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Old 11-03-2012, 04:42 AM
 
Location: Sarasota
88 posts, read 158,341 times
Reputation: 40

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I am sick over the exorbitant cost of cable TV. My monthly bill is $180 (with taxes and fees) for FIOS Triple Play with no movie options. I have 2 set top boxes and a DVR. Has anyone found a considerably less alternative?
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Old 11-03-2012, 05:00 AM
 
Location: Port Charlotte, FL
3,979 posts, read 10,544,071 times
Reputation: 1940
Nope, they all run about the same price - cable or satellite dish. The only thing cheaper is when you get the initial come on deals and then the prices go up after a year or so. We have a friend that keeps switching companies. Every time the deal runs out, then he switches to another deal. The only thing cheaper is basic cable or antenna. I think the prices are ridiculous. I wish I could just select the channels I actually use and forget about paying for the rest that I never use.
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Old 11-03-2012, 07:25 AM
 
37,315 posts, read 59,832,630 times
Reputation: 25341
This is like a Ponzi scheme
The way cable companies can afford to pay the HUGE prices to HBO and Showtime and the more popular channels is by taking the money from ones like HSN that only a select % of viewers really watch/use
IF they ever offered the ability to choose only the top 10 channels and drop all the dross you don't want, the prices would still stay the same or even go up because you would be supporting the expensive ones w/o any of the additional funding from the ones you don't watch...
Read an interesting article about features like HBOGo and SHO Anytime for online viewing that said plenty of cable subscribers are giving out their signon codes to people like adult kids in college or friends who don't want to pay for cable because they do most viewing/news via Internet--
HBO and Showtime don't care about the pirating like that---they just care about the subscriber base...they would never agree to sell ONLY an internet subscription because they need home based subscriptions that help pay for all the costs of putting in cable to neighborhoods...
What I didn't realize when we bought our house in FL and signed up for FIOS (which is cheaper for the big package than ATT is for us back in TX) is that we could have gotten basic service package to get local channels and Internet service and just signed on to HBO and Showtime with our ATT Internet logons----
Which would have saved some money because to get HBO AND Showtime is a significant cost bump...

SO anyone has vacation home and also has a land based subscription service in another state consider doing that--
Just taking the basic package and get high speed Internet service and then use the Internet based sites like HBOGo from other cable service to watch in FL...
You can also apparently drop to a 'vacation" mode when you go out of state which reduces the cost of the monthly charges and then get it turned on when you come back
Haven't tried that feature so don't know how accurate the info is...
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Old 11-03-2012, 07:34 AM
 
16,376 posts, read 22,473,858 times
Reputation: 14398
I have Dish Network for TV. Am very happy with it. The price stays fixed for long periods of time...with very rare price increases. You get many channels(more channels than Fios and cable) and they periodically give free movie channels for a few months and sometimes a whole year. They are generally cheaper than cable. they have 3 general tiers for channels.

Apparently Dish also offers internet service (a pretty recent addition). I have not tried it.

When heavy rain comes through, the satellite might go out for a few minutes. I never had it occur for longer than an hour (in many years)...mostly it is a blip for 3 minutes. It's only when rain is coming from a certain direction. It (the rain issue) is much less of a problem than I thought it would be.
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Old 11-03-2012, 07:34 AM
 
1,581 posts, read 3,371,973 times
Reputation: 761
Our friends up North did get Verizon to agree to a 6 month up North contract and 6 month in Venice. He really had to go through a lot of red tape to get them to do it but at least he's not paying full price for both places when he isn't using it.
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Old 11-03-2012, 08:02 AM
 
Location: Hudson Vally/Suncoast
129 posts, read 237,052 times
Reputation: 271
Our bill for FIOS was also $180 a month for triple play with ShowTime. We dropped our land line and went to double play basic, local channels only at $79 a month with the basic box, no HD. Newer TV's have QAM receivers which get the network HD stations and a few others. We're using the QAM HD stations and picked up Netflix, mainly for when our granddaughter visits. We went with the middle priced internet choice, amazing how quickly they've implemented the tiered internet service.
Verizon's website is all about triple play and finding basic options took some work.
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Old 11-03-2012, 12:59 PM
 
Location: Sarasota FL
6,864 posts, read 12,070,521 times
Reputation: 6744
I get mail from fios every week, plus a weekly phone call and once in awhile in person sales people. For two years it was the teaser $99. It is now $109 for 12 months. But that doesn't include box rental, HD upgrade, DVR service. Those 3 are an additional $16 My left and right side neighbors are paying $145 and $165 I have had Dish for 14 years. I bought my system [which you could do back then] for $179. I figure I would have already paid $840 for a $5 a month box rental. [remember when we 'rented' our one phone] Many channels that are in the second tier of Dish are in the third tier of FIOS, so an additional $10 to get them. It would be great if they had 'a la carte' channel selection so I wouldn't have to pay for the dozens of channels I never watch. I have no interest in watching any kind of videos on a computer screen, so I still use dial up for internet connection, $10 a month. I have been offered a free wireless mobile usb stick with 2 gigs a month service for $40 a month. I installed an antenna in my attic space and get about 3 dozen channels, many are HD. And channel 10 recently switched their transmission from Tarpon Springs to the Riverview tower.
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Old 11-03-2012, 08:02 PM
 
Location: North Port
697 posts, read 1,169,349 times
Reputation: 170
I would NOT recommend getting the triple play. You do NOT need anyone else s VOIP (Voice over IP). MagicJack Plus works GREAT! I used it over in Iraq/Kuwait to call home over their local cellular network and then used it over here for the past two years. So, get internet & cable, then plug a magicjack plus into your router..the output into a wall phone jack...and you are set !
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Old 11-03-2012, 08:35 PM
 
Location: Sarasota
509 posts, read 906,993 times
Reputation: 463
No one needs cable any more, you can watch everything online. Hook up your computer to the tv with your hdmi and your done.
I've even done it by tethering off my smartphone.
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Old 11-04-2012, 12:32 AM
 
Location: In a little house on the prairie - literally
10,202 posts, read 7,916,433 times
Reputation: 4561
Quote:
Originally Posted by Frida7 View Post
No one needs cable any more, you can watch everything online. Hook up your computer to the tv with your hdmi and your done.
I've even done it by tethering off my smartphone.
Exactly. I have not had cable for almost 3 years now, and don't miss it a bit.
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