tampa has bad cable (Lakeland, Dade City: home, movies, quality of life)

[runswithscissors]

Originally Posted by Sharon2226

We have Brighthouse, and their customer service is the best, hands down over Verizon. I loathe their customer service...And they were just fined with intentionally having blackouts (with cable and phone) like to the tune of millions. But, Brighthouse has had a series of periodic outages...not sure why that is, but every week, I'm dealing with a phone call clipping out, or my internet service dying. It's been better since we moved to Ballantrae, over Concord Station, oddly.

Tampa is not behind the times, I wouldn't say...Land O'Lakes is a bit. lol

OK so...you prefer Brighthouse even though your service dies every week or lose calls but because you don't like [something] about Verizon, Brighthouse is your preferred carrier? Was Verizon worse? How is Brighthouse's Customer Service the best hands down if your service is always broken LOL ? (I'm a phone company retiree so this is always fascinating to me what the public's perception of "good" is)

[runswithscissors]

Originally Posted by Sharon2226

do you find brighthouse to be pricey? Hmmm...with phone, cable and internet...it's like $110 per month for us. I just wish there were more companies to choose from though!

Phone service has always cost from 35.00 at the cheapest to about 50.00 depending on your optional features. Then your Cable was always about 50.00, for many years, correct? And that's without pay stations. Now add on Internet and I'm not aware of how to get internet for less than say, 20.00. Just because it's one company doesn't mean it can be cheaper.

You can try Vonage it's a reseller but you get what you pay for with all resellers and aggregators and smaller phone companies. I am a phone company retiree LOL.

[Sharon2226]

Originally Posted by runswithscissors

OK so...you prefer Brighthouse even though your service dies every week or lose calls but because you don't like [something] about Verizon, Brighthouse is your preferred carrier? Was Verizon worse?

lol well when you put it like that! Actually, the dropping of calls has improved. I also filled out a recent survey, and mentioned the internet disconnections, and truly over the past 3 weeks, things have improved. I am big on customer service, so for me, this is why I remain with them. They are very determined to make things right for their customers. When I canceled Comcast in PA, for example when we moved last year--oh my gosh, I received bills for 6 months--SIX MONTHS, and they disconnected the service the day before we moved out. Hello? The bigger companies just don't care about the customers. Brighthouse cares, and I think that it was worth sticking with them, despite the call/internet connection drops.

[runswithscissors]

Originally Posted by biggoose9000

pretty miserable cable
antiquated menus
poor on demand channel selection
sub-optimal picture quality

am i wrong to associate a good city with good cable?
or is a good city defined by its ability to stomach such bad cable service, because there is other stuff to do. who needs tv and so forth...

No you're not wrong. My kid would move if he couldnt get Dish for the baseball package lol. Seriously too...

And if bad cable means bad picture audio etc, the for SURE it's bad...it's an election year for goodness sakes....we will be watching tv more, imo.

[Sharon2226]

Originally Posted by runswithscissors

Phone service has always cost from 35.00 at the cheapest to about 50.00 depending on your optional features. Then your Cable was always about 50.00, for many years, correct? And that's without pay stations. Now add on Internet and I'm not aware of how to get internet for less than say, 20.00. Just because it's one company doesn't mean it can be cheaper.

You can try Vonage it's a reseller but you get what you pay for with all resellers and aggregators and smaller phone companies. I am a phone company retiree LOL.

We pay about $110 per month, and that is for cable, internet, and phone. Long distance anytime. We also have HBO. The first 100 channels is paid through the homeowners association...oh, so I guess it would be around $140 monthly, still that's not too bad.

[Sharon2226]

Originally Posted by runswithscissors

No you're not wrong. My kid would move if he couldnt get Dish for the baseball package lol. Seriously too...

And if bad cable means bad picture audio etc, the for SURE it's bad...it's an election year for goodness sakes....we will be watching tv more, imo.

A major downer is the I think verizon carries the football package, and BH doesn't. My husband was kind of bummed about that, but he'll go to a local pub or his brother's to watch the Steelers. I thought that was kind of odd that only Verizon carries the football package??

[runswithscissors]

Originally Posted by rich67

Brighthouse's picture quality is not as nice as Verizon's FIOS (Fiber Optic cable service). THe only thing is, FIOS is being installed in communities piece by piece, so some areas don't have access yet. The channel content is essentially the same. FIOS is a bit more expensive, but it offers faster service than digital cable and broadband by Roadrunner, and the HD channels are much nicer than Brighthouse's signal.
You have to understand, pretty much everything in Florida is about 5 years behind what is going on in more progressive states (California, for example). Eventually they catch up. It's like buying a 5 year old computer....sure, it works, but its not as fast as the new models and the operating system is outdated.

But FIOS is taking long because the communities have to agree to it, and each premises has to be WIRED. Obviously, people think they should just "get it" and the carrier bear the expense but it's very labor intensive going into every single house. So even in Phila, a Verizon Headquarters (unlike Calif) it's a rolled out technology and will take years. Luckily this time it's not just Florida lol.

[TampaKaren]

We're going back to Brighthouse; they're coming tomorrow morning. We should get a rebate plus we'll save maybe $30 per month. We have some specific needs, e.g., two phone lines and higher speed internet that drives up the cost a bit. It just irks me that I only watch about 8 different TV chanels max ever and they say, "Look, we're giving you 200 chanels plus HBO and Showtime!" Oh great, just what I don't need...re-runs of Saturday Night Fever (sic). Ha! I just wish I could order and pay for what I use and not have to pay for all those extra things I don't want or need.

For us, the FIOS internet was much faster and more reliable than Brighthouse, but the Brighthouse TV is better (love BayNews9 during hurricane season).

[randian]

At least Tampa has FIOS. Those poor suckers in SE Florida have to make do with Comcast. I doubt Verizon will ever expand FIOS into SE Florida.

[Aliza Sojourner]

Whole hearted agreement here about Verizon FIOS having poor customer service. I got FIOS in Tampa when it was first installed in my neighborhood. Then I moved to another Tampa neighborhood and FIOS wanted to fine me because I didn't install FIOS again. Well....duh....there was NO FIOS in the new neighborhood. Bottom line, I spent hours on hold attempting to talk with Verizon. It's still not settled to my satisfaction after over two years of conflicting promises etc