****ing time warner

[pizzaman]

i've just about had it with these morons and their bull**** service. i could sit here for hours droning on about all the reasons i need to drop them and move to one of my other options. so...

how do you feel about your tv & internet service providers? any opinions or comments, even suggestions about who I should switch to?

 

[dontman]

the grass is always greener. When I with TW I hated them, then I moved and switched to Comcast and learned white hot blind raging hatred and started to remember TW very fondly, wishing I could go back.

Then I switched to Direct TV. They charged me for a year of NFL Sunday Ticket without informing and I never used it and every time it stormed I would lose service and then it would reboot all of the time and take an hour or two to come back on.

So I switched to RCN. Terrible HD line up. So I switched back to Comcast and here I stay. Visited my dad a couple weeks back. He has TW and it completely sucked and I left his house resolute that I would never leave Comcast.

 

[Stratotankard]

I hate Comcast. We have them now and I'm paying almost $60 more than I was when I had a nice regional cable company named MidContinent. For that extra $60 I get a decent HD line up, but fewer channels overall and much slower internet. Oh, and intermittent OnDemand service because "there must be an extra splitter on [my] line." They came to my house and installed everything I have (for $20 a room to activate!) and left me with a patchwork phone box that looks like a 3rd grader worked on. After 4 boxes I think we might have found one that works.

All that said, I do love getting HD finally.

Terje

 

[Uncle Timmy]

.......Then I switched to Direct TV. They charged me for a year of NFL Sunday Ticket without informing......

.
DirecTV did the exact same thing to me. Told me since I had it last year they just signed me up for it again. Thing is, I had just signed up for DirecTV and hadn't had it the year before. Got a full refund.
.
Ok. Back on topic now.
.

 

[DylansDad]

LOL to the posts above.

We went with AT&T's Uverse Service. It had issues a couple years back but we rode through their growing pains. It has paid off. Great HD line up, great packages you can subscribe to, and service that rarely, if ever (now), goes out. Actually I can't remember the last time it went out. Access to my DVR's shows on any Uverse box in the house. Fast Internet speeds and good prices. Wi-Fi access at all the AT&T Wi-Fi hot spots. The best one yet, we have yet to fill up our DVR and we have about 90 shows on it right now ranging from 30 minutes to 2 hour movies.

I recommend it to everyone that brings up the cable companies.

BTW, the issues were service going out sporadically and set top boxes freezing. It boils down to the new platform back then and the fact that they were expanding so much it was causing havoc on their servers. All is fixed.

That's my 2 cents.

 

[Brooklyn-Brewtality]

be happy with Time Warner, they have issues... but i prefer them 1000x to Optimum, DirectTV or Comcast.

 

[Wade E]

Ive been back and forth with AT&T and Comcast, I dont have the HD though so cant comment on that stuff. When with AT&T we get the Dish Network which has a damn good picture and the internet is pretty darn fast and the wifi router comes with the package for free. With Comcast the service is way cheaper and why Im currently with them cause times are tight but the picture sucks and the internet is no where near as fat and I have use my Linksys router along with their modem. AT&T's phone service is very expensive and they wouldnt come down on that which made their service about $60 a month more.

 

[Professor Frink]

My experience is that they all suck. I have TWC, they suck as bad as anyone. Unfortunately, the telecommunications industry has regional monopolies, so there's not much you can do.

 

[Bernie Brewer]

Hmmmm..........
I've had Dish network for around 15 years and have never had a problem. They don't bother me with telemarketers trying to get me to upgrade, I rarely have a service interruption, I don't have the billing glitches, whatever. I have friends that have Charter cable and are always getting screwed on their bill. Same with DirecTV. They suck too.

 

[Homercidal]

Hmmmm..........
I've had Dish network for around 15 years and have never had a problem. They don't bother me with telemarketers trying to get me to upgrade, I rarely have a service interruption, I don't have the billing glitches, whatever. I have friends that have Charter cable and are always getting screwed on their bill. Same with DirecTV. They suck too.

+1 Although I have friends who use Charter Cable and they seem to love it. Bundled packages are saving them a bit.

The HD on Dish seems to be pretty good too. My Internet is through the phone company though.

 

[Bobby_M]

Dishnetwork for me. Good HD lineup even on "bronze" service level. Single box for two TVs (access to the DVR from both). If FIOS comes around or Cablevision gets a whole house DVR, I'll probably let them give me their into discount.

 

[Dwain]

the grass is always greener.....

