.

But the big, powerful phone companies like Verizon are trying to back-door their way into the video market by spending millions of dollars on lobbying efforts to circumvent that particular requirement. Why? Because it would cost them hundreds more millions to build-out their fiber optic networks to the same coverage specs required of the cable companies. So in a sense, they want the ability to cherry-pick only the best, most profitable markets for their high-end video and internet services, while cable is still saddled with the franchise requirements that ensure equitable service coverage throughout a locality. That's why you're seeing these 'PSA'-styled advertisements championing "freedom of choice" in the video market, telling you to let your elected officials know you want them to remove the "regulatory hurdles" to competition in the video market. The big phone companies are spending lavishly on these commercials and other lobbying efforts to bypass the franchising laws that keep the cable companies in check. Of course, the cable companies are putting up a fight to defend themselves from this anti-competitive strategy.

So, if competition in the form of fiber-optic video service does get clearance, it will either be in only the areas where people can afford to pay a premium for it; or it will be in the same areas as cable, which means telephone companies will have to pay a fortune to build-out their fiber-optic plant, and that means prices certainly won't go down.

The bottom line is, this is a very high-overhead business, particularly when companies start getting into an arms race of sorts for competitive broadband services. The cost of that broadband arms race is ultimately going to be passed on to the consumer. It sucks, but if people weren't willing to pay those prices for those services, cable companies wouldn't be providing them...





...and yes, I do work for the cable company! :)

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

But why does customer support suck so much?

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

I'm in LA and Adelphia sucks donkey. Customer service??? What's that?? They are almost as bad as Dell computer but not quite. I can sort of understand the spanish dialect at the cable company's "office", but at Dell, I just can't pick up the eastern Indian accent...

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

[QUOTE=ArtMonkDrillz]But why does customer support suck so much?[/QUOTE]

Why does customer support suck so much at [I]any[/I] company? It's usually a highly stressful, low-paying, heavily-monitored and virtually thankless job. Trust me, I know. When I first got out of college, I had a couple of customer support jobs in the ISP and software industries.

Because companies that provide high-maintenance products such as cable service are required to keep such a large customer support staff on hand to handle high customer call volume, they can't afford to pay much money to each individual support rep. This means the people they hire for those jobs aren't exactly holding advanced degrees. It also means the people they hire for those jobs generally don't stick around very long. I lasted all of about 3 months on my first job as a technical support rep for a dial-up ISP. On my second job, as a customer support rep for a software-maker, I lasted about six months. And trust me, I'm not the exception. The turnover rate for these kinds of jobs is exceedingly high.

Why? Imagine being the most pissed-off you've ever been about any product or service you've ever bought. You call in to give customer support absolute hell. But because there are 500 other customers trying to call in and give customer support hell at the same time, you have to wait on hold for 10 minutes. Now you're REALLY pissed! By the time you actually get to hear a human voice, you're just bursting with fire and brimstone. Who gets to handle all that hellfire? Some guy just trying to get by, who has the unenviable position of having to handle about 100 to 150 more people just like you before he gets to go home and think about doing it all over again the next day. Most folks can't tolerate that kind of life for very long. Those that can-- or don't have any choice, like I did-- usually become pretty jaded, cynical and desensitized early on in the process.

That leaves you with basically two kinds of support reps: inexperienced, naive and sensitive (like I was); or jaded, cynical and desensitized. None of those qualities are really what you want in customer support representative.

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

Good point, I was just giving you crap because I'm naturally a jerk.

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

[QUOTE=TheMalcolmConnection]I don't know if DTV offers this, but [B]DVR is the greatest thing I've ever had.[/B][/QUOTE]

How does it compare to a new or used hooker?

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

[QUOTE=joecrisp]...and yes, I do work for the cable company! :)[/QUOTE]

I had that figured out by your second paragraph ;)

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

[QUOTE=joecrisp]That leaves you with basically two kinds of support reps: inexperienced, naive and sensitive (like I was); or jaded, cynical and desensitized. None of those qualities are really what you want in customer support representative.[/QUOTE]

I was jaded, cynical and desensitzed BEFORE I went into customer support.

I lasted all of about a year - had some good times with callers though. One woman asked me what in the world the red button (the mouse) in the middle of her IBM keyboard was and if it was safe to touch it. I warned her in a very serious, stern manner that the button was only to be pressed in extreme data management emergencies, as it was the self-destruct for her laptop.

To this day I'm not sure she ever caught on - she just used the trackpad instead ;)

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

Cable is a good example of why government having close oversight of an industry causes more problems than it is worth. A lot of the problems in the cable industry stem from badly conceived regulations and non-sensical enforcement. That being said I do get the distinct impression that cable companies are doing very little the remedy the situation.

