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The Days of Getting a Cheaper Cable Bill By Threatening To Leave May Be Over (bloomberg.com) 219
“It used to be when customers would call and said, “I’m thinking of cutting the cord,’ they’d throw all sort of promotions to keep them from leaving,” said Craig Moffett, an industry analyst at MoffettNathanson LLC. “Now they’re saying, ‘Goodbye, it’s been fun, enjoy the broadband subscription.'” Cable One Inc., a smaller cable company with about 305,000 residential video customers, even helps cord cutters choose between online alternatives like YouTube TV or Hulu’s live TV service, according to Moffett. [C]able executives are now focused on what they call “profitable” or “high-quality” video subscribers and less interested in cutting deals. The report also says that pay-TV providers are making up for the lost revenue by charging everyone more.
“As customers drop pay TV, cable companies will actually see their profit margins widen,” reports Bloomberg. “That’s because much of their pay-TV revenue goes right to channel owners, like Disney and its ESPN, in the form of subscriber fees. Fueled by expensive sports rights, those fees are even rising faster than cable TV bills, hurting profits for companies like DirecTV and Comcast.” Those who cancel cable TV typically upgrade to faster, more expensive internet, which is far more profitable for companies.
My cable company told me same (Score:5, Interesting)
by JoeyRox ( 2711699 ) on Wednesday June 05, 2019 @08:49PM (#58716616)I called last year and asked for retentions. Was told they don’t negotiate cable service fees anymore.- by Xenx ( 2211586 )I work at a rural ISP, so the dynamic isn’t the same as with the larger companies. We’ve actually stopped providing TV service because it’s too expensive. We were losing about $60/mo per subscriber, after raising prices. Unless your provider’s customer base is large enough, there likely isn’t much room to negotiate.
“It’s good to know I’m already paying your best price, but I haven’t been bluffing when I’ve been threatening to leave. Your best price isn’t good enough. Please connect me to customer retention.”
Or, at least, that’s what I wish I could say, except that there isn’t an alternative choice to fall back on here.
Just curious, but why don’t you consider services like Sling or YouTube TV to be alternatives? (I assume you’re in some kind of position where you can’t install a dish either.)
Just curious, but why don’t you consider services like Sling or YouTube TV to be alternatives? (I assume you’re in some kind of position where you can’t install a dish either.)
I’m in a position where I have no alternatives to Xfinity because it is the only company in my area that provides adequate bandwidth. And I’m not in some rural area; I’m in an affluent suburb of Chicago. Dish and AT&T max out at 10Gbps, while I get around 75Gbps from Xfinity. Because there is no real competition for Internet, I stick with Xfinity.
That said, recent software updates to their cable boxes have significantly improved my user experience to where I probably wouldn’t switch even with better com
- OK, I thought you were talking about their Cable TV service. I fully understand keeping/feeling obliged to keep their Internet service.
OK, I thought you were talking about their Cable TV service. I fully understand keeping/feeling obliged to keep their Internet service.
Well, the reason there is no alternative for Cable TV is indirectly because of internet service, not their cable TV services. I would be perfectly happy using AT&T or Dish for cable TV, but I would still “need” to use Xfinity for Internet. And because of bundling practices, it would be far more expensive to get internet and cable TV from different providers.
And because of bundling practices, it would be far more expensive to get internet and cable TV from different providers.
A word of advice: don’t just assume that, do check anyway. We’ve consistently found it cheaper to use Dish Network for TV and Comcast for the Internet because the bundles turn out to be expensive once you include the add-ons and taxes that you pretty much need to make it work (Dish also has add-ons and taxes but it ultimately manages to be cheaper at the end of the process.)
This isn’t
you get 75Gbps from a residential connection and your complaining there is no competition. perhaps you mean 75Mbps
My bad, I meant Mbps.
Just curious, but why don’t you consider services like Sling or YouTube TV to be alternatives? (I assume you’re in some kind of position where you can’t install a dish either.)