Man, this cliche' was invented about cable/sat. tv/phone service. I have always been forced into the regional monopoly situation with both cable and telephone. The phone company a$$clowns would charge $38 including taxes for just DSL. The entry level cable package was $38. I went with a bundle package and it was so bad, I almost filed sexual assault charges on TW. Finally, I got so frustrated that I went with DirectV. I paid $199 for the HD box and dish. Entry level package was $25 plus $8 for HD. For a phone, I went with Vonage. Had to buy the set up, it was ~ $75
Fast forward a couple of years:
My DirectV bill for the same service has crept to $72
Vonage still $20
Local phone company for DSL only, ~$35
FYI for the last few months, even a small rain storm knocks out my DirectV. Also, even though I "bought" the dish and box from Best Buy, I don't own them. If I terminate my service, I have to return the box or pay another $200. - Dwain

 

[keelanfish]

I'm loving my rabbit ears, although I liked them before digital as I could watch even if the signal strength wasn't over 80%. Rabbit ears, Netflix and High Speed DSL is all I need.

 

[uglygoat]

i only have tw interweb. it's fast and pretty reliable, but they are pushing it at forty bucks give or take. they can shove their cable packages up their asses. there's nothing on basic cable worth an additional forty bucks a month, let alone the outrageously priced 'digital service'.

 

[MMW]

At least you have a national company-- we have a crazy redneck kludge cable company. You get better reception with a coat hanger.

 

[david_42]

Don't try Hughes, unless you like to spend 8 days downloading a movie.

 

[cabledawg]

FYI for the last few months, even a small rain storm knocks out my DirectV.

If this happens often you might need to repeak your dish. I have a pole mount in my back yard and about every year I have to repeak it due to the movement of the pole. When I had it on the roof I had to do it more often.

 

[Bernie Brewer]

FYI for the last few months, even a small rain storm knocks out my DirectV. - Dwain

That's the one bad thing about the dish. If the flunky that installs it doesn't have a clue or doesn't care about his work, you can have problems like that. If the dish is installed correctly, it takes a lot more than a few raindrops to interrupt service. I installed my own dish, because I know personally one of the installers, and he does a terrible job.

 

[FireNightFly]

I just recieved a refund check today from Time Warner ... it only took 9 weeks. To bad I cant charge them a late fee, like they have me.

 

[Dwain]

I installed it. I actually use a portable tv and sit with it. I tune the dish until I get the highest numbers. I checked it about 6 mos ago, it was still good. Maybe I'll check it again. - Dwain

 

[downreactor]

Don't try Hughes, unless you like to spend 8 days downloading a movie.

If you do download a movie they will then penalize you with their "fair access policy" and slow your connection to a crawl for 24 hours.

 

[malkore]

i have time warner/road runner. couldn't be happier. Alltel's DSL was slow and their service was non-existent.

everyone i know with comcast loathes them.

ask yourself "is it really that bad? or am I expecting too much sometimes?"

i know not all time warner locations are as good as mine.

 

[pizzaman]

Thanks for all the responses, i'm getting a sense that just about everyone has problems with their service providers no matter who they are. A couple interesting articles i've found:

Cancel Cable TV

How to cancel cable TV and still watch your favorite shows. — CancelCable.com

The first is a graph showing the search trends for the phrase "cancel cable" over the past few years. The second is something I'm seriously considering doing, stripping myself of all phone/tv and relying solely on the internet, which has both tv and phone services freely available.

 

[uglygoat]

we dumped the cable last spring, and really stopped watching television. we check dvd's out from the library, and watch a few shows online, but it's really nice not to have talking heads and crap blaring in the house.

losing cable was made a lot easier by the indians sucking the royal hodge this summer, what's gonna be tuff is not watching the cavs games come november. i might check out tnt's nba ticket or whatever you can stream online, i think it costs less for the entire season than one month of basic cable.

 

[dontman]

i might check out tnt's nba ticket or whatever you can stream online, i think it costs less for the entire season than one month of basic cable.

I'm pretty sure that you don't want to do this. Those contracts almost always call for local blackout which means that you would be able to watch any NBA game you wanted as long as it wasn't the Cavaliers.

I made that mistake with NFL Sunday Ticket on DirectTV and with MLB online for the Phillies.

Serious flaw in the plan is that you can only watch "out of market" games. The only time you can catch your home team is if you are traveling.

 

[uglygoat]

i could fake the ip addy no? good to know though!

 

[cubbies]

The grass may always be greener, but I just gave up on Charter. My service was horrible. My screen would digitize (bust up into small squares) all the time. My OnDemand was 50/50 at best. No whole house DVR, only two recordings at once, small DVR hard drive (constantly deleting stuff I hadnt watched), long delays. Finally one month my service was even worse than normal and I called and said I wanted my month credited or else I was leaving. They said they needed to send a tech out first. The tech came out, found all sorts of problems with the inital installation. Replaced a bunch of cable and did a lot of work. It worked a little better after that. A week or two later my OnDemand was not working again and I called and told them I was leaving if they didnt credit my month and they said they would only credit me $60. So, Tuesday the U-verse guy comes out to install my new service! I am stoked. The grass may always be greener, but I have not heard any complaints from U-verse users in a while. In fact most people tell me it is the best you can get. I'll let you know come Tuesday

 

[TMet]

If brighthouse is available in your area I love them.