Stupid, stupid companies

It better be shit-eating because that's all he's gonna do ...

 

Tivo works with the Charter equipment I have. It's $13 a month -- which I was including in my price above. I also have a second Charter box in my bedroom, which adds another 15 or 20. So it sounds like the pricing is about what I have. You just have to buy the Tivo system yourself.

 

F--- cable. DirecTV, baby. All the channels (sports, movies, XM music, news, local channels), plus TiVo for only $4.99 extra. You can also get satellite Internet, but since I have free Internet through my work, I haven't looked into it.

 

Despite Insight's little high-speed Internet snafu last month, I've been pretty pleased with their service.

I currently get digital cable, DVR (Insight's Tivo), hi-speed Internet and phone for about $150 month. Before I added two DVRs, I was paying about $135.

A year ago, I was paying $80 for phone and Internet and $60 for basic (not digital) cable. It made sense to combine them.

 

Cablecompanies are an unregulated monopoly. It's why they finish at the bottom of customer satisfaction surveys.
They keep coming up with their "new and exciting" high-end product line, when all 66 percent of their customer base really wants is basic cable under 40.

I can't believe your local phone company, am going to assume it's Bell South, doesnt offer ANYTHING

and was that premium package like $60 or higher?

 

It is Bell South, which I believe is about to be consumed by AT&T.

The $60 package was for two phones, call waiting, caller ID and other features and dial up Internet. Bell South has a package deal with Direct TV, but I prefered the cable package.

 

Sorry, Hack.. I meant that for Dog... didnt use the quote function...

 

Oh, the phone company offers something. But that would mean I would have to sign up for a home phone, pay for it and for the Internet service. No matter how I went about it, Charter kept coming up cheaper -- even the more expensive rate they had me paying.

And yeah, it was $59.99 for that package. Sounded like a decent deal. But the local Charter company offers one shitty DVR. Thing records like 20 hours and costs an extra $10.

I've got DishNetwork for my TV and I've been very pleased. They're at least $10 cheaper than DirecTV for every package. The only thing I can tell DirecTV has that DishNetwork doesn't is the NFL plan, which I don't really need. Other than that, though, you've got all the same channels, better packages, local channels and TiVo for a cheaper rate. Also, DishNetwork is good about just giving you the damn equipment. Wanted to upgrade to a TiVo box a year ago and they sent the damn thing out with no bullshit and just upped my bill $5. I'm gonna go with a HD TiVo box in a couple of days and, again, there's no bullshit charges. Father-in-law tried the same thing with DirecTV and they charged him out the ass for the HD upgrade, and he's one of those "platinum" customers, having subscribed to their most expensive package for more than 10 years.

And in the meantime, the cable companies are wondering why the satellite people are handing them their ass.

 

Dog, have you checked into Dish's Internet package? My dad installs these things and I know they have them. I'm just not sure if they've floated down to the real world in terms of affordability. You should check into it, however. When I had Dish, I really was pleased with them. However, when I needed Hi-speed Internet so my household could be wireless, I couldn't afford Dish. But it might be lower now.

 

Anybody see the piece on Countdown last night on the guy who called AOL trying to cancel his account. The guy had heard how bad AOL was with its customer service so he recorded the conversation. Hysterical stuff, though I would have been punching walls if I was the one making the call.

http://insignificantthoughts.com/2006/06/13/cancelling-aol/

 

That was great. Frustrating but great.

The operator ended up getting fired, too.

 

I've heard AOL is terrible when it comes to cancelling the account. So I cancelled the credit card that pays it.