In my case primarily because their DVR features aren’t sufficient. Honestly I’m probably going to drop my cable TV subscription. I have a cheap-ish $35/month one and barely use it. Services like Sling are intriguing but I want to always be able to watch the shows recorded and skip commercials. To date I haven’t seen a streaming feature that both allows recording of everything AND allows me to skip commercials like a TiVo. If you know of one I’m certainly in the market.
- I’ve heard good things about phillo. [clark.com] I too see the dvr as mostly overlooked, and you can’t fast forward on the live streams. The only drawback I see on Phillo, is only 30 day retention for the dvr.
- by saider ( 177166 )
and you can’t fast forward on the live streams
How do you fast forward on a live stream? Doesn’t that involve some sort of time travel?
I was actually talking about my cable ISP, not a TV provider. When I called my cable ISP last year and threatened to quit, they basically said, “That’s fine. You’re already on our lowest plan and have nowhere else to go in terms of lower plans or other ISPs, so we see no reason to negotiate against ourselves, even though we’ve arbitrarily doubled the price in the last few years.”
We actually did give Sling a try when the last Olympics were happening since my wife wanted to watch them and Sling was specifical
- by rtb61 ( 674572 )
The whole idea is false. The reason why they are no longer offering a discount, is because they retained all the people they could, for as long as possible by doing so and now those people are only a tiny number of customers. The customers left are the ones hooked on the service and as such, no effort needs to be done to keep them, they are addicted and now the opposite will happen, the cable companies will try to push up prices as much as possible, relying on the lock in to keep it going for as long as pos
Wait, you still had cable TV last year?!
I haven’t had cable TV for over a decade!
Wait, you still had cable TV last year?!
I haven’t had cable TV for over a decade!
It’s been six for me. “The Days of Getting a Cheaper Cable Bill By Threatening To Leave May Be Over” by about six years in my case. I figured the TV portion of my bill was about $100 back then and I only had basic cable with DVR. I certainly wasn’t getting $100 worth of enjoyment and I was sick of playing the “I’m leaving you” games to get a decent price.
I’d love to know how much they have spent in marketing materials over those years to get me to return to the fold. I get at least three letters/broc
It’s been six for me.
I dropped cable tv in 2009, and totally, never ever, miss it. Such a waste of money!
Mine told me they don’t negotiate either, and I told them that neither did I and I really just wanted to cancel the service.
At that point they suddenly decided that they do negotiate, but I left anyway.
Mine did. Maybe it just takes skill.
Hereâ(TM)s how you do it.
First step (1) See what options (if any) you have. Get offers. If any are, all-told, after you count all the costs, including time and aggravation, and available to YOU where you live, find out when it would be available to start, and tell them you will call them back, then (2) call and ask your provider what offers, deals, specials, etc., are available for you. If/when they tell you thereâ(TM)s nothing, you have their best deal, theAbout three years ago, I called because my deal was going to expire. I was told that my cable bill was going to go up by about $80 a month for less services. I asked for a better deal and they told me this WAS the better deal. I told them I was cancelling and then we did it. Since then, we’ve saved a ton of money by not paying for cable TV. We subscribed to Netflix and Amazon Prime before cutting cable. Adding Hulu was less expensive than cable TV. We also added an antenna to get OTA TV. The cable company k
- by mjwx ( 966435 )
I called last year and asked for retentions. Was told they don’t negotiate cable service fees anymore.
I assume you that they were able to cancel your subscription on the spot after that.
I predicted this years ago. There is no such thing as “cord cutting”. You can cancel your cable-TV service but you still have to pay someone for Internet and in most cases that means the local cable monopoly, and they charge you more if you don’t also have TV service with them.
No you don’t. Just use your cell phone data. It’s a perfectly viable solution for many people, depending on their needs – especially if they’re not home very much besides going to bed. We did it for several years.
ROFL told you so (Score:2, Insightful)
by Anonymous CowardCord cutters are so naive. It won’t be long before they are paying more to watch their 2 favorite shows than they were for 200 channels.
