Is my Cable Company Charging too much for CableCards?

3962 Views 28 Replies 22 Participants Last post by GadgetVirtuoso, Aug 22, 2008

jaybird13

Discussion Starter · Oct 18, 2007

I'm really wanting to try the new TiVoHD, but I checked with my cable company and I think they're trying to hose users on CableCards. First, I wanted to compare it to what everyone else pays before making any judgements.

They charge a one-time fee of $130 for each CableCard and a $38.50 installation fee. There's no option to rent the cards.

These cards aren't dual-stream, aren't guaranteed, and they said they will not work with any TiVo manufactured prior to this year.

Does this sound reasonable to you guys? It will cost me $598.50 ($300 + $130 + $130 + $38.50) just to get a functioning TiVoHD running in my house. If that's the price of the 10 HD channels they offer, I may have to stick with my Series 2 fleet for awhile longer.

Are you guys paying this much to get TiVoHD up & running with your cable company?

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Dr_Diablo

· #2 · Oct 18, 2007

Did you call Tivo about this ripoff?

I've not read anything here that forces the consumer to pay in advance ...

What happens if you cancel early?

I hope you didn't fall for this obvious scam

The usually fee has been reported as $3.95/ month per card, PERIOD

20TIL6

· #3 · Oct 18, 2007

I would call TiVo and contact the FCC. Copy your cable company on your contact with the FCC. Who is your cable company? That pricing is ridiculous.

I'm with Comcast in Houston. No upfront charges, no installation charges (they are self-install), and to top it off, no rental charges either. Yep, that's right. Cablecards are absolutely free with Comcast in Houston.

yunlin12

· #4 · Oct 18, 2007

I pay $1.79/ month rental for my 2 cable cards, Comcast here has a dual-C-card price entry for these. No other additional outlet, or HDTV charges.

jaybird13

Discussion Starter · #5 · Oct 18, 2007

My cable company is city owned, so it sucks really hard.

I thought that their prices sounded off, but I just wasn't sure what everyone else was paying.

Do you guys think TiVo would even want to know? Or should I skip them and go directly to the FCC?

chg

· #6 · Oct 18, 2007

20TIL6 said:
I'm with Comcast in Houston. No upfront charges, no installation charges (they are self-install), and to top it off, no rental charges either. Yep, that's right. Cablecards are absolutely free with Comcast in Houston.

Same with Comcast in Loudoun, VA. I only have the basic lifeline service and pay no rental fee.

Resist

· #7 · Oct 19, 2007

jaybird13 said:
They charge a one-time fee of $130 for each CableCard and a $38.50 installation fee.

Did I read this correctly? One hundred and thirty dollars for each cablecard? OMG! Charter Cable in my area only charges $1.50 for each cablecard...that's one dollar and fifty cents.

TexasGrillChef

· #8 · Oct 19, 2007

Are you even serious?

Cable Companies charge to much for everything!

Sad to say... every area of the country is different. Some cable companies (Not all) have CONTRACTS with local municipalities. Those that do, have pricing controls that are to some degree controlled by the municipality. Other areas do not.

In my area... they charge $2.95 per cable card. Doesn't matter if how many devices you are using. $2.95 per cable card period.

If you lose or don't return cable card if you discontinue service. They will charge you $299 for a lost/stolen not returned cable card.

TGC

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Gai-jin

· #9 · Oct 19, 2007

It sounds like the cable co is requiring the OP to BUY the cablecard, not rent it. Is that something the cableco is allowed to do?

It would seem wrong to me, since the whole point is to BUY the equipment you can transfer from one cable co to another, rather than buying an expensive decoder that's only good for that cable co, and only until they decide to upgrade to something different...

Cablecard should let the user buy the 're-usable' part of the equipment, while renting the locked down decoder card that makes the equipment work with that specific cable system.

shamilian

· #10 · Oct 19, 2007

Comcast in NJ is charging the same for a Cablecard and an SA box rental ($7.95).
They want and install fee and are limiting me to 2 cards.

Anybody have FIOS ?
They seem to be more uniform in pricing.
How much do they charge for a cablecard ?

bicker

· #11 · Oct 19, 2007

The OP is talking about a municipal cable company, not one of the majors. Until someone checks, we cannot even be sure they're required to provide CableCards at all.

jaybird13: What is the actual name of the cable company? We need to know its actual name, so we can check.

Joybob

· #12 · Oct 19, 2007

bicker said:
The OP is talking about a municipal cable company, not one of the majors. Until someone checks, we cannot even be sure they're required to provide CableCards at all.

jaybird13: What is the actual name of the cable company? We need to know its actual name, so we can check.

