[mattg]

I had a comcast guy come to my house when I had a non-DTV capable apt.

So he wouldn't screw up anything with my setup if he installed it when just my wife was home, I ran all the wires, and taped them to the location I wanted the digital box to be.

I ended up being home...

He hooked up the coax from the wall, the 2 audio cables, and the s-video. He then got this blank look on his face and asked me how the video got to the TV without a piece of coax connecting the TV and the cable box.

 

[mattg]

Originally posted by Jasonp55
D*'s not prefect, but at least they've never flat out lied to me.

I used to get advertisements from Comcast when I had a dish in a previous apt. I think it was just a generic "Current Resident" advertisement for digital cable. This advertisement said that with Comcast cable, you could get the "exclusive" Comcast Sports Net. CSN is the local DC "fox Sports" type channel which shows the local hockey, basketball, etc. This was a flat out lie. I had DTV, and had always been able to watch CSN - not that I wanted to though.

Comcast had recently bought the rights to the channel, and I remember telling my wife when they changed the name that they'll probably start claiming that Dish doesn't have it because it has Comcast in the name.

Quite a few of the people I talk to about DTV tell me that they'd consider it, but they don't want to lose their Comcast Sports Net channel.

 

[mattg]

Originally posted by ThomasDrew
At times, yes, but there's some things to like about Comcast....

1) 24-7 tech support and customer service. I once had an issue on Saturday night and had a tech in my home the following morning (that's a SUNDAY, mind you).

2) Want to pay your bill at 4am? Go right ahead!

3) Blazing fast internet connection that frankly, DSL can't touch...not by a longshot. (I reliaze that this is somewhat subjective)

...now granted, all of this comes with a price, which I consider almost exorbitant, but you do receive fair value in return.

I'm a former dish owner and I loved every minute that I was with DTV. Now, however, logistics make it impossible for me to go with their service so I am "stuck" with Comcast. I must say though, that as a whole, they have improved dramatically over the years....at least in the Richmond, VA market.

1. 24/7 tech support? You mean Comcast will come out at 4am to fix your cable service? Wow.

2. Want to change your programming and pay your bill at 4am? You can do that with DTV, but not Comcast.

3. It is not subjective, but does have quite a bit to do with where you live, and what you consider to be "speed". My Comcast HSI line in woodbridge va got so bad over the couple years I had it that I switched to DSL. DSL was always more, but with the fees they had just tacked onto non TV HSI, it was the same price. I was lucky to get dial up bandwidth and pings on the weekends, so a 1500/128 DSL line was much faster.

Within a month of so of getting DSL, Verizon slashed the price in half to $30. Not only that, but I was getting every bit of the advertised speeds and had a ping of 10-15ms to most websites. Then, they increased the upload to 384, which I got all of.

Changed apts, and could no longer get DTV, but kept DSL because of price and performance. It was rock solid when it came to reliability... never once went down in 18 months. After Isabel came through Va, power was out for about a day. As soon as it came back, I was online. Cable TV was out for days.

Right now, I have an Adelphia cable modem which at first was horribly unreliable. After an area upgrade, it has been great, but still not matching the 10-15ms pings I had with Verizon. Of course, the $55 price is quite a bit different than $30 too. I'd switch to DSL in a heartbeat if I could.

 

[mattg]

Originally posted by ThomasDrew
1. I never said that Comcast sent in-home service technicians out at 4am, rather, they were available on a Sunday morning less than 12 hours after I called.

2. You most certainly *can* alter your lineup, add/delete services and what not at 4am with Comcast. I have paid my bill at 3am before...on more than one occasion. Like they said...open 24/7

Well, I didn't know Comcast had finally let people change their subscriptions at all hours of the night, but you still have to call right? And both companies take payments online. Advantage here goes to DTV if Comcast does not allow me to change programming online.

I have never needed a tech to come out to my house for DTV. The wonderful thing about DTV is that ALL of the wiring needed for service is 100% under my control. If something knocked the dish out of alignment at 2am, I can fix it within minutes. I don't need to wait the 12 hours for the tech to access the locked down neighborhood equipment.

My experience here in Richmond with DSL was nothing short of horrendous. Others experiences may differ. Perhaps they think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. To each his own. Personally, I've had to reboot my modem a few times and of course, after the increased speed rollouts. I cannot recall any extended outages off the top of my head.

Like I said, it greatly depends on location, and what you consider speed to be. I play more online games than I do large downloads. To me, I define speed as latency. If connection 1 offers 3Mbps but the average ping is 50-75 with spikes in the hundreds, and connection 2 offers 1.5Mbps with 10-15ms with no spikes above 50... I take connection 2 every time even if priced the same. When I monitored the ping of my DSL line, the graph was as flat as a table top. The cable line with Comcast was a roller coaster.

If you live in an area with reliable low ping DSL, I don't know of too many people who can justify spending up to twice as much for cable.

I paid 19.99 for a six month promotion. I now pay $42.95 monthly and I consistently get 4000/384. Given my computing needs, I'm happy as a clam with that.

I have Adelphia which has been reliable in the past few months following an upgrade. However, I am not a fan of cable companies and their "HSI monopoly" fees. They know many people can't get DSL, so they add a $12-$15 fee onto their customers with only HSI. I was a comcast HSI only customer when the fee jumped from $5 to $15 in one month, and right after a general HSI increase. I think my bill jumped about $15 in 2 months.

Cable companies do this because they know that their TV services (without HiDef as of right now) can't compete. If they can find a way to increase the cost to their HSI and TV customers thinking of making the jump from Cable TV to DTV, they do it. A friend of mine has Adelphia analog cable with HSI. He said he would switch to DTV, but the monopoly fee would increase his total bill. The FCC just released numbers saying that the average cost of ANALOG cable jumped over $45 a month. The number of TV's in the avergage household is just over 2. So, most people in the US could save about $5 a month or pay the same for an all digital TV service as they do for analog cable.