Re:ROFL told you so (Score:5, Insightful)
by olsmeister ( 1488789 ) on Wednesday June 05, 2019 @08:51PM (#58716624)Probably paying more per show, but less overall…. which was always the goal. To not pay for shit you never watch.Re:ROFL told you so (Score:5, Insightful)
by e3m4n ( 947977 ) on Wednesday June 05, 2019 @09:33PM (#58716804)I stopped paying for cable over a decade ago when I learned that PIG of a mom of Honey BooBoo made $10,000 an episode. There was no fucking way on this goddamn planet I was going to subsidize that fucking shit. I cancelled everything. I made a list of the things I actually watched, and found another way to get them. I have Plex and a HD_Homerun device to capture anything over-the-air. I already had hulu and netflix. The only thing i was missing was walking dead which I bought a season pass on amazon for $40. Waiting a day was not as fun as watching it live with everyone else, but I will be damned if I am going to subsidize that fat ass pig. I decided to vote with my wallet. In the end I might be paying a little bit more, but I know for a fact my money is not subsidizing these fucking shows like pawn-shop wars, toddlers&tierras, john&kate+8, the duggers, or any other stupid fucked up waste of fucking cash. Those people need to be standing in a soup line, not making 100x the salary of people trying to contribute to society.
Re: ROFL told you so (Score:2, Funny)
by Anonymous CowardI cancelled cable when I realized cable news was just opinion pieces of someone asking a question and someone else regurgitating a canned response preceded by: “well”, “look”, “you know”, or “well look, you know…” – every, single, mf time!
- by e3m4n ( 947977 )
Yes they started his 24 hour news but that got really boring back in the days of headline news. Now I think what you get is 15 minutes of world news at the top of every hour or so followed by a bunch of opinion crap. But you notice the newspapers are the same way now. I see people referencing news articles online but I’ll look up at the category of the column and it will clearly say opinion or editorial. That means they can say whatever the hell they want it doesn’t even have to be factual a
Don’t tell him the cast of Friends where getting paid $1 million each per episode.
- by e3m4n ( 947977 )
I didn’t know they made quite that much, but the economics of broadcast TV is vastly different. Those actors are paid based entirely on readings and advertisement revenue. That’s almost their Entire revenue stream. Where is your Viacom is the parent company for one of these crappy channels it’s entirely subsidized by the fact that you’re forced to pay for it if you want any one of their other channels. If the ratings of a broadcast TV show plummet the show gets dropped. At lea
I don’t have time to watch television, there are still AoA fancam angles I haven’t seen yet on youtube. Important things.
- by e3m4n ( 947977 )
Partly true those channels don’t usually show up on Hulu. In order for the cable company to sell HBO, as of sort of an example, they are contractually obligated to buy and distribute to you a bunch of lesser channels as well. That’s where most of the garbage reality TV comes from. Not all of it, but a significant chunk. I think Viacom is one of the biggest doing that. I read somewhere that Netflix bases they are decisions on what shows to offer from statistics of content most pirated
- by e3m4n ( 947977 )
Oh my god that’s priceless. That is exactly, exactly how I feel about those damn channels.
Iâ(TM)d like to be able to get cable TV without ESPN, that alone would make a big difference in my cable bill.
Re:ROFL told you so (Score:5, Informative)
by Dread Cthulhu ( 5435800 ) on Wednesday June 05, 2019 @09:31PM (#58716796)You do know that you can “acquire” pretty much any popular show you want for free* (well you might want to spend a little bit to get a VPN), right? It does take a small bit of technical know-how, but the ability to copyright infringe does put a limit on how expensive companies can make their shows; too much and people will learn how to pirate; low enough & they won’t bother. And for that matter, I feel that people directly paying for shows/studios they like, even if it is more per show, is a much healthier model than the previous ad-driven one, which of course has to dumb things down to appeal to the lowest common denominator, and shave the edges off to keep the advertisers happy.ROFL told you so-illusions. (Score:2, Interesting)
by Anonymous CowardPiracy is one of those acts that penalizes those who do pay by freeloading off them. When no one pays, nothing gets created, and it destroys the incentive to create. So really the belief that piracy results in perpetual system of free stuff is one of the bigger lies people tell themselves.