Dude, the mandate applies to everyone unless they get a waiver. There's a list of companies that have gotten waivers on the internets.

But yes, that's a messed up amount of money to charge someone. Complaint time.

MScottC

· #13 · Oct 19, 2007

shamilian said:
Comcast in NJ is charging the same for a Cablecard and an SA box rental ($7.95).
They want and install fee and are limiting me to 2 cards.

You need to go to the Comcast Cable Card FAQ where you will see that the fee for the first cable card is FREE, and the charge for the second cablecard on "the same outlet" is "an additional regulated fee of up to $1.91 for the second CableCARD ..." Unfortunately it seems that my local office, and many others in New Jersey do not have this fee programmed into their billing computer. You need to argue this out with them every month, when they will credit you for the overcharge, and then if you are lucky, find a way to charge you correctly. I'm hoping as many folks in Northern NJ do this, so they finally realize they need to get their act together.

Additionally, you should be allowed as many cablecards as you need, typically 1 or 2 per outlet.

bicker

· #14 · Oct 19, 2007

Joybob said:
Dude, the mandate applies to everyone unless they get a waiver.

And without knowing the name of the cable company, how do you know whether or not it has gotten a waiver or not?

Johnwashere

· #15 · Oct 19, 2007

Here in Columbus, OH it is $1.75 and 20 dollar setup. They brought me an Mcard, so I only need 1 card

TW told me that there setting up a really cool interface that allows you to watch every single show on demand, whenever you want it soon so tivo will go out of business soon

Saturn

· #16 · Oct 19, 2007

Requiring you to buy seems odd, but has anyone considered that cable cards may actually cost $130 each? They are their own little (specialized) computer with a PCMCIA interface with an encryption and decryption chip that can handle encoding and decoding live digital HD streams.

jaybird13

Discussion Starter · #17 · Oct 19, 2007

bicker said:
jaybird13: What is the actual name of the cable company? We need to know its actual name, so we can check.

The company is Conway Corp (www.conwaycorp.com).

They don't have CableCard prices on their site, so I had to email to find out yesterday what they were. ([email protected])

Thanks for the help guys!

lachacg

· #18 · Oct 19, 2007

MScottC said:
You need to go to the Comcast Cable Card FAQ where you will see that the fee for the first cable card is FREE, and the charge for the second cablecard on "the same outlet" is "an additional regulated fee of up to $1.91 for the second CableCARD ..." Unfortunately it seems that my local office, and many others in New Jersey do not have this fee programmed into their billing computer. You need to argue this out with them every month, when they will credit you for the overcharge, and then if you are lucky, find a way to charge you correctly. I'm hoping as many folks in Northern NJ do this, so they finally realize they need to get their act together.

I got tired of doing that. I can never get them to take off the charges without subsequently losing my service only to have the charges re-instated when my service is restored. I understand that FIOS is set to go live in my town within two months, so I'm just going to pay my Comcast tax until then and take my business elsewhere.

Nitrox

· #19 · Oct 19, 2007

Hi all, new to this board...

I just bought the TiVo HD 3 to replace a 7 year old ReplayTV. So the cable card discussion interests me.

I work for 112 year old phone company that has been doing cable TV since 1999. We are launching a new system next month, and cable cards are going to be an option.

So, I can't speak for every cable company, but I can tell you that we would prefer to deliver a cable card over a set top box any day. Our STB's range from 200-500 per unit, and with digital service, you get the first box free. Cable cards will cost us about 60 bucks each. So its a no brainer to push those to people that can handle them, and give them for free, or rent them modestly. I don't think we discussed the option to sell them to the customer, and why would they want to buy one anyway? $130? I would rather rent it for 2 bucks a month for 65 months

The downside? With cable card, a cable company loses impulse purchases (VOD, PPV, etc). So, while the STB costs more, they have more opportunity to sell you more. If the consumer decides to be impulsive.

My 2 cents. YMMV.

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IJustLikeTivo

· #20 · Oct 19, 2007

MScottC said:
You need to go to the Comcast Cable Card FAQ where you will see that the fee for the first cable card is FREE, and the charge for the second cablecard on "the same outlet" is "an additional regulated fee of up to $1.91 for the second CableCARD ..." Unfortunately it seems that my local office, and many others in New Jersey do not have this fee programmed into their billing computer. You need to argue this out with them every month, when they will credit you for the overcharge, and then if you are lucky, find a way to charge you correctly. I'm hoping as many folks in Northern NJ do this, so they finally realize they need to get their act together.

Additionally, you should be allowed as many cablecards as you need, typically 1 or 2 per outlet.

Maybe.....

My comcast (Montgomery county, MD) outlet charges me nothing for my CCs. Zip, zero, zilch, nada, bupkis.

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