Topic: So I pwn3d my cable company...

[BranDonk Kong]

...I called about a year ago to see if they would lower my bill since it was about $165 after taxes (Road Runner Turbo - 15Mbps, Digital Phone, Digital Cable w/ HD DVR), the best they could do was lower it by about $10. That deal finally expired and is no longer available, so I asked them what they could do instead - now I'm back down at $155, and I have Road Runner Turbo - 20Mbps, Digital Phone, Digital Cable w/ HD DVR, another DVR, ShowTime, and the Movie Channel, locked in for 2 years. Downloading some stuff right now at a constant 2.33MB/sec, I remember when I thought 100KB/sec was insane.

Moral of the story - call your cable company and tell them you feel like you're getting ripped off, and they'll most likely either throw some movie channels at you, or just lower your bill.

[bustin98]

Cable is overrated. But as long as you think you are getting a deal, good job.

[BlackNMild2k1]

I have 2 Magic jacks @ $70 a piece for 5 years. They work perfectly fine.

If you have digital phone from your cable company($25+ a month?), you are not pwning anyone nor do you have a really good deal.
I also battle with comcast at the end of every contract for a new and hopefully better deal. It suck, but it always has to be done.

And for the record, I have Internet (12 or 15Mbps... can't remember which), more channels than I could ever need or watch, an SD box and a SD DVR + Starz, Encore & Flix for ~$80mo locked in for 12 months. an HD DVR would cost me another $8mo, but I've decided against it for now, my current DVR is only $12 for the whole year. Luckily I don't have to do anymore negotiations till June of 2011 though.

[BranDonk Kong]

This is pretty much the best deal you can get in Central Florida. I don't even want the phone part, but I have an alarm for my home so I have to have a land line. I'll agree cable is overrated, and if I lived alone I probably wouldn't even have it, but I have a wife and 2 kids, so it's basically the most important thing in the world.

[Morari]

I remember having to call my satellite provider every year back in the day. Threaten to cancel your service and all of sudden there's a sharp decline in price. The only thing running through my cable company is internet. Television isn't really worth watching nowadays, and their telephone service is generally a ripoff. I run a MagicJack through my Linux server, but I don't use the telephone very often. If I were one to talk on the phone a lot, I'd probably spend a bit more and get another VoIP service, like Lingo.

[that Baby guy]

I'm canceling my TV service and sticking with Hulu and Netflix.  I called up back in June to eliminate the hundreds of extra channels no one ever watches, but cost about $20.  I threatened to cancel then, and they have me a pretty sorry rate of  about $95 for HD cable, an HD box, and internet.  That was it.  This past month, that sixth month deal ran dry.  My last bill was for $125, which is outrageous, since I only watched TV for a handful of sporting events.

I called up yesterday to cancel my services for all but the internet, which would bring the bill down to $51.  The person I spoke with didn't even try to offer a discount, saying I'd have to go through a full month's cycle to be eligible for something again.  Now that college football is mostly over, and for what isn't, I'll be at my parents' house during bowl season, I really don't care to keep it going.

Yup.  So I'm cutting back.  It's a waste, and I'm tired of having to negotiate for only a half-decent price.

[BranDonk Kong]

I just called them back to see about getting another HD DVR, I'm exchanging it today and they told me my new bill will be $131 after taxes and fees each month. Don't know how I did that, upgraded again, bill went down more.

I should add, I do have NetFlix as well (streaming only, $7.99/mo), but again, with kids, you gotta have cable.

The only other viable option, which is significantly cheaper, is AT&T U-Verse, but U-Verse actually sucks balls. Their fastest internet speed "starts at" $65/mo, and is 24Mbps max (which I imagine you won't get very often), RoadRunner offers 40Mpbs for $5 less.

[bustin98]

? My kids are perfectly happy with the offerings on Netflix. Maybe they are younger than yours, but they don't know what they are missing from the Disney channel or Nikelodeon or the Cartoon network. As far as I care, they can watch shows that were new 10 years ago like Rugrats and Rocko's Modern World or whatever.

[TJ Spyke]

I should add, I do have NetFlix as well (streaming only, $7.99/mo), but again, with kids, you gotta have cable.

I would not recommend the stream only option to anyone. Only a small fraction of their titles are on Instant Streaming (and if you are a wrestling fan, zero titles). I would suggest the next cheapest option with streaming (which is $9.99 a month and also lets you rent 1 DVD at a time). I agree that cable and satellite are overpriced, but I do get a lot of worthwhile shows that I like and most are not on Hulu or any other legal services.