Re:ROFL told you so-illusions. (Score:5, Insightful)
by youngone ( 975102 ) on Wednesday June 05, 2019 @10:12PM (#58716958)Piracy is one of those acts that penalizes those who do pay by freeloading off them.
Piracy is what we have to resort to when the lack of competition makes every other option terrible.
So really the belief that piracy results in perpetual system of free stuff is one of the bigger lies people tell themselves.
No, the belief that prices can be raised perpetually is the bigger lie corporations tell themselves.
Along with perpetual growth.Re:ROFL told you so-illusions. (Score:5, Insightful)
by cmseagle ( 1195671 ) on Thursday June 06, 2019 @07:33AM (#58718158)Piracy is what we have to resort to when the lack of competition makes every other option terrible.
Or you could not watch the show.
You could, but so long as you’re getting it through alternative distribution, it costs the creator absolutely nothing for me to watch it in the way I choose. And if they choose some distributor that’s actually convenient, more people will use it. People who don’t pay still talk about things online, and if those things are good then it leads to more paying customers. Only people who make crappy media thus fear piracy. It benefits everyone else.
- It’s ok, for accounting purposes; just assume you came over and watched the show at my house on my xfinity subscription. We’re all buddies here.
Piracy is what we have to resort to when the lack of competition makes every other option terrible.
What the hell is so “terrible” about just walking away from content and finding something else to do with your time?
Thanks to piracy we now get popular anime shows released with subtitles on streaming services the same day that they broadcast in Japan. Well, the US does, the UK doesn’t.
The translation tends to be of mediocre quality, not up the standards of the old fansub groups, but even that is improving.
- Netflix has an OK show called “The Rain”. I think it’s Norwegian, but not sure. It’s hilarious (and distracting) to watch how badly the english subtitles match the english dialogue. I’m pretty sure the redid the audio for english, but the show is shot in another language.
Jokes are always the hardest to translate. One Punch Man is currently airing, and a lot of the humour is lost in translation because it’s based on aspects of Japanese culture most people outside Japan are not familiar with, or things like the way the protagonist talks.
Back in the day the fan sub groups would make an effort to give you some info about the cultural aspects before hand with a special title card. Speech mannerisms are always difficult but they at least tried.
Re:ROFL told you so (Score:4, Insightful)
by Jason Levine ( 196982 ) on Thursday June 06, 2019 @08:42AM (#58718350) HomepageI keep hearing this over and over and yet I’m still paying so much less than I was paying for cable. (Something on the order of $100 a month less, though it’s hard to tell exactly because it’s been so many years since I cut cable that I don’t know how much my rates would have gone up to.) The key is that I can subscribe to the streaming services that I want and cancel them at any time if they no longer provide value. I can’t cancel the ESPN portion of cable because I don’t watch sports, but I can cancel Netflix if there’s nothing on their service I watch anymore. Honestly, there’s so much content out there that I could stay with OTA TV, a couple of streaming stations, supplement with YouTube, and still be overwhelmed with what there is to watch. Plus, there’s stuff like video games and books that I can use to fill any gaps that might remain.
and cable subs with internet only will see caps and high fees.
- i’ll just leave this [starlink.com] here! We’ll see how long this new mentality of expendable subscribers lasts.
Re:We’ll see! (Score:4, Funny)
by dryeo ( 100693 ) on Thursday June 06, 2019 @12:59AM (#58717370)Page is mostly black, have to wait to see if rain, snow and trees do the same to Starlink.
People still pay for cable? (Score:3, Interesting)
by Dallas May ( 4891515 ) on Wednesday June 05, 2019 @08:59PM (#58716664)If you are still paying for cable you deserve to get screwed. I’m 36. I haven’t paid for cable in…. literally ever. Literally my entire adult life since college (graduated undergrad in 2006) I have been able to legally get whatever TV show I want to watch without paying $50/month+ for cable. Seriously, streaming virtually or otherwise legally viewing pretty much any show you want has been easy and readily available my entire adult life.
