The Glade 4.0

I'm already significantly overpaying for my Cable TV service.

No, I won't pay you an additional $10.00 for your "HD Technology Fee"

No, I won't pay you an additional $17.95 for your "HD-DVR service"

No, I won't sign up for "Comcast Triple Play" (which includes the above services plus a phone line I have no use for, for an additional $40 a month)

In fact, you can take your new fees, and your crappy 8 year old Motorola DCT6400 HD DVR, and and your over priced "Digital Preferred" cable package, and....


As of tomorrow, as soon as their offices open, I will officially be a "cord cutter" (long overdue).

Backstory:
I've been a Comcast HD TV and High Speed Internet customer since I retired from the Air Force in 2001 and moved back to my home town. I've been paying (too much) for their "Digital Preferred" Cable TV package since 2005 or so (whenver it became available), and have been using the same Motorola cable box for the entire time. This package includes hundreds of HD channels (most of which I never watch anyway).

Today, I got a letter in the mail informing me that if I want to continue receiving HD channels that I would have to pay an additional $10 a month "HD Technology Feee", and if I want to use the DVR, I have to pay an additional $17.95 for the "DVR Service".

The irony of this is, that I received a mailer a few days ago offering me a 'free account review' (guess what, I can do that any time I want!), so I called them and asked for the review. I played along and listened while she asked me how many people in my household (1), how old are they (52), what kind of shows do you watch ( some live sports, local news, science, discovery, etc...). She then confessed she couldn't improve over what I already have... at which time I told her politely that I felt that I was paying far too much for the service that I rarely use, and that I thought that the money would be better spent paying for streaming services, online PPV sports, etc... and that I should probably just cancel the service altogether. She said I'd have to call into an actual customer service rep to cancel, but that she could 'adjust' my bill (she gave me a small discount for my next bill).

I suspect it's no coincidence that this is happening in the middle of football season (TV viewing increases pretty dramatically this time of year). In this case, the attraction of watching live football is not enough to keep me from cutting the cord.

These people are already bleeding customers. You would think they would be looking for ways to bring people back, instead of pushing them away...

I'd love to cut the cord, but I can't figure out a viable alternative.

I have cable because my wife wants cable.

Now, does that mean I don't watch it? No. It just means I wouldn't if not for her desire to have it.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

There are decent alternatives to just about everything cable has to offer... *except* live sports...

Including Nascar. Per my wife.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

I use Comcast strictly for internet service. Hubby wanted and got DirecTV for his TV viewing pleasure (recently upgraded to HD). He loves movies, sports, news, and regular TV fare so it was a good choice for us. Plus watching hockey and football on HD is fantastic!!

(I am usually very polite when dealing with the Comcast sales people trying to get me to bundle everything, but the last guy that called would not take "no thank you" for an answer, so I got a bit testy and told him to take me off of their call list. He was not a happy camper.)

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"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

I had At Bat and could listen to all the live baseball I wanted this year for $20.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Yea, MLB At Bat game audio is not blacked out (as far as I know), but the MLB TV Video is subject to local blackout.

It uses your IP address to determine your geo location and blacks out any games that are broadcast on TV in that area.

It's fairly easy to work around on most platforms (proxy, vpn, etc..). This is a violation of the TOS though.

I'm never using cable for TV service again. Intenet on the other hand, I will. AT&T Uverse is barely faster than dial-up here, and when I called to see if it was a technical problem with our installation they were basically like "no, sorry, you're just too far from our 'home base'. Maybe if enough people down there *****, we'll install another. Sorry." I did save some money with it but it's really not worth the savings. The phone service is even more of a pain in the ***. We get a bill saying we're late every single month from AT&T. Even when we double paid, they just skipped a month, then claimed we were late again.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

One of us! One of us!

I'm not a sports nut, so that didn't impact me. The only problem I've had is watching current game of thrones. Everything else I've had no problems or concerns.

It's a wonderful feeling.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

True Blood, Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire.. all require HBO and in order to get HBO Go you need a service provider contract.

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

Haven't had cable for ov er ten years. Haven't bought an HD TV. Depend on you guys to let me know what shows to look for. Don't believe a bit of the commercials on the computer.

I read a lot, I'm on the computer a lot.

I receive a lot of snail mail ads for WAVE, our local semi-monopoly. They hit the recycle can as I reenter the house.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

I'm in the process of going from full tilt Charter with all the bells and whistles to just their 100 Mb Internet and phone. I'm turning to Netflix and Hulu+ for most content, and plan to go to Dish Network for basic TV. The next phase will be in a year, where I'll lose the dish and go with an antenna and an USB tuner dongle for a computer DVR solution. This is all to go along with the Apple TVs I have.

The plan is to cut out about $120 a month. We shall see how close I can come, but right now it looks totally do-able.

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In time, this too shall pass.

I have Charter as well. I have a ten year old tube TV. So I just have the basic cable channels, internet and home phone. 129 a month. No DVR, no HD crap. Honestly I could live without the cable TV but my wife would cut my useless nuts off if she couldn't watch Food Network. I also happen to live in a bit of a dead zone. So without cable, even with the best anntenna I could find, I could clearly watch one local station. I also need the home phone.

I refuse to carry a cell. I am sure I would end up crushing it with my caveman club at some point.

There is also a very bad website out there that has the gall to put up new TV shows. Project free something or another. I don't use it but I know folks who do.