[NWR_insanolord]

I have the one disc plan, but I can't remember the last time I watched a disc (actually, now that I think of it, I can't remember where the disc I have out is, and that's somewhat worrisome). The Instant selection may be just a fraction of the library, but it's still a massive amount of content, and they're constantly adding more.

[BlackNMild2k1]

I love my 3 at a time Netflix, but they are raising the price in a few weeks, so I'm gonna have to downgrade.

But they have secured new Deals with providers to bump up the streaming offerings like a their new deal with Disney/ABC and they are working on their deal with Fox and a bunch of other companies too.The streaming only option paired with some RedBox might be the cheaper option depending on what your New Movie watching habits are.

But the trick with cable companies is how do you keep all your equipment out become a NEW subscriber everytime your deal runs out. A more important question is why is an existing (& loyal) customer less important than a "new" customer?

But the trick to always being a new customer is having 2 people in your household that can take ownership of your account when a new deal is needed. One person is the account holder during this deal period and the other person takes over the account through a sort of account transfer (I forget what it's called... long word) where they basically start a new account and you transfer over your existing equipment and e-mail accounts. You see a brief disruption and service and the price gouging stays at a minimum.

Your cable company may have lost a customer, but they are happy even though they just did a lot of unnecessary work and caused a lot of unnecessary stress, they got a "new" customer and that's all that seems to matter.

[Morari]

I agree that cable and satellite are overpriced, but I do get a lot of worthwhile shows that I like and most are not on Hulu or any other legal services.

You're just holding yourself back.

I recently watched The Walking Dead, and have been trying to catch up on Doctor Who. That is literally all the current television I'm interested in.

As far as kids go... I'd think they'd be better off without modern shows. Children's programming isn't what it used to be. It all seems slow and retarded, putting way too much emphasis on telling the kids things, or it's so fast and scattered that you wonder if it's the cause for ADD. Maybe that's just me though... as a child, I recall my favorite shows being Wild America and Nova, with a dose of Pee-Wee.

[NWR_insanolord]

I agree that cable and satellite are overpriced, but I do get a lot of worthwhile shows that I like and most are not on Hulu or any other legal services.

You're just holding yourself back.

I recently watched The Walking Dead, and have been trying to catch up on Doctor Who. That is literally all the current television I'm interested in.

As far as kids go... I'd think they'd be better off without modern shows. Children's programming isn't what it used to be. It all seems slow and retarded, putting way too much emphasis on telling the kids things, or it's so fast and scattered that you wonder if it's the cause for ADD. Maybe that's just me though... as a child, I recall my favorite shows being Wild America and Nova, with a dose of Pee-Wee.

I don't know if you've tried it and decided you didn't like it or if you hadn't given it a chance, but I recommend checking out Boardwalk Empire. It takes a little while to get going, but if not for The Walking Dead I'd consider it easily the best show on TV.

[Morari]

I'm not familiar with Boardwalk Empire. It sounds interesting though... I'll take a look. Thanks.

[BranDonk Kong]

I know the streaming option doesn't have nearly as many titles as the DVD option, but I had the 1-disc option for several months...and never rented a single DVD. I typically don't go the "legal route" for movies, but I enjoy being able to have so many choices instantly, and it's easy for my wife to use, and there's no computer involved. Hopefully I'll be getting a Netflix Blu Ray player for the bedroom soon, I'll put it right under my new HD DVR.

[BlackNMild2k1]

How about an internet GoogleTV Bluray Netflix player from Sony?
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?storeId=10151&catalogId=10551&langId=-1&categoryId=8198552921644751998#googleTVBox
it's only $399 

[NWR_insanolord]

I thought Google was delaying GoogleTV because of negative reviews.

[BlackNMild2k1]

They were asking companies like Sony and what not to postpone releasing or showing any more GoogleTV products so that they have time to put out a reworked version of the software. Something about no GTV @ CES or something.

[BranDonk Kong]

I have no desire to watch YouTube in my bedroom, but I have a PC hooked up to the TV in my family room (and PS3, Wii, Xbox 360, so my entertainment needs are covered out there), which I stream WWE and UFC PPVs on (usually in HD too!). I also just noticed my new DVR has a 500GB HDD, which is pretty nice, they said I can swap out the older one too. The old one is a Scientific Atlanta 8300 HDC, which apparently is pretty old school, the new one is made by Samsung, same software on it, but it boots (after a hard reset) in about 1 minute as opposed to to the 5-10 for the old one.

Also, I realized the modem/router (1 unit) sucks as a wireless router (at least with my laptop, constantly dropped the connection no matter which channel I used), so I used my old Linksys, and i get about 25Mb/sec. That's pretty good for the US, though I imagine in Europe they laugh at stuff like that.