Sorry, but anyone still paying for traditional cable is an idiot.
I have been able to legally get whatever TV show I want to watch without paying $50/month+ for cable.
Including professional and college sport league playoff matches that are blacked out of the league’s online streaming service because they’ve been sold to national or regional cable?
Here’s another challenge: Find a legal source for the animated series Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea, which was shown on Nick in the 1980s.
Yes. I watch sports. They are called restaurants and bars. They have them playing all the time. You should try one one of these days.
Re: People still pay for cable? (Score:4, Insightful)
by Stolovaya ( 1019922 ) <<skingiii> <at> <gmail.com>> on Thursday June 06, 2019 @12:39AM (#58717330)So then you’re not actually saving money, unless they restaurant or bar lets you watch without buying anything, since the food and drink you buy there will be much more expensive than food and drink at home.Presumably he’s going one day a week, and only while the heavily blacked out sports he watches are in season. If he just goes to drink for a couple of hours at Chilis, I can see him getting away with $10 a night, adding up to $40 a month maximum, for just a few months a year.
That wouldn’t be free as he claims, but it’s hard to see how that isn’t saving over what he calls a $50 cable bill, that in practice is going to be $70-80 a month minimum, possibly more if he wants sports added to that.
Not to mention that cable providers don’t have tato skins, or margarita specials
Watching sports on TV are a waste of time.
How would I go about convincing others in the household of this?
have been able to legally get whatever TV show I want to watch
Find a legal source for the animated series Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea
$35 on eBay for the whole series.
This listing [ebay.com] is a bootleg, not “a legal source”. Which listing were you finding?
- So how much do you pay for broadband? How much would you pay for broadband + a basic cable package?
I dropped cable myself around 7 years ago. Since then my broadband price has continued to creep up by $5-$10/year. It’s at the point where a bundle of broadband + cable would only be $15 more per month. There is no serious broadband competition where I live.
I’ll be honest to say the thought has crossed my mind to go back. What I miss the most is the local Fox Sports channel for baseball and hockey gam
Fair point, my broadband (typically 70 mb/sec down) runs me about $60 a month. I might get that cut down a bit if I bundled, but would ultimately be paying more for something I could get any number of other ways.
- I pay the TV licensing, you insensitive clod! I pay for Internet and VoIP landline and I have the Sky box that I suse for pay-per-view, Youtube, and Vimeo. And our public broadcaster [www.rai.it] has decent programmes (your mileage may vary).
Why? Because “society” tells you that if you live in your parent’s home you aren’t a real adult? Do you know how much wealth families can accumulate by sticking together instead of letting society split them apart?
Kicking kids out of their parent’s home is just a way to keep people in the rat race. It’s not like homes today aren’t large enough to house multiple families.
My suggestion is that if you want to live in the rural areas on your big ranch, great. That’s your choice. But that choice does have certain consequences. You make the bed you lay in.
Not that there is anything wrong with wanting to live the rural life. Have your horses and your cows and knock yourself out. Live your life. But don’t complain about your internet speeds when YOU CHOOSE to live in an area where YOU KNOW service will be impacted.
Just like with TV call them up and threaten to leave. Or heck, in my experience with Comcast, you can just call them up and be blunt: “My bill is too expensive what can you do to lower it?” and they will typically shave 15-20% of my monthly bill off for 1-2 years. Rinse and repeat.
- Xfinity’s x1 is so much better then the At&T uverse experience I am passing up symetrical GB to keep it. Truthfully 150MB down is enough, but I think 30mb up is a bit stingy.
I also get my family cell phones on xfinity, cut my cell bill by $150 to $200 depending on the data I use.
If one or few companies own all the alternatives, then they are not really “alternatives”.
