Cable Prices Rising in metro-Atlanta (sales, movies, bills)

[LynnHarris]

Behind these price increases, I think a lot of people will be seeking an alternative form of entertainment...


Comcast raises rates; competitors prices go up as well

"Many of metro Atlanta Comcast customers started off the year with higher cable bills as the nation’s top cable provider raised rates for most of its TV packages.

But frustrated customers may find little options elsewhere as competitors such as DirecTV and AT&T’s U-verse are bumping up their prices as well..."


http://www.ajc.com/business/comcast-raises-rates-competitors-1330860.html

[Mirabella]

Nah. You just call them up and politely say this is too much of an increase and you may need to drop cable or go to DirecTV. They dropped my bill $40 a month for the next 12 months and got 6 month of free HBO. I do this every year.

[testa50]

I just use internet and have Netflix via Roku--started in January. So far I like it.

[SW30303]

Originally Posted by Mirabella

Nah. You just call them up and politely say this is too much of an increase and you may need to drop cable or go to DirecTV. They dropped my bill $40 a month for the next 12 months and got 6 month of free HBO. I do this every year.

Never hurts to just ask your existing provider before deciding to use a cheaper alternative. Good point made.

Though this is about cable and not internet service, per se:

Just curious, anyone here like Clear OK? - I was thinking of switching to that myself as I have tweedle-dum (AT&T) or -dee (Comcast) for my usual choices for Internet. I don't watch TV or have a landline to bother with so no bundled packages for me.

[billl]

Originally Posted by SW30303

Never hurts to just ask your existing provider before deciding to use a cheaper alternative. Good point made.

We tried that with DirecTV. They didn't budge. They were glad to reduce our monthly rate by switching us to a smaller package with fewer channels.

I can't wait to switch back to Comcast, as crap-tastic as it is. And I know when I do I will get a good introductory rate.

[testa50]

Originally Posted by SW30303

Just curious, anyone here like Clear OK? - I was thinking of switching to that myself as I have tweedle-dum (AT&T) or -dee (Comcast) for my usual choices for Internet. I don't watch TV or have a landline to bother with so no bundled packages for me.

I had Clear for two weeks and managed to return/cancel service during the trial period. Their marketing is borderline false advertising, and they reach out to customers they really shouldn't be reaching out to (ie: me).

I knew, with streaming HD TV shows and movies, that I would be a high bandwidth user. So I bought the most expensive service they offer, with "unlimited" high-speed internet. The materials said that this was ideal for people who want to stream video--sounded about right. I also run a web business and remotely access my office desktop a lot, all at the same time, so I need speed.

Well, it worked great for a few days. I could watch whatever, whenever, and do all my internet stuff all at once. Then they throttled me for excessive bandwidth use. My ~5-6 mbps download speed turned into ~.25 mbps. It was like 1998 all over again.

The customer service people must deal with this frequently, and their goal seems to be to keep the customer hanging on until the trial period expires. Once, they "reset my connection with the tower" to make it "work again". The next time, they asked the bizarre question, "did this only happen when you are on the internet?" which I refused to answer directly.

I read some forums about it and knew exactly what was going on, so I was using the trial period as long as possible until Comcast could come over. I like Clear's product a lot and think it has promise for the future, but they have sketchy sales tactics and are not upfront about the limitations of their system.


If you mainly just check email and stuff, you'll probably be fine. But if you download to the tune of 10GB/month (which isn't outlandish) you'll need to look elsewhere.

[LynnHarris]

Originally Posted by Mirabella

Nah. You just call them up and politely say this is too much of an increase and you may need to drop cable or go to DirecTV. They dropped my bill $40 a month for the next 12 months and got 6 month of free HBO. I do this every year.

Thanks for the tip!

[noah]

We dropped cable last year and don't miss it. We now get over 60 channels with our $11 digital antenna including many channels I did not know existed.

Originally Posted by LynnHarris

Behind these price increases, I think a lot of people will be seeking an alternative form of entertainment...


Comcast raises rates; competitors prices go up as well

"Many of metro Atlanta Comcast customers started off the year with higher cable bills as the nation’s top cable provider raised rates for most of its TV packages.

But frustrated customers may find little options elsewhere as competitors such as DirecTV and AT&T’s U-verse are bumping up their prices as well..."


http://www.ajc.com/business/comcast-raises-rates-competitors-1330860.html

[icecreamsandwich]

It's not just metro Atlanta... A large number of cable/telco companies have increased pricing for video in the period between December and now. I know Cox, AT&T, DirecTV, and Time Warner are some that have announced rate hikes.

"increased programming costs", whilst they push to force caps on the Internet and refuse to use their position to provide a la carte programming...

[LynnHarris]

Originally Posted by noah

We dropped cable last year and don't miss it. We now get over 60 channels with our $11 digital antenna including many channels I did not know existed.

Is the antenna easy to install?