Service Providers (Internet, TV, Etc)

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Denamian

Denamian

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AladainAF_sl said:
They offered me 300 down, 50 up for $59 a month for 12 months, $69 a month for the next 12 months, and $79 a month thereafter, with no contracts to go back to them.
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Christ, I pay $65 a month to TWC for 20 down, 10 up, though I could drop $6 off that if I get around to buying a modem. I would go elsewhere but the next best competitor is Verizon DSL which I just set up for a friend and he gets 3 down at best.
 
Noodleface

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Yeah but from what I've found it varies area to area. For instance, in our first apartment Comcast had no data cap and it was reflected in "our account" on their page. However, in our new town the website clearly shows a 250GB cap. From what I can tell it's not consistent across the board.
 
Ritley

Ritley

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Noodleface_sl said:
Yeah but from what I've found it varies area to area. For instance, in our first apartment Comcast had no data cap and it was reflected in "our account" on their page. However, in our new town the website clearly shows a 250GB cap. From what I can tell it's not consistent across the board.
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They really only enforce caps in trial markets. And by trial markets, I mean markets where they are the only option
 
Thengel

Thengel

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Decided to cut the cable TV, finally. Of course, "cutting the cord" is false, because I still need their internet and phone. I don't know why we need the phone, my wife wants it. Called them up to cancel TV, and after 27 minutes on hold and 20 minutes of lady trying to convince me that we really really need TV, she says ok, let me put you on hold and I'll get your price for internet and phone. 118$ a month. Wait, what? I was paying 140$ for full cable, HBO, and two boxes. I'll save 22$ by getting rid of that?

Of course, Time Warner is pretty much my only option, other than Verizon DSL. Not even sure what, if any, option I have. Unfortunately I had something else to do after sitting on the phone for 47 minutes, and I didn't even have time to argue with her.
 
Joeboo

Joeboo

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Thengel_sl said:
Decided to cut the cable TV, finally. Of course, "cutting the cord" is false, because I still need their internet and phone. I don't know why we need the phone, my wife wants it. Called them up to cancel TV, and after 27 minutes on hold and 20 minutes of lady trying to convince me that we really really need TV, she says ok, let me put you on hold and I'll get your price for internet and phone. 118$ a month. Wait, what? I was paying 140$ for full cable, HBO, and two boxes. I'll save 22$ by getting rid of that?

Of course, Time Warner is pretty much my only option, other than Verizon DSL. Not even sure what, if any, option I have. Unfortunately I had something else to do after sitting on the phone for 47 minutes, and I didn't even have time to argue with her.
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Get rid of that land line if you have cell phones, it's costing you a fortune. I have TW in an area that has basically no competition, so they gouge me good, but my internet(the fastest they offer here, 50Mbps) is still only $75 a month by itself. That landline is probably costing you about $45 a month.

If your wife absolutely HAS to have a landline, snag an Ooma or magicjack or something of that sort.
 
BrutulTM

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The cable companies are so freaked out by the idea of cord cutting that they are trying to make internet basically the same price as internet + TV.
 
Joeboo

Joeboo

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I foresee the option of purchasing internet separate from cable TV disappearing at some point. Cable companies will just offer "cable", and that includes whatever you want on TV or the internet, even if you don't use one or the other. It's all coming in to your home on the same lines anyways. $200+ a month. Yippee.
 
BrutulTM

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The only way that it won't happen is if a viable alternative shows up for internet. There's no way they could get away with that shit if they had competition.
 
Chanur

Chanur

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There is literally zero reason to have a VoIP phone if you have a cell. If she is one of those keep a phone in case of emergencies get an actual land line because your VoIP phone will be worthless. Its actually better for 911 as well.
 
K

Kedwyn

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If you need a VOIP phone get phonepower or any of the numerous VOIP companies that don't charge much. You can get unlimited everything in the USA and Canada for $50-60. Pick up an Obi box and call it a day.


As for cable bundles, no way they bundle TV with internet as the only option.

What they will likely do though is make it financially difficult for you to take Internet without TV. $78 for Internet vs $95 for TV and Internet as an example. Then in addition offer premium speed for TV customers, say 100mbits and higher caps or perhaps even no caps.

Bandwidth usage is only going to rise. They are going to get their money from you one way or another.
 
Joeboo

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I'd like to see us get to the point where TV channels are just websites. Tune your TV to something like amc.tv if you want to watch the Walking Dead when it is on live. Arbitrary numbered channels that differ from carrier to carrier are dumb. I also see no reason that I shouldn't be able to easily watch all the channels I subscribe to if I have both TV and internet from 1 company anyways.

I'd love to have HBO.tv up on one monitor watching Game of Thrones while having hbo.com up on the other monitor for all the extras, maps, house lineage trees, etc. at the same time.
 
BrutulTM

BrutulTM

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Yes, the whole idea of a "channel" is pretty much an anachronism once we get to the point where we are just streaming everything on demand. It's hard to beat the efficiency of broadcast though. Sending the "Mad Men" file to everyone who wants to watch it when they want to watch it is much less efficient than just blasting it out to everyone at a set time.
 
Joeboo

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BrutulTM_sl said:
Yes, the whole idea of a "channel" is pretty much an anachronism once we get to the point where we are just streaming everything on demand. It's hard to beat the efficiency of broadcast though. Sending the "Mad Men" file to everyone who wants to watch it when they want to watch it is much less efficient than just blasting it out to everyone at a set time.
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I have absolutely no knowledge of the hardware and technologies behind this stuff, but I've always found it odd that your cable line is sending you 200+ crystal-clear HD channels of video all the time, constantly, yet streaming 1 HD video via the internet on that same cable line can bog down depending on the time of day and the source.
 
Thengel

Thengel

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Kedwyn_sl said:
If you need a VOIP phone get phonepower or any of the numerous VOIP companies that don't charge much. You can get unlimited everything in the USA and Canada for $50-60. Pick up an Obi box and call it a day.


As for cable bundles, no way they bundle TV with internet as the only option.

What they will likely do though is make it financially difficult for you to take Internet without TV. $78 for Internet vs $95 for TV and Internet as an example. Then in addition offer premium speed for TV customers, say 100mbits and higher caps or perhaps even no caps.

Bandwidth usage is only going to rise. They are going to get their money from you one way or another.
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Yeah I think we've decided to go with the Ooma for phone. The cable company prices for phone are usually cheap, and in a bundle you many times SAVE money by getting the phone - that's why we have it. They list their price as 10$ a month for the first 12 months. Of course no where will they EVER tell you the regular price after 12 months. I assume, since I'm not a new customer, I'm getting the base price. On a different site (allconnect) it's listed as 44.99. Obviously this, plus the 72.99 regular price for internet is where they are getting 118$. Definitely dropping the phone, and seeing if I can get a better price on internet. If not, I'll just have to get slower internet, and/or threaten to disconnect it and get...DSL...hopefully they don't call my bluff. Zero other options in this city.
 
Joeboo

Joeboo

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Ooma works great, my dad has it, pays like $3.40 a month or something like that(you just pay federal taxes and fees). The only odd thing that I'll warn you about, when he first hooked up his ooma, for the first couple of days there was a slight delay on the line, like you could tell there was a 2-3 second pause in what he was hearing and then responding to, but that went away completely after a couple of days. I don't know if the Ooma box needs some time to adjust internal settings based on your particular bandwidth or what caused that exactly, but it did go away pretty quickly and its been fine ever since(he's had it for about 6 months now)
 
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