I have three potential cable ISPs available. The previous owner of my house had used two and I am using the third one. The drops to all three are hooked up to a comms box in the back of my house, where they wire into a male-male connector to the RG-59 feed into the house. Every few years they try jacking up my rates, I call a competitor, lock in a low rate, swap the service over (takes the cable guy about five minutes) and I’m up and running. I own my own modem, use a 3rd party VOIP service, and I don’t use any of their other services, so there’s nothing else to switch over.
Re:Hot-Swap (Score:5, Interesting)
They don’t bribe you to stay but they sure as hell will trip all over themselves to get you to come over. I just kicked Comcast to the curb, $125 a month for unlimited data at 180 MB/sec. Fuck that. Called up AT&T now and they tripped all over themselves getting me on board. Now I have unlimited fiber at 1 gb up and down for $60 a month.
It must be nice. I have one potential ISP: Charter’s Spectrum. If I decided to ditch them and go with “someone else”, my options would be:
– Verizon DSL. Much slower, more expensive, and Verizon’s trying to get rid of it as fast as possible.
– Satellite Internet. Again, slower and more expensive. Also comes with ridiculous caps. The one I looked at measured how much online video you could view every month in minutes. As if “you can watch 60 minutes of video every month” is a selling point for someone who stre
small cable here (Score:5, Interesting)
by Revek ( 133289 ) on Wednesday June 05, 2019 @09:12PM (#58716718) HomepageThere is no profit in video. The content providers have sucked all the profit margins out of last mile providers. They ask for more money everytime the contract comes up and do not provided one seconds more of content. The worst these days are the local TV stations who get to choose if we have to pay them to relay their content to our customers. Guess what? They always choose to get paid. We make more money off of internet only customers.
- once GB sats arrive for under $100/month (comcast charges over 100 /
However, comcast drops their prices where competition exists. local communities would do well to run fiber.- At least it isn’t just LEO satellite internet that is rolling out; 5g home service allows the cell phone companies to offer competitive internet as well. Verizon is already selling that in its early 5g test cities, and C Spire, a regional carrier in Mississippi is also selling 5g home service now – 120/50 mbps for $50 a month. The other cell phone companies will also be rolling this out soon. Since most people have access to Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and/or T-Mobile, that will be a nice boost in options.
I’ll believe the 5G hype when I see it. I heard some of the same claims about 4G and then the phone companies decided to cap the data plans. Even most “unlimited” plans have a soft cap that results in slowed speeds if you exceed it.
- sorry, but Jason is spot on this. 5G is not going anywhere. The reason is that it will be faster, but you still have limits due to lack of receivers. OTOH, Sats, such as starlink, will continue to add many more receivers over the next couple of years. It will be easy for them to carry lots of bandwidth in their system.
However, the problem with comcast, telcos, and even the mobiles in America, is the lack of competition in the service delivery. Comcast has not just the physical cable, but control of the se
What they will soon discover is that people can’t actually afford the non-introductory rates.
- by DigitalisAkujin ( 846133 ) on Wednesday June 05, 2019 @09:30PM (#58716778) Homepage
I used to work for Comcast as a contractor at corporate HQ in Philadelphia so I didn’t get any free services.
I was paying $90 for 75 mbit down and 15 mbit up.
A few months before I quit that job I switched to FIOS. A new building was built across the street so I was finally able to actually get it.
Now I have 75 mbit down/up for $67.95 (total price with router rental / taxes / fees). Sometimes my torrents will actually hit 12 megabytes/sec.
They will lie out the ass. “yea, it’s only $39.95” except that’s only for 12 months and does’t include modem rental so then when the price gets jacked to $90 / month you’re actually paying over $100 when including all the taxes and fees.
I’d rather just pay for FIOS and know my price is staying the same.
My parents house has had FIOS for 15 years with no change in their bill.
And here I am paying 35 EUR [edpnet.be] (40USD) including all taxes for 100/40. Sure slower up, but faster down.
And that is without any limits, all ports open and you own your router. The only thing missing is a fixed IP.