Any company should want to compete in a market that allows them flexibility to achieve their best profits. Because they are essentially granted monopolies(you can call them what you want. they still get a market to themselves.) they have no incentive to change pursue change within the industry to create a more competitive market that would in turn reduce cost and increase customer satisfaction.

I do think a lot of the issues aren't in the cable companies control but I think what gets informed customer sos mad is that cable companies dont seem to care that everything is screwed up.

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

I work for Cablevision here on Long Island and I agree totally with what Joe said. Everyone hates the cable companies but no one understands what the cost's are to run one. VIVA CABLE!!

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

I work the The Cable Company and for $50 I'll juice ya up. Then maybe we could hang out, I'll buy you a Heini!

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

Well here ya go:

[URL="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/06/09/MNGQPJBHQE1.DTL"]House OKs bill to make subscription TV market more competitive[/URL]

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

I think this is also a step in the direction of people ANYWHERE being able to get cable. If they start running it through phone lines that means high speed, cheap internet for anyone, anywhere.

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

I just went through this cable/direct tv nightmare last week, I had Comcast, which I loved, but my bill for the past two months has been around $220 a month for cable (1 HD box, 4 others, with HBO, and internet). I freaked out when, when Comcast would not "work" with me to lower the price. Usually they will help you out, especially since I saw an add for Comcast for Cable, phone and internet for $99 a month for a year for new customers, way to screw over you existing customers! Anyways I got lured into switching to Direct TV, I saw an add on (uh oh the Warpath), which promised to provide a great TV package, but negeleted to mention that DTV is very difficult to navigate and a nightmare in the rain, DTV sucks! When the DTV technician came to "hook up" the system, he unknowingly unhooked my cable internet from Comcast which I was keeping, it took three days and countless phone calls to get someone back out from DTV to hook it back up, because Comcast wont "fix a problem they didn’t break", so I was without internet for those days, and lucky me it just happened to be last week when we had all those storms (DC Area) so the F-ing DTV didn’t work either, I actually had to read a book! What is the world coming to? Anyways I cancelled both DTV and Comcast and started a new Comcast account under my girlfriends name. F them both!

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

[quote=joecrisp]Why does customer support suck so much at [I]any[/I] company? It's usually a highly stressful, low-paying, heavily-monitored and virtually thankless job. Trust me, I know. When I first got out of college, I had a couple of customer support jobs in the ISP and software industries.

Because companies that provide high-maintenance products such as cable service are required to keep such a large customer support staff on hand to handle high customer call volume, they can't afford to pay much money to each individual support rep. This means the people they hire for those jobs aren't exactly holding advanced degrees. It also means the people they hire for those jobs generally don't stick around very long. I lasted all of about 3 months on my first job as a technical support rep for a dial-up ISP. On my second job, as a customer support rep for a software-maker, I lasted about six months. And trust me, I'm not the exception. The turnover rate for these kinds of jobs is exceedingly high.

Why? Imagine being the most pissed-off you've ever been about any product or service you've ever bought. You call in to give customer support absolute hell. But because there are 500 other customers trying to call in and give customer support hell at the same time, you have to wait on hold for 10 minutes. Now you're REALLY pissed! By the time you actually get to hear a human voice, you're just bursting with fire and brimstone. Who gets to handle all that hellfire? Some guy just trying to get by, who has the unenviable position of having to handle about 100 to 150 more people just like you before he gets to go home and think about doing it all over again the next day. Most folks can't tolerate that kind of life for very long. Those that can-- or don't have any choice, like I did-- usually become pretty jaded, cynical and desensitized early on in the process.

That leaves you with basically two kinds of support reps: inexperienced, naive and sensitive (like I was); or jaded, cynical and desensitized. None of those qualities are really what you want in customer support representative.[/quote]

My wife worked in a customer service job for about a year right out of college. Imagine all that hellfire getting directed at her all day long, and then imagine being the guy she came home to in the evenings!

But still, DirecTV costs me significantly less than Cable. I pay $58 a month for one receiver with TIVO service, and a second regular receiver in the den. I get NFL Network, ESPN News, and a whole slew of other channels. And when I call them up for customer support, I've gotten nothing but friendly and very helpful people on the other end.

I think part of the problem being a rep at a cable company is that the cable company makes you so mad in the first place by charging so damn much. So like you said Joe, naturally callers are going to get mad at that. DirecTV customer support reps probably don't face as much anger from the get go, because in general, that company keeps people happy with it's core service. Maybe that's why their reps seem so friendly.

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

All I have to say is $1800 a year for TV and Internet service is preposterous. Besides, cable companies (Comcast at least) are now using contractors to do their work which saves them money but they sure as hell aren't passing those savings to me. I will not be content with them jacking my rates 6% annually.

