Anyone get cable cards from Charter?

[redrouteone]

I am stuck here in Charter land and am planning to get a S3 soon. Has anyone here gotten a cable card from them before? Do they require a truck roll or charge outrageous fees? I would call and ask but I never get the same answer from them twice.

[megazone]

I used Charter Digital in Worcester, MA for my S3 review. They required a truck roll, but it was a breeze. I don't know the fees yet - haven't gotten the latest bill.

[eziemann]

I stopped by the Charter office in La Crosse, WI and asked about picking 1 up and installing myself. They said a tech has to do it but there is no fee for the trip but you have to get the "upgrade". The upgrade she was referring was the additional $7 for ESPN, TNT, etc HD (non-local) channels. She said only $1.95 a month for the card.
I already have that package so I am not expecting another fee.
I had a great experience the last time the guy showed up. He helped recable 3 outlets for free at my house which easily was a $100 job from anywhere else. I tipped him $20 for the help.

[doppler1]

I just ordered my CableCARDs... They are $1.50 each here (Madison, WI), and similar to megazone's experience, they do not allow self-installs. The truck roll to "install" the CableCARDs is $29.95 here - something I'm not happy about about, but in the grand scheme of the overall S3 price, it isn't that bad. I actually decided to hold on to the Moxi for now though - I want to make sure everything is working great before letting that go as there is a fairly lengthy waiting list for DVR's around here.

[Dan203]

I was told that it's $32 for the truck roll, $1.50 per card and that it takes 10 days to get the card before they can do the install.

Dan

[redrouteone]

Humm.... so $1.50 per cable card, so that would be $3.00 per month rental fee. I spend more than that for coffee, so not a problem there.

I allready have the upgrade mentioned above so it should not be a problem.

Thats a bummber about the truck roll. The problem is not paying for it, it is finding the time to wait for the cable guy.

[Sepia]

Got an appointment with Charter in Glendale, CA to get two cablecards. There is one drawback that I did not expect. To add the cablecards to my account they have to disable my current DVRs (Moxi + Motorolla) that I've been renting from them. Apparently you cannot have cablecards + their DVRs.

That is no issue for me except that I wanted an overlap to finish watching my shows. Feh.

- Sepia

[Dan203]

That's crap! You can have both! I have a friend who has both the Moxi and a CableCARD in his TV. If someone told you that they were either confused or misinformed.

Dan

[Sepia]

That's crap! You can have both! I have a friend who has both the Moxi and a CableCARD in his TV. If someone told you that they were either confused or misinformed.

Dan

I had the person double-check with a manager, and they said their system is not setup to have both. It seemed to me to be a software issue on their end...

She was definite that my Charter DVRs would be disabled if they entered the two cable cards into the system.

- Sepia

[eric_mcgovern]

Mine are coming on Tuesday and the only reason I had to pay was for the pro-rate upgrade (which I know the tech won't care about). Doesn't seem they charge to install, but they won't let me self install.

[cotton168]

I posted a new thread about Charter, but I thought I should ask it here. I also talked to Charter today about getting cable cards and everything was going fine until the guy told me that I was not able to run my cable boxes and the cable cards together. :(

Dan203, did your friend have Charter or someone else for his cable service?

[cotton168]

Hey Eric,

They were actually okay with getting two cablecards, but I'm bummed out with the fact that I was not able to run the cableboxes along with the CCs. The cableboxes are for my brother and parents to use while I use the CC with the Tivo. :(

[cotton168]

For those of you having trouble with Charter, click the link to hopefully get your issue resolved.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=4366725#post4366725

[rainwater]

Is it just me or do these cable companies just make up the CC fees on the fly? It seems they have no clue what they should charge themselves.

[cotton168]

Maybe its because not too many people use CCs since most people just use the box that the cable companies provide them. :rolleyes:

[montivette]

Hey charter people I have a question about billing. It has been around 3 months since I had Charter but I am going to start up service again (after three months I am a non customer and can sign up for promotional deal as a new customer.) I did all of my bill paying via their website so I can not review my former bills now that I am not a current customer.

I know you are paying for the cable cards, but are you also paying a HDTV fee too? It was mentioned in another thread where the HDTV fee charge was in dispute as the cable company wanted to charge for it, but it was stated if you said you do not want it, they had no way to really deactivate HDTV from the other digital content. I know in Charter's case they control it because they have HD decoder vs non hd Decoders and HD DVR vs non HD DVR. So they install the version of the box based on what you pay for. If the fee they charge is decribed or considered to be a fee to get the HD box then I assume you will not have to pay the $15 fee for HD Box or HD service (or whatever the price is)

So I am curious the charges they told you they are now going to charge you for the S3 and cable cards vs when you had their Motorola Moxi DVR. Please pull out a bill if you had the Moxi and type here what fees they charged and how they were described on the bill. Thanks

[cotton168]

Hey montivette!

I believe they cannot charge you. From what I understand Charter would not bill you for the extra content. I didn't purchase their Moxi because I just didn't want it, but I did get their HD box that can display HD (SA Explorer 3250HD). They only charged us the rental for the box but asked if we wanted the extra content for another added fee. It was not required so we didn't take it. Hope that helps you and good luck!

[Dan203]

In my area there is an extra fee for the "HD Teir" which gets you ESPN-HD, Discovery HD, HDNWT, HDNET Movies, TNT-HD and MTV-HD. It's like $7. The local channels and the HD equivelents of any premium channels you pay for are no extra charge.

Dan

[quango]

Yep, at least in St. Louis the locals and FSN Midwest are part of the "lifeline HD" level, which is free; Showtime, HBO, and Cinemax HD are free with those movie tiers; and the channels Dan listed (ESPN, HDNet, etc.) are on a separate "HD Tier" that is $6.99/month.

Damned if I can remember what the CableCard fee is on the rate sheet they gave me when I signed up. $1.50 sounds like it might be right here too... I know Charter is trying to homogenize pricing as part of its "relocate all CSRs to India" plan.

Allegedly my S3 is coming today, but I may not be home when it comes so it could be Friday - and I didn't want to spend a week on hold with Charter arranging a CableCard service call just to have to reschedule it.

[laddiega]

From TiVo site:

All major cable companies are FCC mandated to provide CableCARDs to their digital cable subscribers. Some cable companies offer CableCARDs for free and others charge a small monthly fee. :eek:

[rainwater]

From TiVo site:

All major cable companies are FCC mandated to provide CableCARDs to their digital cable subscribers. Some cable companies offer CableCARDs for free and others charge a small monthly fee. :eek:

What are you trying to say? Btw, I think you will find that Charter charges one of the smaller fees overall for using CableCards. They do not have outlet fees and they do not require you to subscribe to the "digital" package to get HD channels.

[tootal2]

I have charter cable cards. When i brought my dvr to the cable company. The person
canceled my hd channels. Before i left i said i want keep on my hd channels. She said
you dont have a hd box. I told i get hd on cable cards and she fixed it.

She had no idea you could get hd on cable cards.