Fiber at 250/30 would be possible as well for 45 EUR. For me the 100 down is fast enough. I do not care if I can download a movie in 10 or 3 minutes. If the upload would go to 100 instead of the 40 I have nmow, I might think about it.
I rather would get a fixed IP. Where I pay 35 EUR now, I would pay 65
Providers need to reserve/buy IP adresses based on their customer count (+ expected growth) This means that for ADSL and Modem customers, they need to have an IP address for ALL their customers, regardless if they are fixed or not.
So that means that companies who charge extra for a fixed IP adress are basically charging you for something they do not need to pay extra for.
Have 10.000 ADSL customers with a FIXED IP? You need 10.000+ IP adresses. Have 10.000 ADSL cistomers with a variable IP? You need 10.000+
- by mjwx ( 966435 )Recently my mobile service provider here in the UK sent a very apologetic email, almost to the point of grovelling, informing me that they had no choice to put their prices up by 5%… My monthly mobile phone bill went up by a whopping £0.30 (about US$0.40 for those too lazy to Google the gbp-usd exch rate).
Given that the UK economy is circling the toilet, I’m surprised it was only 5%.
I live in wine country too, but since nobody has bothered to run anything but power to the end of the road on which I live, I can only get satellite internet. We the people paid the telcos to build out the last mile, and they gave the money out as executive bonuses instead. I get 20 Mbps and a second of latency for a hundred bucks.
A big chunk of my now-discontinued cable bill was for unused ESPN. I wonder how much Disney is going to jack up the rates once they’ve pulled everything from Netflix/…
It might be easy to spend more than than cable for base internet+multiple streaming services.
I think they announced $6 a month. Even if that’s a teaser rate to get people hooked and then triple the rate in a few years, it’ll still be a better deal than cable.
- this hasn’t worked for my market since the 90s. At least where I live. The cable companies have much, much better information now and they have computerized programs that tell their agents exactly what to offer based on how much access to competition your house has in realtime. There’s no point in arguing with them, the person you’re talking to doesn’t make decisions. Computer Says No [youtube.com]
If you want it to change, vote, vote in your primary and vote for candidates that refuse corporate PAC money like Bernie
- How to cut the cord without missing anything for less than 30$ per month: Pick up a digital antenna at the dollar store for the local channels. Buy the cheapest internet you can as long as it’s more than 10Mb down with a massive data cap. Learn how to use RSS feeds with torrents. Budget 5 bucks a month for a solid no-log VPN and go to town. Alternately you can use Kodi but you need to pay for quality sources. If you’re looking for sports, there a lots of good streams out there.
- Sling says “Cut the cord, only pay for what you want” – yeah, right. Sling and PlaystationVue are exactly like cable. You can’t get only the channels you want, and they know what people are going to go after so they lock obvious combinations in different tiers until you’re paying $50/mo for them. It’s just a slightly more convenient version of what cable’s offering.
Unfortunately since I only want the major networks, the ESPNs, NFL Network, and Outdoor, I have to buy *everything*, so I get a bunch of garba
- I chose to go with Spectrum Choice. Its a new plan that they don’t advertise online. It doesnt require a cable box
You get all the local stations plus a few freebies, then you get to choose 10 cable channels (yes even ESPN, ESPN2, which allows you to have Watch ESPN by default, if you are wondering).
Spectrum Choice (streaming using a Roku, whatever) via the Spectrum App – $30 (including the local broadcast fees)
100 mpbs internet: $65$104.00 w/taxes. About the cheapest and closest to a la carte as
I simply don’t have TV of any sort.
My cable connection is a gigabit pipe, and that’s all I have.
If my provider gets too noxious, I can always move off to AT&T for a while.
Not desirable, but I can hang.
Then I just take advantage of a promo down the road.Actually, since I’m on the gigabit service, my bill hasn’t significantly changed in the past couple years.
So I can simply cancel my service finally without having to go through an hour long spiel of “but wait, there’s more”, worthy of any home shopping promotion?
I’ve been meaning to call up my DSL provider for about 3 months, but they made it so difficult and frustrating I’ve just been paying the non-promotional rate.
