TV and internet provider in Venice, Fl (Bradenton, Nokomis: credit card, home)

[Anne1125]

We are moving next month to Venice and want TV service (basic) and internet provider. Can someone recommend best company? We will need someone to come to our home to set up.

Thanks.

Anne

[beach43ofus]

Unfortunately, there is no "best" TV/Internet provider...just least worse.

If my 4 year old info is still valid today, there are 3 players in the Venice area: Xfinity/Comcast, Frontier, & Dish.

I have not tried Dish in FLA, so I cannot speak to that TV/cable option. Many HOA's will not allow Dish's to be installed anywhere on your home/property that provides the best reception, so that is a potential drawback. Also, w/ all the Summertime thunderstorms we get, I'm quite sure that would impact reception. What if a tropical storm was coming, but we couldn't get reception due to the storm.

I had Frontier in Palmer Ranch just North of here, & it was extremely tough to get the residence wired for it, & to work out the start-up glitches. Dealing w/ them on the phone is maddening at best, so never again. They didn't have any store/s I could walk into...not sure if that is still the case though.

I like how there's an Xfinity/Comast cableTV store in Venice on 41 I can go to (making appointments in advance is highly recommended because walk-in wait times are >30 minutes at times). Getting face-to-face helps me to get things done in a fraction of the time as dealing via phone, or web. The people in that store are very good.

I don't even have basic cable from Xfinity/Comast, I just have internet from them, which makes me eligible to get their $11/month cell phone deal (I use almost no data on my smart phone). Even unlimited data for my Son's phone is economical ($50/mo) through their plan, which piggybaks onto Verizon's 4G network. His newer Apple worked w/ their system, but my old ATT flip cell phone didn't, so I had to buy their phone (I always buy the cheapest Samsung). I'm 3.5 yrs into their internet service w/o issues, and 1.5 yrs into their cell phone svc w/o issue, and I'm saving a lot on the phone svc for our 3 phones....>$100/mo vs. ATT.

So, I recommend Xfinity/Comast in their Venice store for cable, internet, & cell phone service.

I have had an antenna dish installed in my attic for local network tv stations only. The HOA's around here won't allow the old-style tv antenna's to be mounted on your roofs like we did up North pre-cable. Excite Sound downtown Venice installed that..Howard is your guy there. He wired it into a main line above the garage in the attic so all 3 cable receptacles in my walls where I'd normally plug in for cable tv, I get local network antenna tv instead...free over-the-air netork tv. I paid <$200 for the dish & install wiring combined. Howard programmed both our TV's & showed us how to use the remotes to switch back from network tv, to our DVD player if we are watching DVD's we get from the library for free.

I have not had cable tv in 8+ years. We seldom turn either of the 2 tv's in our home....for weeks at a time. Only if there's a major sporting event on NBC, ABC, or CBS, or if there's a weather event we want to see on network tv. My wife watches internet programming on her laptop via a free shared Netflix act w/ her Sister, and a free shared Amazon Prime Student account of our Son who is away at college.

So, we pay ~$850/year for TV & 3 cell phones combined....but we have no cable tv. If there's an important game on ESPN, I go up to the community clubhouse to watch it on their jumbo sized screen. Like the UGA football games not carried on the networks.

If somebody's paying less than we are for what we get, I'd be surprised. The reliability has been very good too.

[wondermint2]

This has been my experience having had both Comcast and Frontier internet.

1) Frontier was more reliable as for as outages go. But Comcast seems to be getting a bit better.

2) Comcast was better with customer service - although Frontier might of made some management changes and it's been a while since I used them.

3) Comcast was a bit less expensive - especially if you don't need extremely fast internet. For instance a download speed of 50 mbps is plenty fast enough for streaming 4K videos. Comcast has much slower upload speeds though.

[beach43ofus]

Isn't it ironic that this topic came up on a day that our entire area lost internet for 5 hours....all providers so far as I know, but if Im wrong, plz chime in.

So, what does no internet mean?

It means that nearly all retailers cannot take credit cards. You must pay cash...like at gas stations & restaurants.

They didn't even bother to advise customers at the pumps, which was wrong & maddening. Your card would be declined.

Most businesses can't take credit cards w/o internet, so they just shut down.

Our society is overly exposed to the internet, Chinese goods, & the banking system, so beware.

I've taken precautionary measures....have you?

[MOforthewin]

Originally Posted by beach43ofus

Isn't it ironic that this topic came up on a day that our entire area lost internet for 5 hours....all providers so far as I know, but if Im wrong, plz chime in.

So, what does no internet mean?

It means that nearly all retailers cannot take credit cards. You must pay cash...like at gas stations & restaurants.

They didn't even bother to advise customers at the pumps, which was wrong & maddening. Your card would be declined.

Most businesses can't take credit cards w/o internet, so they just shut down.

Our society is overly exposed to the internet, Chinese goods, & the banking system, so beware.

I've taken precautionary measures....have you?

I'm lucky. I'm small business so I use square. at worst I can connect my reader to my phone and use the internet that way via cell signal.



I work part-time at Publix and store ran fine. However I'm pretty sure ours are not relied on the traditional internet. If we took payment without card authorization we'd be robbed blind.


Some retailers also have satellite based ones.

[conedman54]

We have Frontier in our Nokomis community and as far as i know it's the only provider. For for TV, we stream...Directv, Youtube and Hulu all have streaming services with the local channels. They also have free trial periods so you can check them out before committing.

[Travelassie]

Originally Posted by beach43ofus

Isn't it ironic that this topic came up on a day that our entire area lost internet for 5 hours....all providers so far as I know, but if Im wrong, plz chime in.

So, what does no internet mean?

It means that nearly all retailers cannot take credit cards. You must pay cash...like at gas stations & restaurants.

They didn't even bother to advise customers at the pumps, which was wrong & maddening. Your card would be declined.

Most businesses can't take credit cards w/o internet, so they just shut down.

Our society is overly exposed to the internet, Chinese goods, & the banking system, so beware.

I've taken precautionary measures....have you?

A friend of ours here told us his home Century Link provider was working just fine yesterday during the Comcast outage.

Our ATT cell phone service was ok too.

But you're right, our lives and livelihoods are waaaaay too dependent on internet services, and taking backup measures is a good idea.

[BP1968]

We have Frontier for internet in Bradenton and have been very pleased with the service. I work from there all of the time and have not had any issues at all. We have YouTube TV for TV service, a good option for streamers unless you need a lighter channel selection.

[wondermint2]

My Comcast service was down yesterday from 3PM until 7PM. (I'm in Nokomis). However this morning I had a doctor appt. in Venice for 11:30AM and his office called me this morning and said their internet is still down so I had to cancel the appt. and reschedule (or do a telehealth appt). It seems kind of weird that I had to cancel my appt. Instead I chose to do the telehealth for the same time.

[MOforthewin]

Originally Posted by wondermint2

My Comcast service was down yesterday from 3PM until 7PM. (I'm in Nokomis). However this morning I had a doctor appt. in Venice for 11:30AM and his office called me this morning and said their internet is still down so I had to cancel the appt. and reschedule (or do a telehealth appt). It seems kind of weird that I had to cancel my appt. Instead I chose to do the telehealth for the same time.

So having internet down cancel appointment????? Totally silly. They could have wrote you a paper bill if they had to. Dr offices functioned just fine 30 years ago.