Live Sound & Production

[Unalaska]

Sorry if this is too off topic but I'm gonna rely on the fact that this forum has more experts on it that in, say, off topic or the guitar forum. If you'd like I can post it there and provide a link to how quickly things can go downhill...

My wife and I bought a house and we're in the process of moving. There is an overlap of a couple weeks where we (um, actually "I") get to paint stuff and fix/replace. But who cares. It's my hatred of comcast that is the reason for this post.

Currently:

Comcast for cable, basic plus some extras like HBO and showtime all on promotional prices. And my wife likes to buy movies. cost is around $140+movies, this month it was an extra $30

Clearwire, 4mbs down, .7mps up. Not great but really does just fine for our needs. Been working everyday for the last 4 years. $33/mo

Netflix you know. Got it on our Wii/PS3/Ipad etc. $8

We don't have a home phone, basically this is a clean slate opportunity here, Start fresh you know.

The question to youse out there: who do you like for service?

If it helps, we're not big on DVR stuff, sport channels. regular ol TV is fine, and the innernets we getting is ok too.

[agedhorse]

Good question and worth thinking about. Congratulations on the move too.

I just did this 4 years ago, moved my shop and house to a new property that had a good sized commercially zoned shop on site, but where we are there was no option for cable.

I found that the telco DSL was available where I am (by about 2000 feet) at lower speed but still plenty adequate. I went with Dish for the TV thing, it was overall less expensive than our old ComCast AND the DVR thing is really nice. I can watch an hour of TV in 35-40 minutes. Way cool. Again, because of location, ATT was my only practical cell choice, so availability played a big role in how it worked out.

[Bobby1Note]

First off, congratulations on the new house.

Pete, Although I'm in Canada, I do business with ITT Primus for telephone and internet. I'm a Costco Executive member, and as such , I got my package through them. I've been 100% satisfied. If you're a Costco member, it may be worthwhile checking out. I don't know how this compares to U.S. plans,,, your market is way more competitive for this stuff, but I get 10mbps hi-speed internet, unlimited downloads, plus my basic phone, and unlimited long-distance 24/7, anywhere in North America. $59./mo. for the first year/ $69.00 after that.

Our TV plans SUCK. I do business with Bell, and you've got to watch those bastards like a hawk, because they pad your bill with stuff you've never asked for.

[Chaff67]

I've been with Comcast for years. I pay about $140/month for TV. internet and phone (not including rented movies). Overall I have been happy with their customer service up until the issue I am currently having with them. Basically, I returned their internet modem about a year ago when I bought my own to save the $7/month fee. I don't usually check my bill but just pay it. Many months go by when I noticed that they were still charging me for it. Well 3 phone calls (approx. 45 minutes each) later and I still haven't gotten the $100 refund they promised me. It wasn't until the 2nd call that they finally stopped charging me for the unit. So as of right now, if I don't see the refund on February's bill, I'll be switching to FiOS.

[Mutha Goose]

Congrats on the new house. I recently did the same. As such, I also had the same question. Here's what I found:

Services:

• HD
• DVR
• Couple of movie channels
• Internet access

Take any one of the above away, and Dish or DirectTV (with DSL) etc... was the better deal. With all 4, cable (CableVision in my town) was the better deal. FiOS was not an option, though I imagine that would have been more expensive. I have no need of a home phone, so I have no idea on how that would factor into the cost.

[RoadRanger]

I only have basic cable because it's free with the cable internet connection. Besides NetFlix I have Hulu+ which has a lot of the network stuff except for CBS. Some of CBS and some cable stuff you can watch on-line too. You can rent/buy newer streaming movies on Amazon. I have a Roku box that lets me watch Netfix and Amazon (plus a lot of other stuff like old public domain Westerns and SciFi ) on the big TV. I also have a DVR that records the basic cable and a Western Digital TV Live Hub (w/ 1 TB hard drive) that can play mp3 and video files, stream youtube (the Roku can't) and do some of what the Roku can do. Oh, and that 1 TB drive can hold about 1400 two hour movies if they should happen to mysteriously get on there somehow    .

[nchangin]

I've had charter for years. Seemed to work fine, nice speed but uploads were slow (assume lan limited). Moved to a new apartment and had triple bundle with lan line, network and cable, standard hi def box no DVR. When I kept calling them because they kept having issues hooking up the phone line so after 2 weeks I dropped them, still have one month in collections I'm battling due to them not providing phone service for that period.

Moved to knology, found out their internet was simply superior uploads and downloads, also fast news server. Moved to a house no issues at all and the install guy even put a new cable drop in a specfic room on the 2nd floor (non wall drop) without charging me a 50.00 drop fee. We got the bundle "deal" for like 100 per month, with fees I think it was like 130.00 month, well soon as the package deal ran out bill kept increasing and increasing and now at 170.00 month, 2 dvrs,hi def, encore movie crap channel and some (but not a lot) HD channels

My beef is with all cable companies why do they always buck you once the period is over AND jack up the rates. I mean ok dude fine let me unsubscribe and drop my service and then have my SO call in to have it all hooked back up in her name as  "new customer", so why play the game?

Why not give the customer the service that drew them in the first place? Now the other company offered the triple package for 100.00 a month and the current company won't even attempt to match price. I don't want to switch cause of several reasons, one is email address and the other just being a pain in my arse and I don't know if yall ever switched a lan # from one company to another it can be quite the daunting task. 

OT: I hear downloads uploads are not favorable for dish services compared to cable? True or False? 

[Unalaska]

We don't have a land line, I haven't had one since 06 anyway. FiOS isn't available in my neighborhood which sux since they offered a $100/mo phone TV net deal. It's only 25mps download but still much better than what I get now. But right now what I'm using is fine, I think I'm paying too much though.

