cable - GRR

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
cable - GRR
12
Wed, 02-23-2005 - 3:03pm
Our development had a contract with our development to provide cable at discount rates. The contract expires this month and now the cable rates are doubling! What is REALLY irritating is that we had a prepay agreement with the cable company. Now, in mmost cases, if you prepay the year, you are guarding against rate increases. Not so with cable. They still raised or rates and have our money interest free. And their customer service really stinks as well. It really is "what are you going to do about it?"
Well, we decided to get Direct TV. The customer service is good and I really like the feeling I got when we returned the cable box. And the satelite bill is the same rate I was paying before the cable contract ran out.
What gives cable companies (or realistically -- any company) the right to raise rates and treat you like crap? They don't even try. I can't stand giving my money to people/companies with bad customer service or high opinions of themselves. Most of the people I know are either switching to satelite, dropping to basic or dropping cable all together. And for some reason they are surprised!
OK. I am vented now.
Sandra

Pages

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-14-2003
In reply to: usg1865
Sun, 02-27-2005 - 8:53pm

We got DirecTv in December and I LOVE MY TIVO!! Now I justify having the channels I have because I can watch things that are on when I'm not home or busy. We have the smallest package and right now we are getting HBO and Cinemax for free.

Brandon and I actually sell DTV at work. Right now they have Free installation of up to 4 rooms and when you pick the total choice plus package you get total choice premier free for three months. I was scared at first to change to DTV because of all of the bad things I heard about satellite while I worked for the cable company but this is how someone explained it to me: Cable companies use satellites, that is how they get the channels and then the cables in the ground carry it to your home. So it really isn't THAT much different.

For internet, I use DSL. I really like that my speed is consistent. I don't have to worry about the speed slowing down when a ton of people are on during peak hours. I had cable internet and really DSL is consistently faster. :)

Stephanie

PS: Instead of two cents worth you got a dollars worth! Oops!

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2004
In reply to: usg1865
Tue, 03-01-2005 - 11:05am

We recently dropped our Comcast cable and internet service. It seemed like they were raising our rates every other month (I'm sure it wasn't that often but it sure seemed like it).

We live in an area serviced by SBC. SBC sent us an offer we couldn't refuse. We are now getting 60 channels on Dish Network in 3 rooms (one DVR~ like a TIVO~ will operate two rooms and a standard receiver for our bedroom) and or DSL for our internet. There was no charge to install the dish or the receivers and even I could install the DSL. LOL! The cost for the dish is $31.99/month and the DSL is $19.00/month. Since we switched from Comcast, they gave us 3 months of the dish free and 2 months of the DSL free. There is a yearly contract with the DSL but no contract at all for the dish.

I was pleasantly surprised when my phone bill came the other day. It was $220.00 for our local phone serice, two cell phones (Cingular one with 275 min and one with 350 min), two months DSL, two months Dish Network, and the $12.95 shipping for the DSL modem. They forgot to remove the promo offers but after a quick phone call to SBC, they took the charges off. Once the promo ends, my phone bill for all of the services will be about $150.00/month or just about 30 more than my Comcast bill was!

I know it's still a lot of money but once we got our cell phones, we can't imagine how we would now do without them. We have two children (18 and 16) that take one of the phones with them when they drive somewhere. To me, it's worth the cost to know that if they have any car problems, they can reach us.

Pages