I get 45 Mbps downloads so I’m content with the service which is 50% faster than Comcast and about 20 times more reliable and still slightly less expensive. That’s plenty for my own personal needs even if it isn’t enough for some others.
But wait, my city is rolling out their own municipal broadband..if I can just hold out for 2 1/2 years they’ve prom
been over for awhile (Score:4, Interesting)
by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Thursday June 06, 2019 @08:56AM (#58718416)At least two or three years, if not more.
Since then the chat rep will happily paste something every couple of minutes to pretend he’s talking to me, but what he won’t do is offer any discounts.
What can we do, leave? There is one cable provider to our home (AT&T), and we need internet, at least. Oh yeah, we can go to “sort of satellite” (apparently part of which is done over phone or cable anyway) which is also owned by, uh, AT&T. Great.
- If one threatens to cut the cord and the provider says “Fine, go.”, why not retort with “Fine, I’ll get my internet service from this other provider as well.”?
- by Ksevio ( 865461 )Because you only have one internet service provider available and it’s them
The GOAL is to watch the programs provided by the cable service. The cable service is merely a tool to get to the goal.
So if you’re saying that I cannot get a cheaper cable bill basically by just asking for it (this only worked occasionally anyway) the alternative would be to a) seek other methods to get that content or b) find other media for entertainment that doesn’t depend on cable service.
There are abundant choices for both.
I always saw articles about this. But it never ever worked for me – and that includes actually cutting the cord and leaving “twice”.
I always got the sense that since there was really no competition (particularly for internet service) that they never really negotiate.
- Good point here – far too many people right now only have one good option for internet. Thankfully that looks to be changing soon – between Starlink getting off the ground, and 5g cellular tech allowing the cellphone companies to sell home hotspots that are comparable to landline internet (right now Verizon will sell you 300 mbps 5g home service, with no data cap, for $70 a month in a few cities), most Americans should have several more options for internet within 5 years.
Are you granting asylum? (Score:5, Funny)
by tepples ( 727027 ) <tepples@[ ]il.com [‘gma’ in gap]> on Wednesday June 05, 2019 @09:29PM (#58716776) Homepage JournalHow many people seeking asylum from abusive U.S. ISPs can your European country absorb?
Mostly I’m asking how hard it is for a citizen of USA or Canada to get a work visa in the EU or neighboring countries (Norway, Switzerland, and Britain).
You have to be a doctor or famous.
Surprisingly easy, if you have any kind of marketable skill. Working in the EU is way easier than it is in, say, the US.
Be prepared to earn less. But on the other hand, you also need way less money. Or, rather, the insane taxes already pay for it. Yes, they’re high, but you get something for your money. Healthcare, retirement, most insurances etc, your money pretty much has to last for food, shelter and booze.
And booze is cheap, in most countries. Stay away from Skandinavia, though.
If they have the skills we need, send them over.
Isn’t this a problem that you could solve more easily with a pair of wire cutters?
- by jabuzz ( 182671 )
Arrange for it to fail in a more natural manner. Load it with some weights till it snaps would be my first thought. Bake it with a UV lamp would be another idea.
These companies will fall hard when 5G wireless internet becomes available. I will gladly switch out of Charter/Spectrum to T-Mobile or anyone even to save a dime just to get back at them for such costly internet
Save a dime? That’s fucking cute…
“Here’s the new 5G! And of course we’re going to have to beg people to use insanely fast wireless internet service, so here it is at half the cost!”
“Here’s 5G. We know how bad you want it. The price is 10% more. With data caps. Fuck You Very Much, and Have a Nice Day.”
You tell me which one of those scenarios is more likely to happen…
I experienced this about a year ago. They stopped just short of saying that they wouldn’t miss me, out loud.
Jokes on them though. They get canceled next week. No tactics, no backsies. Just buh bye.That’s $250 per month in my pocket.
How is the joke on them if they got your money for a year? Sounds like they had you at “hello”.
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