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

I know as far as Cablevision goes here on Long Island, they sign 1 year contracts with the stations they carry and every year when they re-negotiate those contracts the stations raise their price thus the cable companies pass those raises on to the customer. Its a vicious cycle and if I didn't work for a cable company and get my tv, internet and phone for free I would probably be a DTV customer.

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

[QUOTE=TheMalcolmConnection]I think this is also a step in the direction of people ANYWHERE being able to get cable. If they start running it through phone lines that means high speed, cheap internet for anyone, anywhere.[/QUOTE]

Not exactly. In order for Verizon and the other phone companies to provide video and high-speed internet service, they have to go through the tremendously expensive process of building-out their fiber optic network to the houses they want to serve-- note that I said "the houses they [I]want[/I] to serve". That means only the people in dense upper income areas will have those services available to them, and at a cost that justifies the expensive means of delivering those services. We're not talking about the existing twisted-pair copper phone line networks that were mandated by federal law to be accessible to virtually anyone, anywhere. We're talking about the high-volume fiber optic trunks that are capable of transmitting broadband services such as digital video and high-speed internet. It costs a TON of money to build-out these FIOS networks directly to the customers' homes, as Verizon is doing now-- and once again, that's only in select neighborhoods.

I think the politicians who are claiming this is a big money-saving coup for the consumer are either totally unaware of the costs involved in providing these services (which will inevitably be passed onto the consumer), and therefore genuinely believe they've done something good for their constituents, or were so overwhelmed by the money being thrown at them by Big Phone that they couldn't help but paint a rosy picture of this legislation.

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

Sigh...I miss the good ole days when Joe Crisp used to talk to us about the Redskins and how disappointing Taylor Jacobs is. Now it's all fiber-optics, copper and legislation.

Where have you gone, Joe Crisp?
The Warpath turns its lonely eyes to you
(woo, woo, woo)
What's that you say Mr. FRPLG
Camp Reporter Joe has left and gone away
(hey, hey, hey)

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

[QUOTE=Schneed10]I think part of the problem being a rep at a cable company is that the cable company makes you so mad in the first place by charging so damn much. So like you said Joe, naturally callers are going to get mad at that. DirecTV customer support reps probably don't face as much anger from the get go, because in general, that company keeps people happy with it's core service. Maybe that's why their reps seem so friendly.[/QUOTE]

I used to catch a lot of hell as a DirecTV installer, actually. Maybe their customer service has improved a lot in the past five years, but when I was working for them, one of the customers' biggest complaints (aside from the picture going out when it rains) was the crappy customer service over the phone. Plus, most customers were locked-into contracts that required them to pay a penalty for cancellation of service, and they had to purchase the equipment. So if the equipment went bad, they were "SOL".

As far as prices go, if you look past the sign-up promotions and actually study what you get for the price, cable and dish's non-promotional standard rates are about the same, though there is always some variance from market to market. I'd expect that's pretty much how it's going to work with Verizon, as well. I think if politicians' claims were to come true that consumers will save $30 to $40 on services per month, we'd see a lot of bankrupt telecommunications companies. Well, a lot more than there are now, at least.

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

[QUOTE=saden1]All I have to say is $1800 a year for TV and Internet service is preposterous. Besides, cable companies (Comcast at least) are now using contractors to do their work which saves them money but they sure as hell aren't passing those savings to me. I will not be content with them jacking my rates 6% annually.[/QUOTE]

Actually, the use of contract labor for service installation has almost always been a part of the cable business. Some markets just lean on contractors more than others. And, to be quite honest, it's very debatable whether relying on contractors actually saves cable companies any money in the long run. Contractors have no incentive to do a good job on their installations. For them, it's mostly a matter of getting in and out of each job as quickly as possible so they can make more money-- regardless of the impact that has on the quality of service. While cable companies have to pay benefits to in-house technicians, they can also hold in-house techs much more accountable for the quality of their work, and therefore reduce the volume of trouble calls, which are a major driver of operating costs-- and therefore the size of your cable bill.

Re: F...My Cable Company!
 

[QUOTE=TAFKAS]Sigh...I miss the good ole days when Joe Crisp used to talk to us about the Redskins and how disappointing Taylor Jacobs is. Now it's all fiber-optics, copper and legislation.

Where have you gone, Joe Crisp?
The Warpath turns its lonely eyes to you
(woo, woo, woo)
What's that you say Mr. FRPLG
Camp Reporter Joe has left and gone away
(hey, hey, hey)[/QUOTE]

Hrmph... I guess you can thank Karl Swanson for that.