Cord Cutters - what's your ISP? (Boston, Cambridge: apartment, power lines, to rent)

[robr2]

Originally Posted by MikePRU

If you're home though you don't need to stream Pats games. Just buy an HD antenna for $20-$50. 99% of their games are available OTA from Fox or CBS. The picture quality from an HD antenna is actually better than what you get from cable.

He might be speaking of his winter home in Killington which may be in the Giant's and Jet's broadcast market.

[western mass and love it]

Killington is in the Patriots broadcast market.

[robr2]

Thank you for that information. I was looking at an NFL map and it showed the NY teams primary market taking part of VT.

[MikePRU]

Just to update everyone . . . I'm almost 100% sure that I'm dumping FiOS. For $50/month + taxes & fees, I signed up with Comcast for 200 MBPS speeds. They're coming a week from tomorrow to do the install. BTW, I can't remember the last time I paid an installation fee but they're charging me $60. I'll probably give Verizon a call sometime this week to give them a chance to keep me, but chances are they'll probably just do their best to replace me.

Totally different topic but . . . anyone have any insights as to why cable companies seem to place so much effort in obtaining new customers and zero effort in keeping the ones they have? They won't even offer you the same pricing they give to strangers even after going through 2 or 3 levels of call center rep.

[snatale1]

As a former Cable guy

1. RCN
2. Comcast
3. Verizon

Verizon is known for throttling and it shows. Comcast doesn't really care and RCN could REALLY care less how much bandwidth your burning.

For the Ultimate cord cutting experience, TiVO Roamio OTA box. Then have all your locals with program guides and DVR plus it integrates Hulu, Netflix, Amazon all the current ones and they add them too. It also has a built in Plex server so if your like me and download videos, movies, TV Shows you have them in there as well, all integrated. TiVO is $50 to purchase and then $14.99/mo.

[robr2]

Originally Posted by MikePRU

Totally different topic but . . . anyone have any insights as to why cable companies seem to place so much effort in obtaining new customers and zero effort in keeping the ones they have? They won't even offer you the same pricing they give to strangers even after going through 2 or 3 levels of call center rep.

Because existing customers usually won't leave even with great offers from competitors. They have a comcast.net or verizon.net e-mail address and don't want to change. They don't want to learn where their favorite channels are on the new provider. They don't want to pay an installation charge. They don't want to wait around for the cable installer to show up.

Consumers are basically lazy. I've been complaining about my Comcast bill and have yet to do much about it for the past year. Comcast has offered me better service at about 10% less cost so I might go for that instead of going to Verizon or RCN and having to deal with similar pricing in 6-12 months.

[MikePRU]

Originally Posted by snatale1

As a former Cable guy

1. RCN
2. Comcast
3. Verizon

Verizon is known for throttling and it shows. Comcast doesn't really care and RCN could REALLY care less how much bandwidth your burning.

For the Ultimate cord cutting experience, TiVO Roamio OTA box. Then have all your locals with program guides and DVR plus it integrates Hulu, Netflix, Amazon all the current ones and they add them too. It also has a built in Plex server so if your like me and download videos, movies, TV Shows you have them in there as well, all integrated. TiVO is $50 to purchase and then $14.99/mo.

I tried RCN but they don't service my street. I live on one of the few streets in Needham that has underground utilities. We actually were one of the last streets in town to get wired for FiOS. Luckily, that happened right before I moved in as Comcast stunk at that time.

I thought the OTA TiVO was $300 or $400. I kind of like my Tablo/Roku setup better because it allows me to have one OTA antenna for the whole house while reserving the coax wiring in my house to use for internet. So, I can put the modem anywhere I want.

Originally Posted by robr2

Because existing customers usually won't leave even with great offers from competitors. They have a comcast.net or verizon.net e-mail address and don't want to change. They don't want to learn where their favorite channels are on the new provider. They don't want to pay an installation charge. They don't want to wait around for the cable installer to show up.

Another agent in my office uses her Comcast email address for work. I keep telling her it's a bad idea. My email is G suites (formerly Google Apps). So, I have a custom domain name and it's completely portable and independent of both my brokerage and my ISP.

Originally Posted by robr2

Consumers are basically lazy. I've been complaining about my Comcast bill and have yet to do much about it for the past year. Comcast has offered me better service at about 10% less cost so I might go for that instead of going to Verizon or RCN and having to deal with similar pricing in 6-12 months.

I called Verizon this morning to see if they wanted to keep me as a customer. They offered me 75/75 for $10/month more than Comcast is offering 200 at. I'm switching to Comast. My FiOS bill just got out of control and I decided I had to make a change. When I would call to see if they could lower it in recent years instead of giving me decent loyalty discounts they just suggested I remove services. They clearly don't want my money. So, I'm cutting the cord and moving my ISP dollars to Comcast.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by western mass and love it

Killington is in the Patriots broadcast market.

It's kind of both. WCAX in Burlington carries the Patriots but the Comcast head end in Rutland is more New York-centric rather than 100% Boston-centric like it used to be before Adelphia bit the dust. I can't stream UConn chick basketball on ESPN3 from this IP address because they're on SNY (Mets, Jets pre-game & post-game). VTEL is based in Springfield, VT so they have the Boston stations if you're getting your video on their fiber network.

I get Comcast HD as part of my condo fee at Killington. Other than Patriots games, I pretty much never use it.

I return my HD set-top box to Comcast at my summer house when I'm not there in the winter. I happened to be there the night of the Houston/Pats playoff game. I don't have an antenna on my AV receiver so I opted to stream it from my laptop to my AV receiver using the CBS WBZ feed. It was awful but better'n nothing. I'm at sea level 26 miles from the Providence antenna towers so I'd need a directional antenna on the chimney to get acceptable OTA video.

[porterhouse]

Originally Posted by MikePRU

I was just on the Xfinity site and they're asking $50/month for the 200mpbs speed internet service plus fees & taxes and rental fee if you need a modem/router. I was thinking of switching to this but at RCN they offer 155 for $10 less per month which seems like a great deal.

Xfinity pricing is generally higher in Cambridge. As we don't get FIOS here, Comcast takes advantage and gouges. The city has a task force to explore citywide broadband but it's still in the early planning stages. There was some talk/hope that with Google's expanding presence here Cambridge would become one of their Gigabit pilot cities but I've not seen anything to indicate that will happen.

[Dm84]

Originally Posted by porterhouse

Xfinity pricing is generally higher in Cambridge. As we don't get FIOS here, Comcast takes advantage and gouges. The city has a task force to explore citywide broadband but it's still in the early planning stages. There was some talk/hope that with Google's expanding presence here Cambridge would become one of their Gigabit pilot cities but I've not seen anything to indicate that will happen.

Google is basically abandoning Google Fiber because it's too expensive to build out. I imagine the City of Cambridge will punt on the idea too once they realize how expensive it is.