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Raell Kromwell

I just got my latest Comcast bill. They are charging me for their bundle even though I am only using their internet service. I am not happy that I need to call them and get this fixed. Every time they called me to try to get me to bundle I told them NO! Now they seem to think they can just do it anyway. If they weren't the only game in town I would drop them like a hot potato! So very pissed!!

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"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

So I have an update to this.

Comcast called me today to inform me that on Oct 10th they will begin 'blocking' HD Channels on my Digital Preferred package, and that my DVR will no longer function.

Apparently they are supposed to be charging me for the Motorola HD-DVR that I've had since 2005 or so. The cost to use this crappy 8 year old piece of junk is an additional $10 a month. If I want a more modern cable box, I have to upgrade to their 'Triple Play' package and add phone to the bundle and pay another $10 for the new X1.

There is no way I'm going to pay any more for this crap. Fsck them. I'm taking the cable box back to them tomorrow and canceling everything.

I will be signing up for Century Link's $20 a month Internet plan.
I'll use an HD antenna to get whatever broadcast OTA HD channels I can get locally.
I have Netflix and Amazon prime for Movies and TV.
For Sports, for the time being, I have my Slingbox over at my sisters house. I'll just stream those from her service.

Same thing happened to me. "Do you want HD?" "No." "But I only have HD boxes - here you go anyway".

3 years later they BACKCHARGE me. I told them where to stick it. So I got it scrubbed from the bill, and they sent me a new non-HD box. Well, the new one didn't work. So I sent that one back, keeping the one that did. The next one didn't have HDMI, so I sent that back. This process took 3 months, and I had them scrub 3 months of TV service off my bill.

In short, I received 3 years of free HD, 3 months of free TV, and I still somehow hate them.

I've been paying for a package that includes over 100 HD channels.

Apparently, somehow, the HD-DVR/Cable Box hardware got removed from my bill at some point.

They apparently know I have one, and they have complete control of the unit (it's registered on my account profile or it wouldn't be receiving any signal at all).

For whatever reason, they have not been billing me specifically for this hardware (technically $17 per month). Now they are saying if I don't pay the starting on the 10th, they are going to block me.

I'm telling them to go jump in a lake. Cable TV is by far the worst bargain in my entertainment budget (based on how little I use it). It makes paying go to a theater to see a bad movie, and indulging in some movie popcorn and soft drinks look like a bargain.

Friend of a friend got a faaaar higher cable bill than he should have received. When he called Comcast to ask about it, they told him that based on his recent purchase history and interests, they believed that he would want this extra channel package. So they added it to his package, never telling him about it, and then charged him for it.

Comcast is utterly, mindblowingly terrible.

Technically no they don't if you aren't overly concerned with legality.

I've never even heard of two of those shows, and the one I have (Game of Thrones) I tried a few episodes, and couldn't get into it....

I am.

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

So happy I choose none of that. The library remains free and my mind does better special effects than any mere company.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

I have used Century Link/Qwest/US West broadband since the late 90s (ISDN and then DSL) in multiple locations. I can count on one hand (using half of its fingers) how many times where I had a problem. And I can count on one finger where that problem persisted for more than a couple hours. But I know people who have had the same wonderful experience with Comcast, and dreadful experiences with Century Link.

Not me.

I have had to regrettably use Comcast every so often in the past 15 years. And every time it has caused me nothing but headaches and pain. I've had shoddy (and slow, thank you Mr. Bandwidth Sharing in your Neighborhood) internet service. But I've also had multiple problems with their billing department. One time in particular it took me several days of arguing and three (seriously, three) escalations to supervisors of supervisors of supervisors to get them to admit to screwing up and charging me for something they shouldn't have charged me for.

When I first bought my house, Qwest didn't have a presence here. So I had to yet again regrettably use comcast. And, lo, problems still abounded. A year later when I saw they had laid some fiber in the area, I dropped Comcast so hard. Now I live a block away from my DSLAM and have had no problems in almost 3 years. Ahhhhhhh!

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

I officially called and cancelled my Cable TV with Comcast yesterday.

When I called, the IVR asked me why I was calling, so I said 'Cancel Cable TV', and was directed to their 'loyalty' department.

The nice lady named Lisa asked my why I wanted to cancel. I politely told her it was a terrible value considering how little time I actually watch TV. She then asked me, presumably with a straight face... "But where will you get your entertainment?"... This is exactly the attitude that makes me hate them so so so much. They know they are the only option for HD Digital Service in my area, and aren't afraid to remind me, even as I'm calling to cancel.

Then she told me she noticed that I had subscribed to the "Sports and Entertainment" package for an extra $9.99 a month, and inquired how I would watch my live sports. I replied by telling her that I subscribed to that package because it was the only way to get the sports channels I wanted for watching Football and Baseball games, and that if she'd sell me *just* that service for $10, and skip the rest of the channels for $90, I'd be happy to sign up for that service. Needless to say, that didn't happen, and we proceeded to confirm my cancellation.

After she finished, before I ended the call, she informed me that because I no longer had Cable/Internet bundle, that my "Performance Internet" would be going up from $39.99 to $69.99 a month. She asked if that would be ok.... eh? No, it's not ok.

I'll be calling Century Link, Frontier and any other Internet service provider in my area so I can drop Comcast completely in the near future.