My crystal ball says:

Land lines will be a thing of the past, data is data

TV will migrate to more and more innernets providers: data is...

TV providers will fight with innernets providers, internet based TV providers (Netflix/Roku/Hulu/Apple TV) will be fighting to get signal to the house somehow.

And I don't have time to wait for Google fiber. oh how I want google fiber....1gps up 1gps down. thousands of channels. voip.

[Mogwix]

Unalaska wrote:

Land lines will be a thing of the past, data is data

"Land lines" are already a thing of the past. fibre lines carry everything on a single cable.

the future is here, man!

[Audiopile]

---

Unalaska wrote:

 Currently:

Comcast for cable, basic plus some extras like HBO and showtime all on promotional prices. And my wife likes to buy movies. cost is around $140+movies, this month it was an extra $30

Clearwire, 4mbs down, .7mps up. Not great but really does just fine for our needs. Been working everyday for the last 4 years. $33/mo

Netflix you know. Got it on our Wii/PS3/Ipad etc. $8

The question to youse out there: who do you like for service?

---

Personally:  None of the above or anything else even remotely related to all that stuff.

I seem to have more free time & money that way, but I'm probably out of the loop too... 

[Pro Sound Guy]

First off might I say guys..140.00 dollars is a freegan rip off for cable!

These cable companies are ripping the public off in a HUGE way.

Heres whats around the corner.   We all like the idea of picking and paying for what we want to watch right?

How many channels are complete bs on your cable.   Why the shopping network? Are you kidding me?

Ok.  Intel has a beta box coming where the customer picks and chooses his cable channels and THAT

is what you pay for.

I mean wtf ..HBO, and all those ripp off movie channels.  You have to watch what they broadcast right?

What is to come is people will pick and choose what they want to watch and shit can the rest

I am seriously considering dumping my cable and going with strickly network connection.

There is alot to watch with having just a net connection.

I guarantee the cable companies are poopin their pants over what Intel is doing right now.

http://www.gizmag.com/intel-virtual-cable-set-top-box/25592/

[Unalaska]

Thank you Intel, this is what I was hoping to see roll out in the future,..

[Drummer44]

Around here, the usual "infrastructure" options for Internet are Verizon DSL (our neighbor said it didn't work), Verizon FiOS, and Comcast. Verizon and Comcast (here) both use fiber to the house, coax within. I hear about equal praise or complaint for each.

FWIW, the plain old telephone system (POTS) works during power or fiber outages, and emergency services know the location.

-D44

[nchangin]

---

Pro Sound Guy wrote:

First off might I say guys..140.00 dollars is a freegan rip off for cable!

These cable companies are ripping the public off in a HUGE way.

Heres whats around the corner.   We all like the idea of picking and paying for what we want to watch right?

How many channels are complete bs on your cable.   Why the shopping network? Are you kidding me?

Ok.  Intel has a beta box coming where the customer picks and chooses his cable channels and THAT

is what you pay for.

I mean wtf ..HBO, and all those ripp off movie channels.  You have to watch what they broadcast right?

What is to come is people will pick and choose what they want to watch and shit can the rest

I am seriously considering dumping my cable and going with strickly network connection.

There is alot to watch with having just a net connection.

I guarantee the cable companies are poopin their pants over what Intel is doing right now.

http://www.gizmag.com/intel-virtual-cable-set-top-box/25592/

---

thumbs up like the ole board, I don't know how to put pretty's in this new one.

[srp72ee]

Congratulations on the new place!

Out where I live, Dish and DSL were really the only options.  Time Warner wanted $5800 to run the lines out to me.  DSL speeds can vary significantly depending on the equipment at the telco central station or fiber pad.  These are steadily improving at most locations since they are trying to compete with cable and satellite data providers.

[guido61]

I have cable internet service at my home and DSL at my office.  I prefer cable.

But I discontinued the cable TV service and switched to satellite because the local cable provider offers a poor selection of Hi-Def channels.

[Mogwix]

I pay $40 a month for cable internet from a local provider. my average download speed is about 300 kb/s

It's fast enough for web browsing and stuff, but man the 5 mb/s connection at my college is absolutely ridiculous.

I used to get my satellite TV and internet through Bell Canada @ $100/mo for the package. that was too much money, though. I was pretty happy with my service from Bell, but they were screwing me around when I moved.

A couple years ago I moved into a different house on the same property. Bell has this option where they'll move all of your services to a new address for free, including hooking up a new satellite dish. So I called Bell to arrange the move, but they couldn't do it because my address didn't change. I would've had to pay $180 for them to come hook up the satellite at the new place. I called them to cancel the TV and internet. When I moved to my current apartment, I called them up and they said I owed them $600... they kept charging me for TV and internet after I called to cancel! As it turns out the guy that I talked to didn't hit "enter" to complete the transaction and my service was never cancelled. I ended up having to pay it because there was no way for me or them to prove I wasn't using the satellite TV during that time. crap.

So anyways, since that was sorted out, Bell sent out a guy to install the satellite and that went fine. I couldn't get my internet working though, so I spent a few days on the phone with Bell tech support when they finally told me I can't get DSL at my address. What? I literally just moved like a kilometer down the road. I can see my old house from my window! There was a dude working on a service box at the road so I went out and talked to him, he said he's a subcontractor for Bell and this box was for Bell's high speed internet and cable service... I kept trying to get Bell to send out a technician to check the phone line coming into my house, but they couldn't do it for whatever reason. They kept trying to sell me a "turbo stick" service or some crap, so I told them to cancel it.

I still have my cell phone with Bell, the service is fine.